Lol, I use to take a liking for poverty sims, since they really suffer a lot and have you actually paying attention at them. Maybe you'll end up a little fond of your victim.

I gave up the beach idea, discovered that BUILDING SANDCASTLES will give you creativity points.

So I started a farm, with the "Harvest Moon" feeling. Moved in a woman sim and prohibited her to have a job or selling Maxis appreciating objects.

She lives of fishing and garden products and it's really hard to take care of those plants, lol. Especially when you have three kids. I mean, winter was a real nightmare. No fish, birth of twins and all.

When she turned into a plantsim I felt really tempted to have her spawn some babies and grow them just for fun (no points). But it sounded cheaty since she wouldn't have to expect them by real pregnancy and they would be useful at the farm when they grew up. If I cured them, it would work like "moving someone in".

At least now I know how easy it is to get a plantsim and didn't feel the urge to keep her that way. But, well, at least when she was cured, she kept the green plant outfit. XD

Will post pictures soon. Riverblossom Hills is suddenly my favorite neighborhood.

How are you all doing? I'm kind of following the stories, lol. Very curious about the alien families.

Hi Everyone!

This was my first attempt at a challenge, the previous posts were all so funny, I had to try it.
My little sim, Patience Kringle, was having a very rough time (ended up with food poisoning almost immediately) and she was hanging out at the local beach and took a shell home with her. (Didn't think I was allowed to sell it). I had no idea how much of a fun boost "viewing" that little shell would give her, and she really loved that shell, it was the only good thing in her life for a long time... And then a burglar came along and stole it!

Man, it's even funny how things can get even worse, lol. I remember one of my past attempts on poverty, when a stray dog destroyed my only piece of furniture. Or when my woman was stolen of her initial 100 simoleons at the community lot... fond memories.

Well, my game almost was destroyed yesterday, when the three kids were taken by social worker. The first kid couldn't sleep well or study because of the baby twins (the house had no walls) so his grades droped. I didn't know that the social worker would take all of your kids just because one of them didn't do the homework!!!

It was really horrible, it was just when the lake ice melt and the plants beared fruits and Idona got a lot of money.




At least she had the family aspiration benefit of "super fertility" and had a new couple of twins just in time.

Uh-oh... did I blew it? The benefits were allowed?

I was really worried she would die before the kids became teens... and make it game over for her. But it all worked well!



Idona Steadman's kids: Irvine and Harita. They're Leod McGregor offsprings. As you may notice they have the same cheeks. =p

I have just started this challenge, and its really fun, if i get round to finding out how I might attempt to post some pics My question is: are you allowed pets, 'cause my founders LTW is raise 20 puppies + kittens and I thought i might try and see how it works out, if she ever gets sufficient funds...

Hi again, everyone.

Well, I'm happy to report that yes, it is possible to reach the top of the Knowledge FT bonus with a teen in this challenge (Mostly as teens give you 4 points to start out) so, yep, it is possible to have the second generation by alien pregnancy not completely to chance. Unfortunately, I'm a bit scared to let my boy get abducted again, as I don't know if the social worker would come while he's... not there. Anyone knows the answer to that?

And in case you want to read the first chapter of my challenge, it can be found here: luxshine.insanejournal.com/2325.html
(Sorry, I still don't have enough posts to post an image or the full link with the url, but hopefully, I'll have enough soon)

Thankfully for me, Derek likes to fish. A lot. So he mostly paid for his roof fishing, growing up quite nicely. But that's for the second chapter, because I still haven't worked on those screencaps.

So what's the ruling on an Apartment as an abode for a Poverty sim? I'm working on a basic block with rooms that cost under $100 per week. I assume the down side will be that the family has to stay in the tiny apartment for the duration of the challenge making the ability to have a huge family a little more difficult, but the sims will no longer have to brave the freezing cold of winter or stifling heat of summer without a roof over their heads!

I'm unsure yet whether the addition of items to the lot in communal spaces will make a huge difference to the rent, but $100 really doesnt get a sim much more than a room for a bed or two!

Update - adding things to the community spaces does not up the rent - so I currently have a 6 room apartment block with 3 of the rooms only 3x3 with no wall or floor cover for $90. In the community space there is a grill, chairs and table, children's play equipment, an easel (dont know yet if it can be used properly on comm space) vending machines and a book case and there is a community bathroom with the Uni showers and public toilet stalls.
Personally I still cannot decide if this is against the 'rules' or principle behind the challenge, but it certainly makes it challenging in a different way!

Here's my go at the challenge!

Meet Dallis Jameson, my poor sim...


The first thing she invested in was a small garden


Naturally she wasted no time in meeting up with her new neighbors..
"Yeah, I live here... why?"


More to come!! *Better pics next time!!*

Ooh!! I like, never, play without the maxMotives/motiveDecay off cheats. This one is going to be very difficult, but I think I'll try it! and since I absolutely hate community lots, that shouldn't be difficult to avoid!

Hello folks :-)

Don't know if anyone's still doing this, but I started my poverty challenge a few days ago. I'm going for the Old Maid bonus, so my founder had to be female. I named her Jessica Lawson. She had a daughter, Alyssa, who just gave birth to twin girls Kayleigh and Juliette. Jessica has died of old age now, and Alyssa is living in their house with her daughters. I decided to play completely disallowing promotions, so I managed to never let Jessica or Alyssa get promoted! Alyssa now paints for a living, and I intend her daughters to do the same when they're old enough. One thing about the "not moving anyone in" thing that I hadn't considered is how much harder it is to raise a child without any help! Hence why Jessica only had one. I don't think I'll let Alyssa have any more either. At least if I keep playing this family and the twins have babies they will be able to help each other out! I'm doing well on the having girls front so far though :-D

Laura xxx

In the middle of my second attempt. My first sim died from being out in the cold without shelter for too long. Just started over but found out that we cannot dig for treasure which I found out was a way to make some money. Do I have to start over or is there a way to fix this. Can someone post a more detailed scoring chart. I know how we lose points but I want to know how we gain points other than the amount of money we have at the end and whether we have an old maid. Thanks.

I think that you also get 3000 points for each child that you have raised (up to them becoming a teenager). And I think there's a bonus if you start with a pregnant teenager. I don't know if there are any other ways to gain points though.

The points are basically the family worth at the end of the challenge, plus bonuses for children. And minus various things like promotions.

I hate taking my sims off the lot because it takes forever to load, so I tried to make my 1st generation sim survive without going downtown to grill free hot dogs. It took two tries - the first time she lost her job on day 2 and as she was too miserable to look for another job her money kept dwindling down to nothing, so I eventually gave it up as a lost cause and restarted.

Try #2 - I created a small pond on my lot, and although I realized later on that this is actually against the rules since I didn't include the cost of that in the initial $100, I think it evened out since I never went downtown to eat hot dogs or clean off. Initially, my sim fished to earn extra money, bought pizzas when she didn't have enough money for a fridge, and got a job in Intelligence (I have FT), which requires a logic point for a promotion. I had to buy and resell all of her belongings all the time for *weeks*, but it was worth it in the end. I'm now in the third generation - my CAS had three kids, and then died of old age when they were teenagers. I'm trying to get the Old Maid bonus, so she's been woohoing in the car with one of the hideous Maxis-generated sims, and then booting him off the lot as soon as she gets pregnant.

I currently have three adult sims (the second generation), and then two children, one toddler, and two babies (twins). It's kind of crazy at the moment, but it helps that there are still a bunch of adults around to help out.

If I were to do this again, I'd suggest that if you have Seasons, you only allow your sims to fish with a worm. Once you gain fishing talent badges and use the fancier fishing lures, you can earn quite a lot of money, and it sort of defeats the point of the challenge. I've got 93k+ at the moment and a reasonably nice house, and most of my income is from fishing.

Hi everyone.

I am going to be discontinuing my support for this challenge from Free Time on up. I will still check this thread every once in a while, but I hope to post a new, harder version soon. This challenge was originally designed for the base game only (before the NPCs could bring in more than 1k, in fact), and I don't think I can properly close all of the loopholes introduced by BV, FT, and AL. It's possible the solution will become clear to me as I play with those EPs, but for now, you guys will have to help each other. I hope you continue to enjoy it as much as I have.

Thanks Ellatrue, it's been fun. I learned a lot about how to make my sims get by with nothing much, it still stands me in good stead whenever a new household is strting out. Amazing what they can do with $2000, or $5000. $20 000 is just hilarious for a single sim.

Glad to hear it, aeflaed. I could still use some people to help me test out the new Ghetto Superstar version before I release the final rules, so let me know if you are interested.

Depends, sick right now with whooping cough, and then there's Christmas - computer time is likely to dwindle for the next month. I understand if you need the testing done sooner than I am offering! But I'd like to take a look - when it's released if not before. All the best!

I have a question:

Are we allowed to become witches?
And also, I believe a few of the hobby lots, and the witch lots have beds and similar stuff. Are we allowed to visit those, if we earn access?

OMG Im getting my sims in the mail tomorro, (my disk got so scratched that it wouldent work) IM A DEFFINETLY SO TOTTALY TRYING THIS!!!! now, if i can figure out how to get costom content.............

this is gonna sound stupid but, what's an NPC

Maid, postman, paper boy/girl, pizza guy/girl, housekeeper, repoman.. And many more. In other words, a service sim.

Emily - NPC is Non Playable Character - You can't control them. Broo gives several examples, but NPCs are all the characters that walk by and can be interacted with that you didn't create or aren't the playable pre-made Maxis characters that you can control.

Well, other non playable sims are usually reffered to as townies.

I'm gonna give this a go. But, as I usualy do in any video game, I'm probably gonna epic fail (epicly). I'm gonna have a female teen, as that seems quite interesting. I might do several. Also, i can't seem to get my downloaded lots to work, might be a BV or FT bug. I'll try and find out. if someone here can answer, thanks in advance (btw, i haven't found a technical and bug topic, so you know).