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Scholar
Original Poster
#1 Old 14th Apr 2016 at 6:11 PM
Default The Junkyard Challenge
This challenge was inspired by http://ansansims.tumblr.com/post/14...-lost-challenge
Who in turn was inspired by http://sims2lostchallenge.blogspot....7/03/rules.html

The basics:
Two gangs of eight sims each compete for members while trying to survive another day on little to nothing. You cannot really lose this challenge, instead you play two households as impartially as possible - this can be a challenge in itself.

Required:
- Cheats or mods to transfer sims between households regardless of relationship status or maximum number of household members.
- Bon Voyage (for digging for treasure)
- Open for Business (for running a business)
- Freetime (optional, for refurbishable cars and secondary aspirations)

As the challenge’s name suggests, the sims live on a junkyard. Whether they squat there or own it, doesn’t matter. Build the junkyard with no sims on the lot, then package it and re-import it for the other household, so that both groups start off with exactly the same lot!

In this stage you can have:
- enough space for 8 sims to shovel through
- three refurbishable cars
- a fence around the lot
- trashy floortiles and wallpapers
- an open/close sign, a phone, a cash register and 2 counters
- all the landscaping you want provided it fits the junkyard theme
- all the clutter you want provided it fits the junkyard theme
- nothing else that can be interacted with
- no closed rooms - leave at least one wall space open
- no roofs
- no fence or room divider around your digging area

Creating your sims:
Create 2 households of 8 sims each, these are your competing gangs. Feel free to randomize or hand-tailor the gang members as much as you want.
For their aspirations create one sim per gang for every aspiration (ex. Grilled Cheese). Fill the remaining slots with sims with two aspirations each (randomized or chosen, no Grilled Cheese).
In my playtest I made both gang leaders Popularity/Fortune so they would enjoy their vendor life – a bad idea, because it also gave them two chemistry bolts.

After moving in the Sims, close the wants/fears tab! It stays closed all through the challenge, so you can never see your sims’ wants and fears. You can, however, monitor their aspiration meter and the sum of their points accumulated in the aspiration reward tab.

Now set their funds to zero and delete Mr. Humble’s gift unopened.
To earn money and develop the lot, the sims must dig for salvageable items in the garbage. They can also restore the crash cars. However, those objects cannot be sold as they are from the inventory, actual buyers are needed! Therefore have each gang’s leader register a home business.

Every tuesday and thursday the sim with the fewest aspiration points defects to the other gang (That’s one sim out of your overall challenge sims, not one per household).
In case of a tie, compare the aspiration meter. If it’s still a tie, roll a die.
Defecting can be prevented if the defector’s gang’s leader wins a fight against the rival leader.
Note: Expect this to be the rule you’ll be breaking most often, because sometimes the flow of the story suggests two different sims to fight the duel.
If the leader herself defects, the gangster with the currently highest aspiration meter becomes the new leader.

Every saturday the sim with the least aspiration points dies in a shootout (or goes to prison, that’s your call, anyway, that one is out of the challenge).
If you kill a sim, keep the tombstone somewhere on the lot (for ghost wants/fears).

Other rules:
- No leaving the lot
- No jobs or other sources of income
Note: This depends on your concept for the tribes/gangs. Performing for tips or growing hemp may be appropriate for some. Just do not let that distract the sims from the main objective too much and keep things as even as possible for the competitors.
- No ticket machine
- No restocking, only dug up items may be sold (remove „sold out“ signs quickly, customers hate to find them!)
- No dates/outings
- No asking challenge sims about their wants/fears
- Aspiration rewards are allowed, but only the sim that bought them may use them (ex: the love tub can be shared with townies and if you play with free will probably also with other householdmembers, as I imagine it is too much of a hassle to constantly fish sims out of that thing.)
- Aspiration perks are allowed, though not encouraged
- The genie lamp is allowed, so use it wisely! The game sometimes screws up regarding which sim really owns it, so everyone in the gang it was delivered to may use it.
- You can have pets, romances and even children to replace lost householdmembers (Toddlers cannot defect, children and older can, children may leave the lot for school).
- Mods and cc are okay if both households profit from them equally. For example I use a sleep-on-the-ground mod, that would normally give me an unfair advantage over other players. But in this challenge the competition is between two sims housholds who both have access to that mod, so no big deal.

Scoring:
1 point per member and 1 point per business rank.
After four seasons the gang with more points wins (If it’s a tie, compare the average of all household members’ aspiration points).
They victorious gang now rules the town and the losing gang has to disband. Find them some cheap apartments, because the winning gang also recieves all the assets of the loser!

And finally my Junkyard Challenge diary:
http://enkisstories.tumblr.com/tagg...hallenge/chrono
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Test Subject
#2 Old 1st May 2016 at 2:49 AM Last edited by aeroplanesss : 1st May 2016 at 2:50 AM. Reason: adding something
Okay, this is a question you may not be able to answer, because I noticed it was in the original Lost challenge too: Why keep the Wants hidden? It adds challenge to keeping up aspiration (not to mention, the challenge of forcing yourself not to look at it, just take a peek, just for a second...) but why was it thought of in the first place? Does it represent something (either in the Lost tv series, which I haven't seen, or some part of...living as a castaway/gang member, or something)? Is it just because they're trying to survive, so the things they want have to be put on hold to take care of more necessary things? I've never noticed any other challenge/playstyle that did that.
Scholar
Original Poster
#3 Old 1st May 2016 at 1:53 PM
Hello!
That's an interesting question. Regarding Lost, I can only guess, too. The show often put characters into situations that were similar to or resulting from something they had experienced in the past. Regular flashbacks were an integral part of the storytelling. Part of the appeal was to watch whether the characters would allow themselves to be driven by their trauma/desires/guilt/base instincts or if they would at least attempt to rise above all this.
To me a sim's wants represent their subconscious desires, primal urges that they have the choice of giving in to or to control. The wants being hidden might represent that the challenge-sims cannot maintain the same level of self-reflexiveness that they could while their survival wasn't at stake every day. They have stopped caring about what they now percieve as "pointless philosophics", they believe all that matters are their hunger and energy bars and do not even realize that life or death is determined by another factor.

I kept the rule in to prevent the game from becoming too mechanical. Depending on your playstyle that may or not be a risk you are running. For example, I'm a cross between storyplayer and highly efficient micromanager who plays without free will. If I'm tasked with collecting aspiration points, my goal oriented part might very well win. I'd start mercilessly farming for those points, totally neglecting the roleplay and character developement. With the wants hidden I could focus more on what people in the challenge-sims's situation would do and less on how to maximize the aspiration point output.

Playing "blind" also keeps down the amount of playing favourites. I believe nobody is fully immune to that, however impartial we try to play. If two sims are at the bottom of the table and we know one of them has to die come saturday, it is very tempting to farm for the wants of the sim we like a little better.
For that reason I only checked their current aspiration points exactly the moment a defection/death check came around. Despite this in the final week I found myself working on keeping Merry alive (by guessing what his wants might be and spamming hobby actions) than Amy. I wanted him to live more than her and was past the point where I lied to myself about that.

So, these are my guesses. In the very least playing blind was a fresh new experience
Forum Resident
#4 Old 1st May 2016 at 4:12 PM
So I saw the look of this challenge and love the junkyard theme. I thought I'd drop this off for you.

http://misty-fluff.livejournal.com/11068.html

Misty Fluff did a fantastic TS3 conversion of their junkyard items, including the tall junkyard piles and sculptures! I use them for my junkyards and old car garages!

For my physical health, I can't eat cheesecake everyday.
For my mental health, I imagine eating cheesecake everyday.
It's a delicate balance.
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