Bizarre Imaginary Friend issue

[Swanwhite]

My game has suffered from many glitches since my pair of twins have returned from boarding school but this one is the oddest.

I had a pair of twins who each received an IF in their inventory and played with it on the regular until aging up to child when I shipped both off to boarding school until adulthood. Now they've been back in town for about a week and I completely forgot about the dolls when out of the blue I notice one of the twins doing the birthday celebration cheer. I got really confused because no one was due for a birthday in the household and when I clicked on the twin I could see his IF aging up from Child > Teen > Young Adult. Same thing follows with other twin.

Most annoying part is I can't control or get rid of them! They are not part of the household. And the twins STILL each have their dolls in their inventory. I have tried going back to a recent save and deleting the dolls from the twins inventory and resetting the twins but they still do the birthday/demon summoning cheer and the little "girl" with the IF bulb above her head appears and ages up to YA within a few seconds. I know its a game and will bug once in a while but that sort of thing gives me the willies..

Now I don't really expect a fix as this seems like a weird random bug, but is it normal for sending kids to boarding school to make the game so buggy? I would like to know if I should avoid it when I attempt to do a challenge or a dynasty in the future.

Thank you ^^

[bubbles]

While your sims were at boarding school, the imaginary friends don't age so will jump life stages when they get back. This is perfectly normal, if a bit annoying. You can't sell imaginary friends, but you might be able to delete them with a bit of moveobjects on magic.

I hope this helps, but I'm not sure whether my interpretation is really what you are saying.

[Swanwhite]

Thank you Bubbles. Yes, deleting them with cheats once they're fully grown does get rid of them. I'm just curious how they came to be at all. I've never taken them out of the sims inventory. In fact once they come to life the sims still have a doll version in their inventory while the IF is running around the house.

I never played with IFs much but should they become part of the household once they come to life? Because they are not. They are not even visible to anyone other the sim they belonged to. It's so odd I almost want to create an alternate save file and do some experimentations.. For example I wonder if I can make nooboos with them and if the baby would see them? Anyway I digress. Thank you for the swift reply

[_Annika_]

I had the same issue without sending my sims children to boarding school. They were getting in the way, and caused my sim to get a cheater reputation. They looked like they had been given the IF potion to make them real, but with a glowy dot over their head still - and the doll was still in their inventory. Unfortunately it was a dynasty file, so I couldn't use cheats to get rid of them.