Lots of birthdays! Love Thistle's look! He seems a lot more aware than Nightshade ever was! 
He does
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Thyme doesn't look any less see-through to me, but her hair definitely helps! Still a cute (?!) ghostboo though!
Ghost toddlers and babies are mostly awful to keep track of in bright lighting, particularly outdoors. Thyme's hair is definitely a big help.
Back to the Future Part II – The One That Wasn’tExcept it didn’t quite work out quite like that.
Before this game, I’d only played briefly with ITF and had only sent Sims into the normal future. I knew travelling through time had a reputation for being at least as buggy as the spatial variety but hadn’t hit any problems, probably because I was playing simple games with a single Sim.
Alison and Billy also had a bug-free visit to the normal future but Dystopia was painful, even before Billy’s brush with death. It took something like eight attempts to get as far as conceiving the baby because of a variety of glitches, generally one or both of them being unable to interact with other Sims or, even more frustratingly, potential fathers disappearing from the relationship panel just after they were invited over (including a purple-haired one who would have been perfect as Thistle’s dad). Maybe they’d been hit by meteorites…
To start with, the Utopian future looked as though it was going to be fine. (And very pretty in a sugar-overdose kind of way.) The only slight irritation was that astronomy is a Monday-to-Friday job and they arrived back in the future on a Friday, meaning that Ally’s new career and serious father-hunting would have to wait a few days. Billy, who’d been holding a wish to become a business partner, bought the Observatory and confirmed, though the ‘Fire Sim’ option, that Ally’s only human colleague was male. He fired two of the plumbots, in the hope it that would encourage more humans to join the career (in fact, they weren’t replaced, at least in the few days before Ally resigned).
Since they’d been forced to have a holiday, Alison and Billy made the most of it. It was almost like a much-delayed honeymoon.
They explored the town and met more descendants. Ally was delighted to find that some were fairies, although they also seemed to have imaginary friend genes (from Bluebell, perhaps?)
Alison again proved irresistible to the equine population of Oasis Landing.
That particular horse followed her around for half a day, while she was shaking
Ridiculously Delightfully Oversized Flowers and meeting famous residents.
She met quite a few people with familiar names, although they mostly seemed to be at least as excited to meet her as she was to meet them.
Obi-Wan Bennett Obi even invited her to a party, where she completely upstaged the host by thrashing him at chess (clearly the Force wasn’t with him on that particular evening) and then having a particularly sparkly adult birthday.
Billy and Alison had an epic dew fight on the Sunday.
Of course, the best thing about fighting is making up afterwards…
I was almost sorry when Monday rolled around and Ally had to go to work. Billy filled in the time by investigating a Rainbow Knoll that had appeared across the road from the Observatory. (Kind of flat for a knoll but hey.)
He found a rainbow butterfly, which I suppose makes a rainbow-ish kind of sense, although I’m amazed that a butterfly could survive being buried and dug up again.
Ally finished work, having met only plumbots, and topped off an unsatisfying day by narrowly missing a promotion. She was met outside the building by a little brat of a descendant, who threw some rainbow dew at her.
Oh! So the demented-IF walk is just an expression of happiness
.
A weird and rather annoying one, although the mood boost was nice – and Ally, who seems to have a strong stomach when not pregnant, managed to avoid the rainbow-vomiting bit.
When she wasn’t walking oddly or hugging everyone, she danced.
Does the ‘whimsical waltz’ remind anyone else of the beginning of
The Sound of Music?
On her second day at work, she met Edwin Archibilt and went into action.
Oddly, as soon as they Tried for Baby, they both teleported backwards through the wall and found themselves standing on the roof outside.
Ally seemed to be either upset or embarrassed by the occurrence. Maybe she was hoping that the paparazzi-bots weren’t looking up.
Edwin, on the other hand, walked calmly downstairs and started talking to his sprite while doing his best to ignore Ally’s plate-licking husband.
Then he said he had to leave.
Despite the glitch, Ally did turn out to be pregnant.
It appears that the silly walk continues even during labour. Billy was waiting outside the hospital for ages while Ally made her whimsical way from the car. It’s a wonder the baby didn’t pop out before she’d reached the doors.
At least carrying a baby resets the gait to normal…
…although Billy still raced off ahead of her on his windcarver.
They drove straight to base camp and jumped into the portal…
…but only Ally made it home – and even she just stood there unresponsively, possibly wondering where everyone else (including those who were supposed to be safely at home) had gone.
Given the rather creepy niceness of the Utopian future, I suppose not being able to escape makes a nasty sort of sense. Still a game-breaker, though
.
I tried going back to earlier and earlier saves, but the same thing happened every time they came home. After nearly a real-life week of frustration, I decided it was time to do something drastic.
