@oshizu Thanks! I've also considered doing the Apocalypse Challenge, but it scares me too.
Now, finally on with the story!
Chapter 1: Developmental Psychology
Meet
Paisley and
Petre Piaget, the parents of our future Wonder Child. Who knew woohooing in a bush could be so adorable? Even if Petre is being impaled in multiple places by branches. This was just regular woohoo, by the way. There are some goals these two need to accomplish before the Wonder Child can be conceived. While this was on the first day, this isn't where they started. Let's rewind a bit.
(Another thing of note about Paisley and Petre, and something that will come up quite often in this challenge. I reuse/alter a lot of my older sims, and these two are no exception. Petre is a male adult version of the third generation heir of my now defunct Immortal Dynasty challenge, and Paisley is actually the mother of my first Wonder Child with different facial features. Same name, though. Ironically, this Paisley would learn none of the skills the old one did.)
Paisley and Petre met on Oak Alcove, a 20x15 lot in Newcrest. The size might be concerning for a normal growing family, but the Piagets wont have to worry about luxury items like walls or fridges.
As they got to know each other, they quickly discovered how much they have in common; both
Loved the Outdoors, were
Good, and were
Family Oriented. They were also
Quick Learners. They were so similar, it was almost like they were made for each other! Thanks to their similarities, they soon became best friends...
...and more. This is where the bush came in, because we've gotta get those gold dates. The first day of the challenge was spent completing the
Soulmate aspiration, for a good source of easy early points, and the "Share Burden" social helping with keeping the two on the same page, needs wise. One mistake I made in my original challenge was allowing the parents to do things like eat or sleep. Nonsense! At least for the beginning of the challenge. Later, once they've outlived their usefulness, I'll let them roam a little more to focus on the Wonder Child themselves. But for now, they're chained to an IV of moodlet solvers.
Another mistake I made in the first challenge was getting them jobs. Well, OK, back then it wasn't a mistake. You see, I played my challenge in such a way that I started the challenge and got through my WC's child stage before the patch that "fixed" careers, and then finished out the teen stage of the challenge afterwords. Back then, careers were easy to get through, and thus a legitimate strategy!
The patch honestly helped my challenge in the end, as it made the teen aspirations easier and the parent's careers weren't really important anymore. And even if careers were still the same, I probably wouldn't use them now, as they take up too much time for too little gain. This is where my second attempt at the challenge fell apart, as my parents were too busy with their careers to help the child. So the only career joining done in this challenge (by the parents, at least) was Paisley, who purchased
Connections using her Soulmate points and got some easy money and mood aura objects, which will be needed since plumbob lamps aren't allowed.
Soulmate was completed early Monday morning. What followed was a journey to the gym, and a scramble to find people who could train both Paisley and Petre in
Fitness. I started off with the Windenburg gym, but there didn't seem to be any gym trainers there. Both the Oasis Springs and Willow Creek gyms had one trainer each, and none of them appreciated being asked to leave during work hours to train at another gym or home. What followed was a tedious scramble that I'll save you from having to hear about, but I eventually worked it out. One thing I tried is using clubs to get them to my lot. I don't remember it really helping. This is one strategy I'll try multiple times throughout the challenge, and I don't remember it really working for any of them.
"Woah," you might be thinking, "isn't this challenge about the Wonder
Child? Why are you focusing so much on the parents?" Well, dear reader, just because the parents can't earn points for this challenge, it doesn't mean you should ignore them. In fact, the success of the parents was a key point of my strategy. You know the goals I mentioned they had to complete before they could have the Wonder Child? Well, I wanted Paisley and Petre to max as many of the mentorable skills as they could, so by the time the Wonder Child is born they could mentor them, speeding up the skilling process exponentially.
For these skills, I planned on dividing and conquering between the two. So why were they both learning Fitness? Well, Bodybuilder provides some easy points, and Fitness is an easy skill to learn thanks to the presence of gym trainers. Completing Bodybuilder also gave them a better chance of living through the entirety of the challenge, because at this point I wasn't sure how long it would take for them to learn and mentor the Wonder Child through all the skills.
A day or two later, both Paisley and Petre maxed Fitness and completed
Bodybuilder. I haven't discussed the use of clubs too much yet, mostly because everything that can be said about them has been covered better somewhere else on the forum. But just know that they've already shown how powerful they are, and it only gets crazier from here. But that's it for now. Hopefully we can zoom through the rest of Paisley and Petre's skilling in the next update or two, and get to the main event soon enough. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!
