Technically speaking, Skylar Bhattacharya reached the end of his skilling spree without experiencing a fire - a townie managed to set something ablaze as he was standing outside their house, just before he could ask the housemate who was standing outside if he could move in. He'd been there for like ten in-game minutes, tops. Though I'd queued the move-in request, it was cancelled automatically due to the fire, and since Skylar hadn't yet knocked on the door, I'd no idea what was going on inside! He just shot the breeze with his "good friend" until the townies sorted it out - one occupant had the confident moodlet from having put the fire out, and another was tense from having witnessed it, but there was no visual evidence of anything having charred and everything seemed to be in order. So yeah, I'm now incredibly curious as to what it was that all you folks found so surprisingly flammable...
Anyway, on to the score: I'm showing my working partly to make sure I've got it right and partly in a bid to help anyone who's not entirely sure on the whole multiplier thing. First, the skill component - after maxing his initial skill in his "own" household, Skylar moved into 24 households where everyone maxed the designated skill, then one final household where not everyone did. This means 1 + 24 + 0 = 25 skills were maxed overall, for 2500 points. For the multiplier, I think it's best calculated by noting that it's +0.01 every time a score is maxed by anyone, be it a townie or your sim. The 24 fully successful households contained 76 townies between them and in the final household one occupant maxed the designated skill, so that's 0.77 from townies. Skylar's skill maxing contributes 0.25 by itself, so given that the multiplier starts at 1.00, its final value is 1.00 + 0.77 + 0.25 = 2.02. his brings Skylar's final score to 2500 x 2.02 = 5050 points, and that's why I wanted to check it carefully!
For my first proper, unhurried challenge, it was a jolly good time overall - being the spreadsheet fiend that I am, though, I think I may have enjoyed the planning side of things a bit more than I did the actual playing! A lot of the skilling got tedious very quickly, especially in the last week or so as my experience refined my micromanaging, but that's the game's problem, not the challenge's. Speaking of problems with the game, it was rather frustrating to discover a few instances where the game failed to apply bonus moodlets after I'd been very meticulous about attaining them, but since I can't expression my full vexation without talking strategy I'll save the whinging for after the challenge's closed! Still, many thanks to the challenges team for putting up with all my questioning, and good luck to those still finishing up. My score can be beaten... honest!
