Ooh, a totally new old Newcrest.
Leo's taking it all very calmly. Nice that he's got Dustin for company. Did you get that pop-up to crash for a few days out of the blue? One of my Asylum Residents got a request like that but I turned it down. I wasn't sure what would happen with a full household and there's less than 0 spare beds!
It's been interesting and fun playing in a new version of the world - some of the original Sims are still there, but with makeovers, so I don't always recognize them. I did run into an issue that there are no homeless townies, meaning that when I check Manage Households, there are no families "Not in World". This particular part of the challenge did include finding love with another homeless Sim, but there are no homeless Sims in the game yet, so I removed the "homeless" requirement for the love partner and am thinking about how I want to move forward with regard to the Sims in general. I may delete the original-world Sims. I did find an issue with the park where Leo and Dustin met, which has an area with three-level platforms - each are the height of 1 step, so the Sims should be able to go up them, but they can't - they stand and wave their arms. The park is amazing, with chess tables and easels and other things for them to use on the different levels, which is part of why I located near that park. So I'll have to figure that out.
Edit: I removed the platforms and rebuilt them, and they work fine now. I'm not sure if maybe the lot was built before the game actually had platforms as we know them and the originals were built some other way, but simply removing and replacing them fixed it. Also, my Sims kept getting negative moodlets in the park because it wasn't decorated well. I added some things, but it didn't help, so I went in search of the problem, and found that walls around the raised planter beds that go around the border of the park were unfinished on the inside in several places. You can't really see the inside unless you are specifically trying to, but my Sims were very bothered by them anyway. Once I added wallcoverings on the inside, my Sims were able to recognize how beautiful the park really is.
Regarding Dustin - he is a made-over Sim, but I'll keep him even if I remove others since he has a relationship with Leo now - he's a YA celebrity in the original world, but he was a teen in Sims 2, so I imagine that was behind making him a teen in this world. He was out at the park and stayed there all-night. At one point I had Leo work on his homework on a bench, and Dustin repeatedly came and sat beside him, immediately got back up and went back to the basketball court, threw one ball, came back to sit beside Leo and then immediately return to the court - he did this over and over, probably 8 or 9 times - it was quite funny. And then the pop-up came about coming to stay for a few days and I had no idea who would appear if I said OK - I thought about it for a few minutes, but then I decided to go for it, and it kind of worked out that it was Dustin.
One thing I am going to try to do in this challenge is control less . . . let the Sims lead me more . . . which I normally don't really do . . . so what I keep coming back to is that I'll control enough to meet the challenge goals, but beyond that let the Sims decide - I think a lot of people play that way normally, but I am usually planning almost every little thing, so trying to back off from that this time.
Yes, introducing a stay-over person to the asylum could make things even more challenging . . . although I must say, as a reader, I appreciate your bravery in taking on the hardest level . . . so much fun for me as a reader.
And so it begins! *throws confetti*
Yes, I'm excited to get started, although I have to say I am missing
@oshizu here at the beginning . . . I know she got a new computer and it was giving her trouble, so she has been offline for a few days. But we'd planned to start this together, and we often chat in Discord throughout the evenings as we play at the same time in our different corners of the world (type-chat, not voice), and I was really looking forward to us starting this together and chatting as we go. So if I am slow in proceeding . . . it is because I am managing things that come up related to the new world, and also moving slowly missing my friend.
