I just wanted to post when I got to the end with my finish time but I had a problem last night, right nearing the end too
My save file got corrupt by a non-interactable inventory item (details intentionally omitted). Saving, quitting and restarted resulting from losing 2 sims from my active household, just... *poof*
I *have* been backing up regularly, so it's possible for me to *try* to find a safe point to go back to, I just don't know how far back I'd have to go, and that's the frustrating part -- not knowing how far to go back to avoid the glitch. And also not knowing how to avoid this from borking my entire game (if it did/will).
Without going into anything remotely spoiler-ish, there were a few key random events that happened to set me back and I think they are related to the glitching, but it makes it funny story-wise. Sad, but the disasters make me attached all the more to the game even if it added time to my run. I don't want to restore prior to these if I can avoid it.
I took a copy of the save prior to the blow up and ran it separately (outside of the challenge, I know it's not in the rules) with a mod, to try to see what the error was that corrupted the inventory and/or subsequently vanished 2 household members -- to try to gain insight into what caused the corruption, this went nowhere. So I'm pretty sure something went completely corrupt. I scrapped that and did a complete manual uninstall and reinstall last night and am at a point where I can proceed. But... this is where the question comes up. How to proceed.
Another spoilerish thing is that I suspect there may be an issue related all the way back at the very beginning of the game (which makes me cringe). I didn't discover this would be an issue until well into the game.
For my first attempt at a challenge I'm a bit at a loss for where to go, I do want to finish. I don't want to start over, but after a full reinstall already I don't want to have to do that again and I'm wary to pop open saves. (I also think I'm so far into the challenge that I've "learned too much" and it'd be boring (edit: and possibly cheaty) to force myself to replay the same way to make it fair.)
Advice? What to do? I know I'm being vague and waving hands but I am doing so on purpose.