Ages ago (last year) I built a Sims 4 house for Alice and me to live in. Which is healthy and normal. Then I forgot about it. I have just remembered so I booted up to see what Alice and I would get up to.
A quick note before our story commences, though. I quite like The Sims 4 but it’s not great for telling stories that you aren’t the constant director for. I’d far prefer to just set up the house and leave it running to see what happened but as far as I can tell this iteration of the franchise requires your involvement for pretty much any big decision regardless of the level of autonomy you’ve awarded. That’s why this story is about a day or two in our sim house rather than a full life lived. I mostly controlled Pip. This is the story of trying to make friends with Alice…
FIRST! Here is our house:
I gave Alice a lot of outdoors personality stuff as well as a pond in her room. Instead of enjoying the pond room she wants to go fishing in the middle of the night:
I must therefore eat night breakfast alone:
I confide in Gemma Dinosaur that Alice doesn’t seem to want to be friends. Gemma Dinosaur is now my friend:
Alice doesn’t like her outdoors time taking her away from videogames so she plays them on her phone all the time. This is exactly like real life. She’ll tell you she was at the pond but what she means is that she was sat next to the pond playing Bejeweled:
Alice then eats breakfast alone at dawn because of staying up all night playing games:
Her friends come over because Alice is popular:
I try to become friends with Alice by being friends with her friends. Alice picks up a book and walks off to read:
Eventually her friend wanders off so I go play with my dollhouse. It is lonely sometimes.
I talk to Gemma Dinosaur about the situation:
I go back to the living room and try to have a conversation with Alice. Alice laughs at her book and continues ignoring me:
OH NO THE FRIEND STILL HASN’T LEFT. I try to fit in so I make a cake for everyone. Alice is unhappy:
The friend FINALLY leaves but Alice just wants to stare out of the window and, say, not clear up the mess from when I had to fix the fridge:
Gemma Dinosaur is my best friend now:
After a night of sleeping I come into the kitchen. Is Alice making breakfast for us?
No. She is chiselling breakfast for one onto her own plate.
I decide I am okay with cereal:
Finally! A proper conversation with Alice!
But then she wants to go outside. Maybe she will be more friendly with me if she is happy so I make her look at a tree. This is too much “outside” for Alice and she takes out her phone and goes back to playing videogames:
I make lunch alone but I make it for both of us just in case we are friends now:
Maybe making lunch alone is okay because then no-one knows that the pepper fell in it:
The perfect crime:
But Alice didn’t come back so I ate alone:
BUT THEN! she came in and took a portion just as I finished. Maybe we can be proper friends tomorrow?
08/02/2016 at 19:16 lazy8 says:
Poor Pip, trying so hard.
08/02/2016 at 19:20 Pich says:
nobody caught on fire and peed themselves, what is this and what did they do to my beautiful The Sims?
23/02/2016 at 18:43 ender1200 says:
This is called “playing the game as it’s creators intended”.
It’s a vile heretical practice, and yet some people still do this.
08/02/2016 at 19:30 Andrew says:
I knew it! All this talk about ponds, hills, snow and this, this outside…
You can stop pretending, Alice, thanks to Pip, we now know the truth.
08/02/2016 at 19:35 X_kot says:
Working theory: Alice is either (a) a manifestation of a dissociated part of Pip’s personality ala Fight Club or (b) a foreign national secret agent failing to assimilate into society.
11/03/2016 at 10:34 Nixitur says:
So, what you’re wondering is: Who the fuck is Alice?
I’m only slightly sorry.
08/02/2016 at 19:38 DevilishEggs says:
Tune in next week on Big Brother: Quiet Lives of Desperation
08/02/2016 at 19:39 Aerothorn says:
Pip + Alice is definitely my favorite Public Internet Friendship :)
08/02/2016 at 20:52 neoncat says:
+1
08/02/2016 at 19:44 TacticalNuclearPenguin says:
There are decent story progression mods floating around now, which is fine given that they were nice even when it was still a standard ( botched ) feature in TS3.
08/02/2016 at 20:07 GernauMorat says:
Amazing
08/02/2016 at 20:11 Vandelay says:
Always knew we couldn’t trust Alice. I vote Castle Shotgun replaces her with Gemma Dinosaur immediately.
08/02/2016 at 22:47 thedosbox says:
Now you have me wondering how well that would go down with Horace.
08/02/2016 at 20:23 Marblecake says:
Goddamn, but that triggered me:
“…for Alice and *me* to live in.” It’s actually really easy to avoid. Take out the other person and see if the sentence still works.
Okay, to make up for being a pedantic prick:
Really love your articles, Pip!
08/02/2016 at 20:43 Philippa Warr says:
As it goes it was the victim of a sentence rewrite. I know how me and I work in that context so it would be really cool if you could assume good faith and general writing ability if you feel the need to point out mistakes like that in the future. Otherwise it just feels like an assumption of ignorance rather than human error!
08/02/2016 at 20:48 Aerothorn says:
Also: descriptivism! I suspect it will not be too many years before this distinction is considered archaic.
08/02/2016 at 21:07 Philippa Warr says:
I’m not mad keen to get into a debate on linguistic prescriptivism and its merits/lack thereof. I will say I generally feel that if people have made their point clear I’m fine with any number of things which get classed as improper or incorrect usages. That said, the knowledge of those systems helps me get work and, for me, makes things easier to read without “seeing” the grammar instead of the words sometimes.
In this case, because of those internalised rules, it actually feels wrong to me and so I would prefer to make the correction but what I was hoping to address in this comment is that it sucks to have an extra layer of explanation which makes it feel like the assumption was ignorance rather than error (or whatever – difference of opinion or style or source material or…). That kind of comment happens a lot and it will usually put a point of resistance between the author/editor and the commenter. If the commenter was hoping for a response or to have the point considered with less friction then it’s useful to know how it comes across.
09/02/2016 at 06:35 Marblecake says:
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. For what it’s worth, the added explanation was meant for anyone who read it and not you specifically. It’s just one of these pet peeves that I keep seeing and I usually don’t go around pointing out people’s mistakes. I blame whisky.
I still stand by my point that I love your articles, though.
08/02/2016 at 20:49 Philippa Warr says:
ME WILL, HOWEVER, TAKE THE COMPLIMENT
09/02/2016 at 09:48 Mungrul says:
Thanks Pip. Now I have to go read some Film Critic Hulk.
09/02/2016 at 12:04 int says:
HULK NOT USE PRONOUNS!
09/02/2016 at 06:20 Otterley says:
Me, Robot. Me Is Legend.
(Sorry! Don’t hit … me)
08/02/2016 at 21:40 TheAngriestHobo says:
I like how Alice is always wearing her sunglasses indoors, but forgets to put them on the one time she goes outside during the day.
08/02/2016 at 22:00 LionsPhil says:
She was wearing them outdoors at night. So she can, so she can [Delete posts that try to get ’80s lyrics stuck in your head – Comments Ed]
08/02/2016 at 22:27 Minglefingler says:
I was trying to keep my head free of eighties earworms for a day. I should be so lucky.
09/02/2016 at 04:20 Hodge says:
Well, they’re stuck there now. It’s gonna take a lot to drag them away from you.
09/02/2016 at 07:45 wraithgr says:
Man, I wish other people would r.e.s.p.e.c.t. other people’s desire to not have lyrics stuck in their heads… Find out what it means to them…
08/02/2016 at 21:41 vorador says:
Man, i expected people on fire. Nobody is on fire.
I am disappointed.
08/02/2016 at 22:01 LionsPhil says:
There’s always day two!
08/02/2016 at 21:56 lowprices says:
This genuinely made me want to hug a videogame character and tell her it’s all going to be alright.
Which, I’ll be honest, is not something I expected to feel today.
08/02/2016 at 23:09 C0llic says:
More of this, please !
09/02/2016 at 01:11 harley9699 says:
Screw the grammar nazis (even though I’m usually in there pointing out the mistakes myself), I thought it was very funny.
I really enjoyed reading it.
09/02/2016 at 01:52 selfmadedoll says:
Great story, but, me has to know how you made the turquoise stove and oven seen in the original Sims 1 kitchens. Please? Pretty Please?
09/02/2016 at 03:08 Nereus says:
I’ve always found your adorable friendliness at odds with your desire to kill everything pixelated, Pip. Which is the real you?
09/02/2016 at 05:41 malkav11 says:
I’m unclear on why you feel there need be a distinction between sunny friendliness and seething bloodlust.
09/02/2016 at 07:15 oyog says:
All this talk of friendship is making me incredibly anxious.
09/02/2016 at 11:01 celticdr says:
It’s all exactly how I imagined Alice in real life based on her writings…
Art imitating life perhaps? Calling Sims 3 is a step to far perhaps? Perhaps, perhaps? (indeed).
09/02/2016 at 11:02 celticdr says:
“too” far… oh edit button, how I’ve missed you.
09/02/2016 at 12:24 Harlander says:
Too late! You’ve gone to far and now you’ve arrived at far.
10/02/2016 at 01:11 celticdr says:
Dammit I knew someone would think that I’ve been to far, I swear I haven’t but I hear that it’s lovely this time of year.
29/02/2016 at 22:35 Josh W says:
Or perhaps, har.
15/03/2016 at 15:38 Ergonomic Cat says:
Catching up on this late.
“I make lunch alone but I make it for both of us just in case we are friends now”
I don’t even know how to respond to that, it’s so terribly, pitifully hopeful.