Tomb of Discovery

 

In this episode of The Sands of Time, our hero John Linden, travels to Egypt for his first adventure.

On arrival he looks at the board at base camp to see what adventures can be had.  Apparently an organisation named MorcuCorp is working on a business opportunity with the Egyptian Government to locate three ancient relics in Al Simhara.  They are looking for someone to help them find these relics and if anyone is interested, they should report to Hassan Badawi.

Well of course John is definitely interested in this adventure and reports immediately to the person concerned.

Hassan Badawi is extremely pleased that John has decided to take on this adventure and awards John 10 visa points.  If you have ever played The Sims 3 World Adventures before, you will know that earning visa points means that this will grow your visa levels.  Once you have attained Visa Level 1, you will be able to stay in that particular Country for 5 days instead of 3 thereby being able to get more done and of course, go on more adventures.

Unfortunately for Hassan, he has lost some papers in the Tomb of Discovery and needs John to retrieve them for him.  John agrees and is given some dried food to help him on his way.

As with anything, one needs to be prepared and going on an adventure it is most important to be really prepared, especially when your life could be at stake.  John therefore decides to visit the market place in Al Simhara to obtain more supplies, such as a shower in a can and some more dried food.  He also purchases a motor bike to get him where he is going a lot quicker.

After he has finished buying what he needs, he makes his way to the Tomb of Discovery.

On entering the tomb, John ventures down the stairway to find some ancient coins and a treasure chest, which he hastily opens.  Although ancient coins cannot be used as normal currency, there is a market vendor who will sell special items for ancient coins.  We will delve into these special items in a later post...

John finds a moon shaped keystone in the treasure chest which he uses to place in the moon shaped crevice by the side of one of two locked doors.  The door opens and John is able to enter.

Throughout the tomb, John comes across ancient plates which he has to stand on to open other locked doors and he has to move large statues to reveal other ancient plates.  Although this particular tomb isn't filled with traps, John checks just in case.  During his adventure he finds more treasures, a secret door and of course the missing papers that Hassan Badawi had mislaid.

John runs back to Hassan with the papers and on arrival earns some more visa points and dried food.  Hassan Badawi was quite surprised that the Tomb of Discovery hadn't killed John which is rather strange as, after all, it was just an "Introductory Test".

John is then asked to report to Ahmed Diab who is employed by Hassan and is told to do what is asked of him.

John immediately goes to visit Ahmad who asks him to find 4 pieces of turquoise.  John accepts and starts the search.  Fortunately, when asked to look for gems and crystals and indeed insects when one is on an adventure, whether it be in China, France or Egypt, these "treasures" show up in map view, so they are easily found.  Unfortunately for John, only 2 pieces of turquoise are showing up.  This means of course, that he will have to wait for the next day to collect another 2 pieces, when in the morning they again spawn in game.  But John has a better idea.  He travels to the market place to see what is on offer at the store that sells pottery, broken vases, canopic jars and other interesting items and quite often, crystals, gem stones and metal pieces.  John is in luck!  The market vendor has 5 pieces of turquoise which John snaps up immediately.

He delivers the gems straight away to Ahmed Diab and earns some simoleons.  Ahmed then asks John to discuss MorcuCorp with three Egyptians to earn some more visa points.  Of course John agrees and sets out to meet some more Sims, strike up friendships and find out a little more about this mysterious corporation that everyone seems to be so nervous about.

- Minicart

The Sands of Time

 

World Adventures was the first expansion pack that came out for The Sims 3.  At the time, I wasn't very happy with The Sims 3 as it was so different from The Sims 2.  Having an open world, I felt that I didn't have much control over the sims that I wasn't playing.  So when World Adventures was released, although I thought the trailer looked pretty good, I waited for other simmers to post their reviews on YouTube before I even thought about purchasing it.

Most of the reviews seemed positive and, as a fan of games such as Tomb Raider, I decided to buy the pack and give it a shot.

At first it seemed really strange to play a Sim who was entering tombs, disabling traps, finding secret doors and basically looting the treasure chests as I felt that this wasn't like real life as opposed to playing families.  However, when you think about it, in real life there are adventurers who climb mountains and archaeologists like Howard Carter who found the tomb of Tutankhamen.  So The Sims 3 World Adventures, although new and different for The Sims franchise as something like this had not been done before, it was still true to life.

I really got into playing World Adventures and loved every minute of it.  EA certainly put a lot of work and thought into this expansion pack and it is definitely worth the money.  Getting three new worlds as opposed to just one was a first, plus all the new build and buy objects that came with it was a real bonus.

As I have said in previous posts on my Let's Play of The Glimmerbrook Witch for The Sims 4, EA seem to have calmed things down with The Sims.  By this I mean that in The Sims 3 for example, a witch could set fires on community lots, the Sims would run away and inevitably the ones that didn't ended up dead.  In The Sims 4, all Sims seem to be equipped with fire extinguishers on community lots and therefore not much damage can be done as fires are put out as soon as they are started.  My way of thinking is that you should be able to play The Sims how you want.  If I want to play an evil witch, she must be evil.  Simples.

With this in mind, even though The Glimmerbrook Witch is still an ongoing Let's Play on my YouTube channel, I decided to create a second Let's Play made with The Sims 3.  And what better than to create it around my favourite expansion pack of World Adventures!

So, "The Sands of Time" was born.

Set in Sunset Valley, our hero John Linden is a brave and charismatic adventurer.  Of course in this first episode (and also episodes 2 and 3), he is working his way up in his career in the military, gaining money and skills in readiness for his adventures.

Although it may be boring for some, getting some cash rolling in and skill building is a must during gameplay for John to be able to do what he wants to do.  Sending him to Egypt without any handiness skill will surely kill him as he will not be able to disable traps easily.  And of course, he needs money to travel and buy the things he needs from the market place, such as shower in a can and dried food.

The athletic skill comes in handy too for smashing the rubble piles that stand in his way.  This skill and also the handiness skill are needed for his job to gain promotions and earn more daily.  Preparation is underway for his great adventure, firstly in Egypt and then on to other climes.

I am loving creating this Let's Play and even though the game is a little old, I am having as much fun now as I did back in the day.

The Sims 3 music however is all copyrighted so I am having to mute the music in game and replacing it with royalty free music from the YouTube audio library where appropriate.  I have found some great Egyptian, French and Chinese style music which I am using.

I did make a few mistakes with this first episode but corrected this when editing, which you will see if you watch.

I hope that you enjoy watching The Sands of Time just as much as I am enjoying playing it!

- Minicart

Winterfest

 

It's Winterfest and although Willow doesn't like the festive spirit or to eat a Grand Meal, she does love the decorations and also the presents!

Although Willow doesn't need an excuse for a party, Winterfest is a great time to invite a few "friends" over for some company and to open some gifts together.

Now Willow has quite a few enemies, most of which are dead but the few that remain didn't show up in the list of Sims that she could invite over.  Maybe it's because they really despise each other but I don't seem to remember this happening before as she has in the past invited quite a few Sims over that she hated.  Maybe EA/Maxis have changed things around a little with their updates to the game recently.  It's probably just as well because as I have said before, it seems strange to me that Sims that are despised and who despise Willow, still turn up to her parties.

So even though she didn't have much of a relationship with the Sims that she invited, and not much of a choice of Sims to invite, they still turned up.  This time however, Willow left her door unlocked so that they could enter her home for some festive cheer in the form of opening gifts and eating Pufferfish Nigiri...

A couple of Sims didn't get to open any presents unfortunately and they didn't see out Winterfest either.  They lay dead on the kitchen floor.  The good thing is though, the Grim Reaper turned up and joined in the Winterfest fun.

Willow then decided to build a snow pal in her garden with one of her guests, just to round off the party.

After a while Caleb Vatore called to ask Willow if she would like to go over to his place.  Willow thought this would be a great idea as Willow and Caleb are quite good friends and this would give Willow a chance to see Caleb's home and be introduced to Lillith, his wife.  

Willow accepted the offer and, with a few friends, travelled to the Vatore's home to hang out.

At first Willow and Lillith didn't really like each other but this was soon turned around a little.  Willow does need to be friends with Lillith considering she too is a vampire.

As there is a lot of time left in this Sim day, maybe Willow should return home and invite a few Sims over...

- Minicart

Building Snowpals

 

It's still mid-Winter in the little town of Glimmerbrook and the day before Winterfest.  Caleb Vatore has visited Willow at her home and there is thick snow laying on the ground.

If you have Eco Lifestyle installed in your game, you won't be a stranger to the NAP Inspector.  He's the guy who comes to your house uninvited to make sure that you are in compliance with the neighbourhood rules, i.e. a recycling initiative.  If you are not in compliance then your bills will be higher.  Much like a Tax Inspector, this sim isn't liked very much.  Now, higher bills doesn't worry Willow as she has plenty of money which she is growing on trees in her garden.  However, it's the principle...

Willow decides to Chillio the NAP Inspector in which she takes great delight.  However, once thawed, the Inspector tells her she is not in compliance and quickly takes his leave.  Being stupid, he will probably be back.  Our evil witch will be waiting.

Willow then decides to take Caleb out and about to build some snowpals.

They arrive at Magnolia Blossom Park in Willow Creek and start to build snowpals together in the freezing cold.  As Caleb is basically a "living dead" sim, i.e. a vampire and Willow loves the outdoors, the temperature doesn't seem to bother them.

While they are building, a few other sims appear in the park.  As stated in my previous post, Willow doesn't have many acquaintances left as she has killed most of them so going out and about is a good way of meeting new sims.

Willow, being a supernatural sim herself, doesn't really want to make enemies with vampires or other witchy sims so she decides to give a "cheerful introduction" to those she meets at the park.  After introducing herself, she is then able to see whether or not the sim is a witch.  However, it is a little harder to find out if the sims that she meets are vampires.  In The Sims 3, they had a mark on their necks but I cannot see anything like that on sims necks in The Sims 4.  One way of finding out if the sim is a vampire is to be mean to them.  So much so that if they are a vampire, they will turn into their dark form and attack.  This isn't something that Willow wants to see or experience!

So, finding out if a sim is a vampire is impossible on first glance.

Being nice to other sims however has it's benefits as the other sim is more likely to give you a gift.  In Willow's case, she was given a "Morcubus" by Cassandra Goth.  A Morcubus is a little figurine which is found in the world by digging up rocks and which can also be used as a potion ingredient.  Although Willow has a few of these in her inventory, this was still a thoughtful gift.

As not many sims were arriving at the park, Willow decided to take Caleb to the bar in Glimmerbrook.  She met a few sims there too and one such sim by the name of Milan Orourke she found was a mean witch.  Willow added this sim to her coven, making four members of mean witches.  Another sim who she gave a cheerful introduction to gave her a Furium which is a collectible crystal/rock and which can also be used in potions.

Although in this episode Willow didn't make any enemies, she met a few very friendly sims and had quite an enjoyable outing with Caleb.

Tomorrow is Winterfest.  Time for a party...

- Minicart