Creating Let's Plays and Tutorials for The Sims 2 (and I build houses and community lots too)
Saturday, 3 April 2021
Weenie Roast
Saturday, 20 March 2021
Gone Fishin'
Willow hasn't ventured out that much during her time in Glimmerbrook. Although she has been to a couple of parks, Granite Falls and of course the Magic Realm, she has been more focused on learning her craft and killing other Sims, the latter being done more easily at home, especially whilst hosting parties.
Fishing is one skill that Willow has been learning. Each time she comes to a body of water that she can fish in, she has given this a go and caught a few fish. So much so that she has raised her skill to level 4.
There are quite a few places in all the different worlds where a Sim can fish, each one giving different varieties of fish that can be caught. Of course, different fish can be caught with different bait such as flowers or fruit and Willow being a bit of a gardener has a variety of bait within her inventory. As Willow is an outdoorsy type, she finds fishing most enjoyable.
In this episode, Willow goes fishing in the Magic Realm and catches a couple of Rainbow fish - a new fish that she hasn't encountered before. This then gave her the idea that maybe she should visit Sulani.
Sulani is a beautiful tropical island with palm trees, waterfalls, a volcano and beaches.
There are lots of different fish there where you cannot catch anywhere else so Willow decides to try her luck.
Visiting the bar, she chats with one of the locals and discovers that he is a witch too. Afterwards, she searches around for a fishing spot but unfortunately there is none to be found. But then Willow comes across a fishing basket laying in the water, ready to be baited for catching fish. She decides to pop an apple inside to see what fish she might catch. While waiting, Willow begins to make a sand sculpture on the beach.
After a little while, Willow checks the basket to see if she has caught anything but alas, no. She goes back to building a sand sculpture and leaves the basket in the water, hoping that the fish will bite soon.
Maybe in the next episode, Willow will be lucky enough to catch some new fish and perhaps she should really buy a fishing basket of her own.
- Minicart
Tuesday, 16 March 2021
Fireworks Night
Saturday, 13 March 2021
Making Friends
Willow has made quite a few enemies during the time she has spent in the little town of Glimmerbrook, many of which are now dead, although some still remain. It is probably about time therefore, that she makes a few friends.
As Willow is evil, she tends to give a rude introduction to Sims that she is meeting for the first time. This is not always advisable as there are many Sims that she has come into contact with who are either magical Sims, vampires or both.
Willow is now able to talk about magic to other magical Sims and these options show up once the introduction has been made. Similarly, when speaking to a vampire, options for enthusing about vampires and other vampiric interactions also show up.
Luckily for Willow, even though introducing herself rudely to other Sims causes a little animosity, she is soon able to turn this around with a few friendly interactions. So much so, that she is then given gifts from these Sims such as crystals.
Even though Willow wants to make enemies, there is something to be said for making friends with certain Sims. Not only does she obtain gifts from them, she also avoids any animosity from a vampire, which could be quite nasty. I have seen this before in my personal game where the vampire suddenly appeared in it's evil form and attacked my Sim. Needless to say, the vampire won. It wasn't a pretty sight!
So, in this episode, we see Willow making friends with a few other magical Sims and also vampires, gaining gifts and perhaps, some more partners in crime.
Of course, Willow will also make enemies but only with non-magical Sims and non-vampires. She needs to have some enemies too otherwise she wouldn't be the evil witch that we have all come to know and love.
- Minicart
Tuesday, 9 March 2021
Partners in Crime
Willow seems to have a little problem getting her Coven members to cast spells, be mischievous and basically mean and evil to other non-coven members.
During The Sims 2 years, if your Sim had a good relationship with another and had enough "influence" points, you could get your Sim to influence another Sim to talk to someone for example. You could also influence other Sims to clean or cook. Unfortunately this feature is not available in The Sims 4 and I don't remember it ever being in The Sims 3 either. This feature, had it been added to The Sims 4, would have benefitted Willow enormously in as much as she would have been able to influence her coven members to cast evil spells and do all the mean and nasty things that The Coven members should be doing but don't do themselves. It seems therefore that Willow, even though she belongs to an evil group of witches, is on her own.
One thing that she does have however are potions. Giving a potion to another Sim will allow that Sim to drink it - no questions asked it seems! One such potion is the potion of "Masterful Insults". Giving this potion to one of her coven members seemed to Willow to be a good idea so as to make that Sim insult others. How wrong she was! This potion just made her coven member angry. Maybe Willow should have hung around a little longer to see what else this Sim would do but after having spent too much time at Pupperstone Park already, Willow was ready to do something else.
That evening, Willow decided to have a party. Of course, this wasn't just any party, this was a Willow Mendip party. Music, Pufferfish Nigiri, and fire.
She invited most of the Sims that she was enemies with and, not surprisingly, they all turned up. Even the Grim Reaper made a show and Willows vampire friend, Caleb Vatore decided to pay a visit. This is where things became a little more interesting.
After the Grim Reaper had reaped a couple of souls, Willow chatted with Caleb amongst the frozen Sims in her garden. It came to pass that an option to "Become Partners in Crime" came up with Caleb. Of course Willow chose this and they sealed the deal by shaking hands. Now it seems, that Willow and Caleb can plan some mischeivous stuff to do together.
I wonder what an evil witch and a vampire will do to cause a little bit of mayhem in Glimmerbrook. We will just have to wait and see...
- Minicart
Saturday, 6 March 2021
Pupperstone Park
Thursday, 4 March 2021
The Witch's House
When I first created Willow Mendip of The Glimmerbrook Witch, I placed her in the empty lot in Glimmerbrook so as to build her a nice cheap "starter" home. I knew that as time went on, she would need something a lot better and bigger. Being able to afford to purchase something a little more expensive was obviously down to Simoleons. Even though Willow doesn't go to work, the money trees in her garden will surely bring her enough to afford a more lavish home in time.
With this in mind, I went ahead to create "The Witch's House". I decided to build this on a larger lot in Glimmerbrook so that Willow would have more room for gardening and of course her famous indoor and outdoor parties.
This build took me longer than usual, some 4 weeks in fact. I also had a little trouble with it at times, due to the platform rooms in the house. At one point, the landing at the top of the stairs seemed to sink down a little so I had to fix that.
When I play tested it, everything worked fine except that my "test Sim" couldn't enter the conservatory/greenhouse outside. I found out after a fashion that the little patio outside the door needed to be lengthened for her to get up the steps. After pulling that out with the tools available in build mode, all of the windows in the greenhouse vanished so I had to put those back in and then re-do all of the vines that I had creeping up and around the windows.
Having finished the build, I took a few photos and then went ahead to create a stop motion video.
This consisted of 849 photographs and around 145 videos and took around 3 hours to do. It then took me a further 2 or so hours to piece everything together. Yes, it does take a lot of work to do a stop motion video but I do believe it's worth it in the end.
However, when I came to piece everything together, I found that on a few videos (there were 160 altogether), I had inadvertently recorded myself taking items away for the camera shots and then turning off the video for the transition from one room to another. So there were about 15 videos that I had to discard and this also meant that I had no video on some parts when turning in a room or going to another room. I therefore had to fade these through from one image to another instead.
Unfortunately, even though the build turned out really nice, parts of the stop motion video have no video transitions.
Maybe this build is cursed but then I did build it for an evil witch...
If you would prefer to watch a two minute montage of the build, here it is:
You can download this lot from The Sims 4 Gallery - my ID is TotallySimlish.
- Minicart
Tuesday, 2 March 2021
Spooky Day Party
Saturday, 27 February 2021
The Hermit
Venturing through the forest in Granite Falls and having exhausted items for collecting, Willow decides to travel through the secret tunnel via the bramble patch at the edge of the wood.
Overcoming a few barriers, she arrives at a clearing. Here she finds a little hut wherein lives a hermit who is out fishing. Willow searches around and finds some dig spots and insects for her collection. She also harvests another plant that she previously didn't know existed, from the hermit's garden.
Now Willow, being an evil witch, did have some mean thoughts about inferniating the hermit as she stood quietly at the edge of the lake. However, Willow decided to have a friendly conversation with her instead. It seemed futile to try and kill the hermit as no doubt, even she has a fire extinguisher. After a nice chat, Willow learned the herbalism skill from the hermit so it seems that Willow is now on her way to building another skill which incorporates the new plants that she has found.
As, in this episode, it's Spooky Day, Willow decides to make her way home back to Glimmerbrook to prepare for a party.
Looking through the items she has collected from Granite Falls, she decides to copy-pasto some of them so that she has enough to make any potions she may need.
Whilst doing this, she has a few visits from Trick or Treaters, eager to sample the sweets and candy that she has left in a pumpkin bowl on a table outside her door. One by one she "tricks" them as opposed to giving them a treat. One poor Sim was already scared because of the candy bowl and Willow frightened her even more. However, one small child thought it hilarious and went merrily on his way to "trick or treat" other neighbourhood Sims.
It's Willow's favourite time of the year - Spooky Day! Time for a party...
- Minicart
Tuesday, 23 February 2021
Granite Falls
Saturday, 20 February 2021
The Vampire
Vampire. The mere mention of the word conjures up images of Transylvania, bloodshed, death and fangs.
There are certain things one must know about vampires. Firstly, they cannot venture into the sunlight as they will die. By nature, they are creatures of the night, the undead. They sleep during the day in a coffin that is placed on soil taken from their motherland. They hunger and thirst for only the blood of the living and can take the form of a bat to venture out and strike the unsuspecting by sinking their teeth into their victims necks. Apart from sunlight, another way to kill a vampire is to drive a wooden stake through their heart whilst they lay slumbering in their coffin during the day. The vampire is repelled by garlic and fears mirrors, as the vampire has no reflection.
If you invite a vampire into your home, even without knowing that he or she is such, they will be able to come back at a later date, either in their human form or the form of a bat, and will enter at will.
In The Sims 4, vampires are a little different in as much as other Sims cannot drive a stake through the hearts of these unworldly creatures, however, sunlight will kill them. And of course if you don't want your vampire Sims to bite the necks of others, there is always Plasma fruit that is available for them to eat which quenches their thirst for blood.
Talking of which, Willow Mendip also seems to have a thirst for blood but in a different way. Being an evil witch, she takes much pleasure in annihilating her neighbours one by one and sometimes two at a time. Unfortunately this doesn't get Willow any friends and although she enjoys making enemies, one should have a friend or two, especially if they are as evil as Willow is.
On this particular evening in Glimmerbrook, a young gentleman paid Willow an unexpected visit. His very name strikes fear into the hearts of Sims, except for Willow of course. Caleb Vatore lives with his wife Lillith in Midnight Hollow, the darkest of The Sims 4 worlds. As we know, Willow doesn't stick to the rules so she invited Caleb in.
Striking up some friendly conversation, Willow soon made a friend of Caleb. They proceeded to watch the movie "Sims of the Dead" together on TV and chatted about it afterwards. They then had a nice outing to the Magic Realm before Willow had to leave to tend her beloved plants.
One can only wonder where this friendship of two supernaturals will lead.
- Minicart
Tuesday, 16 February 2021
Raging
An idle witch is a dangerous witch, or at least this is true in Willow Mendip's case. So to occupy herself, in this episode, she visits Gemma Charm who lives just up the road and is a member of "The Coven".
"The Coven" was created a couple of episodes ago and consists of five witchy Sims. This group of Sims have had just one outing and Willow noticed that they are all unfortunately do-gooders. Willow had hoped that they would help her in her endeavours of killing Sims on a community lot but, alas, no. Even her coven carried fire extinguishers and used them in force. In fact, none of the members of The Coven passed the test, not even the "mean" ones.
Unfortunately, one such coven member lives alone and on the largest residential lot in Glimmerbrook - the lot that Willow wants to build her new house on when she has enough money. Taking all this into consideration, Willow decided that Gemma Charm should be the one to "go" first.
Knocking politely on Gemma's door, Willow is invited inside. After locating the poor Sim sitting upstairs at her computer, Willow proceeds to cast the "inferniate" spell. It seems however that Gemma was expecting this and proceeded to swiftly move out of the way, running downstairs to safety. However, Willow had other plans.
As Gemma was lighting the fire in the parlour, Willow lit a fire at Gemma's feet, setting the poor Sims rug ablaze, along with Gemma herself.
Willow's job was done. One less do-gooder in her beloved Coven and an empty lot that she can build her dream house on. Unless of course story progression moves someone else into the house, in which case, Willow will have to kill them too....
- Minicart
Saturday, 13 February 2021
Copy Pasto
As a witch, Willow has grown considerably over the past few weeks. By practising on the cauldron and with her wand and casting spells, her power has grown and she has learned much in the way of new spells and potions.
As I mentioned in a previous post with regard to potions, Willow needs ingredients such as herbs and crystals which she garners from the world and purchases from the little shop in the Magic Realm. Fishing is also needed as fish too feature in her potions along with gardening to enable her to grow all manner of herbs, fruit and vegetables.
Of course, if one could "magic" these items into existence, there would be no need to purchase, garner, catch or grow anything.
This is where the "copy pasto" spell comes into play.
This spell does exactly what it says on the jar. As long as you have one item of anything, including bottled potions, you can copy pasto it and voila! You have another!
Unfortunately this doesn't actually work on fish but it does on mostly all other items in Willow's inventory.
So as long as she has the ingredients to create the initial potion, she can then copy pasto it, nullifying the need for any of the ingredients. And by casting these spells, Willow's little orange bar goes up, giving her more magic points to enable her to get stronger and stronger. Its a win-win situation.
Maybe Willow can try this spell out on expensive items and get rich in the process. We will have to wait and see.
One can only wonder if this spell is dangerous in the hands of an evil witch.
- Minicart
Tuesday, 9 February 2021
Dancing Mr Reaper
In previous get togethers however, only food and friendly conversation ensued, apart from of course the odd Sim dropping dead here and there. This occasion is somewhat a little different as Willow purchased a music centre. Just a small one. Some would call it a radio. Nevertheless, having the addition of music changed her "party" into a "soiree".
As usual, Willow invited a few Sims that she didn't like, five in fact, to taste the delicacy of Pufferfish Nigiri that she made herself, afresh for her guests, participate in friendly conversation and dance the night away. This is what her guests thought but you would think that, again, if someone you don't like invites you to their soiree, knowing that the feeling was reciprocated, that you wouldn't go, would you? Well, I would have thought not too. But, we are talking about The Sims and even though they are supposed to be "Smart Sims" as advertised when TS4 was first released, they are not smart at all.
One by one they turned up at Willows house, obviously looking forward to the evening ahead. After being invited to dance, they were offered some freshly made food which, although struggling with the chopsticks, they ate with relish. It wasn't long before one Sim started feeling the effects. In fact the Grim Reaper showed up before the poor Sim had actually hit the floor. It seems that Mr Reaper enjoys taking the souls of Sims, rushing to the place of death and then taking his time to read his list.
- Minicart
Saturday, 6 February 2021
The Coven
Tuesday, 2 February 2021
Witch in Flight
As I have stated in previous posts, Willow enjoys a good party.
Usually, when "normal" Sims, and people, hold parties, they invite their friends, put on some music, provide good food and dance the night away. But of course Willow isn't really normal. As an evil witch, Willow prefers to invite to her party neighbours who she doesn't really like, lulling them into a sense of false security with friendly conversation. She also provides poor quality food, such as Pufferfish Nigiri which her neighbours eat with relish. The music is non-existent. The dancing however is a little different. You could call it a "fire dance".
In this episode, "Witch in Flight", Willow decides to hold one such party for the neighbours that she is not too keen on. As before, she cooks them Pufferfish Nigiri and serves it outside in the cold autumn air. Most of her guests take a plateful of this delicacy, struggling to eat it with the chopsticks provided. Of course, if this doesn't kill them, Willow has a back-up game plan, or two, at the ready.
As Willow now has the ability to cast her spells from afar, from the comfort of her warm living room she casts a few chillio spells. One by one her guests become frozen, to the horror of the remaining few.
Not satisfied with chillioing her guests, she decides to make a fire. One such guest was cold anyway, so warming things up seemed a good idea.
It is strange how neighbours on community lots have fire extinguishers and immediately put fires out but on home lots, they either just look on or run away, even if their beloved spouse is burning to death. Sims also have the ability to put themselves out with their own fire extinguisher, as Willow found out the hard way, but not one of Willow's burning guests even attempt to do this. Hence the "fire dance" - for two.
And as usual, the Grim Reaper turns up to claim the souls of the poor unfortunate Sims who should know better than to accept the offer of a party at an evil witches house, especially one who doesn't like you very much.
Party over, Willow decides to visit Magnolia Blossom park in Willow Creek, just for fun.
- Minicart
Saturday, 30 January 2021
Glowing Eyes
Tuesday, 26 January 2021
Festival of Youth
As stated before in a previous post, there are quite few festivals in The Sims 4 if you have City Living and Snowy Escape expansion packs installed. Willow seems to like to attend to these festivals due to the gathering of Sims and the mischief and mayhem she can cause. One such festival is the Romance Festival in the city.
Apart from the obvious romantic vibe this festival brings, there are rare plants that can be harvested, a "love guru" who can be consulted, food stalls and swag stalls and of course, the infamous Sakura Tea which when sipped, places the Sim in a flirty mood. Although Willow drinks the tea, she is far from wanting any flirty conversations with other Sims. Willow has something else in mind.
Armed with the "chillio" spell that she learned previously, Willow sets out to cast this on other unsuspecting Sims. There are a few Sims there that have encountered Willow before and her evil shenanigans plus a few others who have also previously been chillioed.
Of course karma plays a part in Willows life. They say what goes around, comes around and this is also true in The Sims 4. Spells can backfire and when they do, they can leave the caster in a bit of a dilemma.
Willow thankfully survives and lives to face another day which she uses to visit The Festival of Youth in Mount Komorebi. This festival, as the name suggests, is for the youth of any of the worlds to come and visit, play and make friends.
Willow's evilness knows no bounds as she takes gleeful pleasure in setting alight the little pink climbing frame in the middle of the square. I hasten to add here that no child was hurt in the blaze, in fact the little one carried on climbing and swinging and having a lovely time. But in a sense, we knew this would happen, which is why Willow decided to set the climbing frame on fire in the first place.
Our evil witch will of course still try and exterminate her neighbours by fire and/or freezing on community lots and festivals and as she grows stronger in her magical endeavours, one can only hope that she doesn't exterminate herself.
- Minicart
Saturday, 23 January 2021
Chillio
Tuesday, 19 January 2021
Voodoo Doll
The Voodoo Doll has been in The Sims 4 game from the beginning. In The Sims 3 however, this had to be purchased from The Sims 3 Store as I remember, as extra content for your game. When you "bind" the Voodoo Doll with a Sim, you can then affect the Sim through the doll. For example, if you pour water over the bound doll, the Sim that it is bound to will become soaked. Likewise, if you place the bound doll on a fire, the Sim that it is bound to will simultaneously be set alight. I found this out, thanks to a post by a fellow Simmer, on Reddit.
For your Sim to acquire a Voodoo Doll in The Sims 4, your Sim will either need to purchase one, which costs around 1,000 simoleons or may "win" one from the Humour and Hi-Jinks Festival if you have City Living installed. This is where Willow Mendip acquired hers.
Having had this doll in her inventory for quite a while, it was only a matter of time in which Willow would test this out.
There are many festivals in The Sims 4 and a few more have been added with the Snowy Escape expansion pack. One such festival that came with this pack was "The Festival of Lights". Lights of course come in the form of stars, lights, candles and fire, such as bonfires. One such bonfire is conveniently placed in the Festival Square for anyone to light and interact with. For an evil witch with a Voodoo Doll, this is a dream come true.
One elderly Sim was chosen for this experiment as it was deemed that she didn't have "long to go" anyway. Willow introduced herself in a friendly fashion and was then able to bind the doll to her victim; she then threw the doll into the bonfire. The effect was instantaneous.
Unfortunately for Willow but fortunately for the Sim, the combustion doesn't last long and the Sim survived but, it was fun to do - for an evil witch of course.
- Minicart