I’ve finished another week with a new sim and a few tweaks to the challenge to supposedly make it “harder”.  Sure she was unhappier more often, but it always seems easy to get through.

The tweaks I tried were:

• using the cheaper tent – made no difference
• giving the lot the Creepy Crawlies trait – which just meant she got attacked by bees, bats, and spiders a lot. Downed the mood, but it wasn’t over-come-able
• giving the lot the Cursed trait. Never played with that one before. Basically, about twice in her year, she became dazed. And she got angry a couple of times. That’s it.
• gave the sim the traits of clumsy, materialistic, and vegetarian. She got sad and sick whenever she ate fish, and a small negative moodlet a couple of times over not buying new stuff. That was it.

The new lot in Willow Creek

So all in all, they weren’t such horrible things, just slight inconveniences. I got tired of spiders falling all over her, and bees in the middle of winter was just… wrong. 😀

I’m thinking about removing the fridge altogether. That way, surviving on fish is a bit harder. Mind you, it’s pretty easy to survive on fresh vegetables. Kind of a pain to eat so many times a day, mind you, but easy.

I’m also thinking of taking out the tent. Just making a fake shelter that doesn’t afford another way to get fun up. It seems that if they have appropriate clothing on, shelter doesn’t matter, which is also a bummer.

And the last thing I’m going to test next, speaking of clothing, is not allowing them to wear their “hot” or “cold” clothing. That alone will make the biggest difference. My sim could stand in a blizzard for hours and sell flowers and not freeze to death!

To do that, I’ll have both the summer and winter clothing choices in all-red or some bright colour that I don’t use in the other outfits. That way, if they auto-change, I can change them right back. LOL I’m sooooo mean…

Let’s see if this fire pit really does have enough of a warming effect. 😉

Well, folks, Cora made it through one whole year, so it’s time to post some rules!

I’ll paste the rules right here in this post, but they are also included in PDF form below and in the ZIP file that has my base empty world for you to use (also below).

Goal

See if you can live off the land for 1 year (28 Sim days) through all four seasons and survive! You will have very little in the way of shelter and amenities, but you must keep all of them in like-new condition and pay all your bills. Can you do it?

Go fishing (to sell and eat), gather plants from the wild and then grow them on your lot (to sell and eat). Try to avoid lightening, heat waves, ice, and freezing. Earn enough money to pay bills and replace any damaged goods. Good luck!

Setting Up:

1. You can play with any and all EP’s, SP’s, and GP’s, but you will absolutely need the following:
   • Seasons (for, um, seasons…)
   • Get Together (for fire pit, tent, camping shower, and “pee bush”)
   • City Living (for the yard sale table)
2. The worlds in your save game must be completely empty. All of them. Not lots, no sims. Yours will be the only lot with a living soul on it. (Townies will still be generated and will walk by your lot and purchase at your yard sales.)
3. If you need an empty base world, you can download my game save below. Instructions on where to put the file are included in the download package.
4. It goes without saying that mod cheats are not allowed if they make gameplay easier!
5. You can create any kind of sim you like. But there are some restrictions:
   • Traits that may help in this challenge are not allowed! Those would be:
     • Loves the Outdoors
     • Vegetarian
     • Loner
     • Genius (gives random Focused moodlets which improves gardening skill)
     • Geeks (better at finding collectibles)
     • Or any other trait you feel would give you some kind of advantage to living off the land
   • Aspirations that help in this challenge are not allowed! Those would be:
     • Food (gives you Essence of Flavor, ie, better food)
     • Knowledge (gives you Quick Learner trait)
     • Nature (gives you the edge of finding better collectibles)
     • Or any other aspiration you feel would give you some kind of advantage to living off the land
6. Pick as many suitable “hot” and “cold” outfits as you like (the game allows you up to 5 for each category).
7. If you want a bit harder of a challenge, pick some negative traits. “Queasy” makes it quite tough to fish, so that’s an interesting one. Any trait that throws a bad moodlet once in awhile will certainly add to your fun.
8. In order to be able to fish and grow plants so you can store up food for winter, you should choose Spring as your starting season for the game.
9. You can make your own lot or download mine from the gallery (called Land Lubber’s Dock Den or look for #landlubbers). I made this lot at Dock Den on the island in Windenburg, but you can place it anywhere you prefer to try this challenge.
10. If you’d rather make your own lot, this is what you need:
    • Any size lot you want
    • You can’t use any positive lot traits. If you want to use some negative ones for a bigger challenge, go right ahead. LOL
    • Mailbox
    • Tent (Cabin-in-a-Bag)
    • Firepit (Rocks of Fire) and 4 chairs. Chairs should preferably the rocks (A Hard Place) or stumps (Stumpy Chair) for aesthetics
    • Trash can or recycle bin (lot kind, not house kind) (recommend Trashe Cann because it’s so nicely rustic)
    • 1 Bush to “fertilize” (such as The Anything Goes Party Bush)
    • Camping shower (The Shower Tarp!)
    • Yard sale table (Come and Get It Street Store)
    • Fridge (The Schmapple Fridge) surrounded by fence – the “cold room” to store fish for eating in winter
    • If you like, you may add shrubs and flowers for aesthetics. You could add trees, but you might need to rake some leaves in the fall! Your choice. 🙂
11. Move your sim onto the lot, even if you have to use the “freerealestate” cheat. Once there, open the cheat window again to turn on testing cheats (testingcheats true) and then take away all their money by typing “money 0“.

Game save set-up:

1. Gameplay: Full autonomy, auto age = yes, lifespan = normal, max sim count = 80
2. Set all weather to include thunderstorms and blizzards.
3. Set all weather to include thunderstorms and blizzards.
   Season length = 7 days, unless you want it more challenging, then 14 days is fine. I wouldn’t recommend boring yourself with anything longer than that! LOL
4. Sorry to say that the Calendar and Holidays are pretty useless in this challenge. Who has time to plan ANYTHING or celebrate stuff when you’re merely trying to survive??? Delete all the holidays.
   • However, let it be known that the day you age up in the year will forever be unavoidable. 😉

You are now ready to start!

Basic Challenge Rules

Earning Money:

1. Your Sim must never take a job of any kind. After all, the world is empty! Who would employ them?
2. No collecting of anything other than plants and fish are allowed. Plants are only collected to re-plant, eat, or use for bait. Fish are collected for eating or fertilizer or using for bait. Don’t dig at dig sites or try to find frogs.
3. However, whatever you fish up out of the water is fair game for eating or selling in your yard sales or growing in your garden.
4. You may not sell anything out of inventory. You can only sell them by holding yard sales on your lot.
5. You may hold as many yard sales as you need or as you can in a day. No restrictions here!
6. Earning money in the challenge is for the following purposes:
   • Paying your weekly bills
   • Paying for replacements of whatever is on the lot if it gets destroyed somehow.

Survival:

1. Your Sims’ main cooking and heating source come from the fire pit located on the lot.
2. Your sim may only eat roasted fish over the fire (no marshmallows or hot dogs or other quick meals – keep an eye on those sneaky snackers!). They can also eat any fruit that they either find or grow.
3. The fence is around the “cold room” so that your sim does not autonomously go for a “quick meal”. But you can drag fish from the inventory into the fridge so they last longer, and as long as fish are in there, you can “roast fish” over the firepit without having access to the door of the fridge.
4. If your first Sim perishes, you may start again but you must use the same lot and leave the ghost intact.
5. If anyone else perishes on your lot, you must leave the gravestone intact where it appears and not move it for the remainder of your year.

Gameplay:

1. You must not build shelter (actual walls and a roof) for 1 year (28 days). You must live with what is on the lot (see Setting Up)
2. Reward traits and potions are forbidden. Yes. All of them.
3. You may fulfill whims and aspiration milestones as they come up, just don’t spend any of the points. 😉
4. Cell phone usage is not allowed. There is no cell service where you are. 😉 If your sim starts playing a video game, stop them as soon as you notice and get them to do something else.
5. Other sims may visit the lot, but you are not to move anyone in. If a visitor helps clean or repair something, you should thank them kindly! LOL If they kick over your garbage can, well, your response is up to you. 😉

Losing:

1. You must never lose water or power because of not paying bills. If that happens, you’ve technically lost the challenge.
2. You must also have everything on the lot back in new condition by the end of Day 28. If you don’t, you have technically lost the challenge.

Winning:

1. You have succeeded if, on Day 29, you are:
   • Alive
   • Have all items on the lot in new condition
   • Have paid all the bills throughout the year

Here are your downloads:

Land Lubber’s Basic Challenge Rules (PDF)

Empty Base World, Instructions, and Rules

I hope you have as much fun with this as I’ve had! I have a few ideas for harder challenges. I’ll test them out and post variations as I can.

If you have any questions, leave me a comment below. Also, feel free to share a link to your own Land Lubber’s adventure! I’d love to see how you all get on with it!

Today we get to the real fun. Rain.

Yup, it finally started to rain on the island! Cora wasn’t as impressed as I was.

Aww FRAM. Puddles already! My garden will drown!

I backed out to get a good view of the downpour. And then I realized – this was a true downpour!!!

Yikes! A thunderstorm has started! I must get inside!

Well, the only “inside” was her tent. But that is where she stayed. I don’t know how many Wilderness Digests she read that day. But she is UP on her travel tips!

Just when it looked like she was well and truly protected in her nice “Cabin in a Bag”, disaster struck:

* le GASP! *

She had just stepped outside to eat a strawberry! I’m not sure what would have happened if she’d still been in the tent!

Oh my! That was close! But it looks like my tent survived!

Wrong. Mwaaahaahaaaa!

All she could think to do was have a shower. As you do in thunderstorms…

Once out, she cried over her lovely tent. I will admit, I almost cried, too. Those things are expensive to replace, and she didn’t have the money!!!

I just want to go inside! I just want to go inside!! * sob *

She kept running around, trying to “go inside”, and then ZOT!

Ooooooo. Pretty lights. Lights are pretty. Rain is pretty. Pretty rain.

Ooooh yeah. Totally dazed. 😆

She was so dazed, she figured researching a plant in a thunderstorm was a great idea.

Pretty plant. Pretty picture. Pretty is dirt. Camels is green…

By the end of the storm, Cora had survived, but her fire pit, this chair, AND the next two chairs were also toast. This was going to take a lot of yard sales to replace! 😀