Vampire Baby Boom (TS2)

[madeinsixam]

I'm going to be honest with you. I have no idea if I'll even remotely succeed at this challenge, because vampires in TS2 are hard. I do have a mod that makes their needs decay normally when indoors (like TS4 vampires, I guess) but of course they're still prone to wandering outside and dying. Oh and: I'm playing with this hereditary supernaturalism mod that means the kids are also vampires.

In fact, this is my second attempt. The first featured a different vampire couple and ended almost immediately when the toddler crawled outside. I sent the mother to pick her up before her needs summoned the social worker, but she decided to play peek-a-boo or sing a nursery rhyme or something instead, so she died right in front of the poor kid.

Anyway... let's see how this goes.

Spoiler:

This is lovely couple I created this time, Mircalla (black hair) and Mortia (red hair). They're both vampires and they're a very affectionate couple. Hopefully, their bond will be useful when playing this challenge.



Both of them rolled wants to level up some skills, like cooking, cleaning, mechanical, etc. so I let them go ahead and get some studying done.



Their shack is super basic and doesn't even have a floor, so weeds actually started growing inside.



I'd initially planned to have them take turns working, who knows if I'll do that or not. Since Mircalla wanted to gain some creativity points, I decided she'd stay home first and make money through painting. You can see her practicing.



Mortia got a job as an aerobics instructor, but I figured having something to do on her days off would be helpful, so I tried to get her interested in pottery.

(They can't live without walls because of daylight, so they're saving up some Simoleons.)



You can see two things in the picture above. One, Mircalla is pregnant. Two, keeping these Sims alive will be a real challenge, when they spontaneously decide to go play outside in broad daylight.



Mircalla gave birth to two boys, Bat and Batfred. They were pretty easy babies to handle, but I was mostly worried about their toddlerhood.



Here they are as toddlers! Bat is the one with hair. The bald one is Batfred. Mircalla did most of the work raising them. I decided to start locking the doors but allowing Mortia through so she could go to work, and of course Mortia decided this meant she should go outside at any time.



Soon, Mircalla was pregnant again! (Yes, that's a hacked clothes rack. No way I'm going to deal with the hassle of shopping or put up with the mismatched clothes they always age up with.)



The twins grew up into kids and I was too busy to take more pictures of them as toddlers. Oops. This is Bat.



And this is Batfred. I was a bit worried about him since he learnt stuff more slowly than his brother, but he did manage to learn his skills before aging up and grew up well!



Mircalla bonding with the kids over breakfast.



You can see their house here. They've managed to get a nursery and a kids' rooms. Outside, there's a walled-in space with newspapers. Why? So Sims can't see them or reach them or even think about them. I learnt my lesson on the first try, when Sims kept wandering outside to recycle the newspapers or get the newly delivered one. NEVER AGAIN.



Something went VERY WRONG with the skeleton teddy all of a sudden.



Ta-da! New babies! There's another boy, Batbert, and the first girl so far, Bathilde!

[madeinsixam]

Chapter 2

Spoiler:

I forgot to mention this, but the last babies were born while Mircalla was home alone with the kids, who were understandably freaking out.



The way Batfred writes in his diary is really cute.



Batbert and Bathilde's baby years were uneventful and went by really fast. Here's Batbert as a toddler!



And Bathilde! She's so adorable to me.

Spoiler:

https://i.ibb.co/GVZ17F1/bb-28.png

I don't know what went wrong with taking screenshots of the younger twins as toddlers, but I can't find them. Let me just say it was definitely harder than the first time around, but it still worked out.

This is Batbert as a kid.



And Bathilde! Hilariously, both of them had green everyday clothing as toddlers, so I kept the colour scheme for their child outfits (the everyday ones, that is. All the kids have these exact same PJs.)



Things were much harder with 4 kids running around. I *kind of* came up with a system: I'd frequently unlock the door for Mortia (and then had to keep her from walking outside for no reason) and keep it locked for everyone else, but once there were kids around, they needed to get to school, so I've got to remember to unlock/lock things at different hours.

I also built this tunnel that goes from the front door to the sidewalk. On the one hand, the extra door is another layer of protection. On the other hand, it means their motives don't take a nosedive as soon as they step out. The tunnel system is kind of hard to get the hang of.

In this picture, Batbert very nearly killed Mortia by blocking the door when she came home from work.



New baby! I... don't remember his name right now, but he's a boy. That means there's been 4 boys and only 1 girl so far.



Bat and Batbert as teenagers. I'm hoping this will make things a little bit easier but... who knows, really!

[madeinsixam]

I've been super swamped with work so I didn't get to update sooner but... I failed the challenge, thanks to Mortia! It was fun (if aggravating) while it lasted. I might still post about the events leading up to that but who knows.

[peachy123uk]

Spoiler:

please do let us know what happened!

[madeinsixam]

Ok!

Wrapping up...

Spoiler:

Things were getting kind of tough. Here's Mircalla, worrying in the bathroom. I'd be worried too.



My system was no longer working quite so well. The tunnel was a decent idea, but:
- Mortia having door privileges meant she often went outside for various reasons, like stomping roaches or taking out the trash (other family members would try to do the latter as well, sometimes resulting in piles of it being left in the living room for a few hours)
- For some weird reason, Sims kept deciding the tunnel was the PERFECT place to play, blocking the way for everyone else. This was especially true of kids coming home from school. They'd just leave their homework right there on the floor and start playing.
- Keeping Sims from blocking the tunnel was a whole effort and required locking doors with some precise timing.



Things DID get better for a while. Before each set of kids was due to come home from school, I'd direct them to do an action inside (usually eating or sleeping) so they'd hurry along and I could close the door behind them. This worked fairly well. They'd usually sleep for a bit, wake up, raise their fun, do their homework, and sleep some more.



I also made some changes to the tunnel (remember, I built it so Sims wouldn't be as exposed to sunlight). I made it wider and added a little room to the side. I set up some tables in there, so kids could go and place their homework right away instead of milling about outside.



First blue-skinned baby, I think!



The homework room strategy didn't work 100% as I expected, because while some Sims were still putting down their homework and heading inside, others would head there to eat. Namely, Mortia.



You can see the teenagers trying to help out with their little siblings here. That baby was the last one in this group, being the 6th!



I even came up with the bright idea of having a buffet because trying to get everyone to eat meals before food went bad was just impossible.

Unfortunately, Mortia's tendency to randomly wander off (including wandering off after coming home from work) was the end of this challenge, because Mortia is the worst.

Anyway, I'd probably do things a bit differently, and I might eventually attempt this again Or I might just not use vampires.

Thank you for reading!

[peachy123uk]

Spoiler:

at least you gave it a try