TS4: Time Won't Mean a Thing (Part 22)

The Sims 4: Time Won't Mean a Thing

The day had started like any other.

Nosco had woken up and headed directly for the radio, ready to dance his day away, as was usual for him since he retired. I think he's doing it to keep himself in shape considering he wasn't really working out otherwise. Lilith, as she does every morning, tended to her garden...

...before joining her mother in the pool for a quick swim before work.

Once Lilith had made her way to work, a notification popped-up on the screen. I assumed it was to notify me of her departure for work, but I quickly noticed it had Nosco's portrait on it, and not Lilith's. When I finally found him, he was still dancing without a care in the world... until he started twitching.

Nosco fell to his knees and checked his pulse.

I could do nothing but watch. I guess a heart attack was to be expected, considering he didn't really work out throughout his life. Perhaps his heart gave out under the stress of all the dancing he was doing. Regardless of the reason, Nosco had finally reached the end of his long life.

As he lay there, waiting for Grim to come and reap him, his life flashed before his eyes.

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As his heart beat its last, the reaper finally came up to collect its due.

Nosco Sabruka was buried in his back yard, where he and Myllenium had chosen to be their final resting place. His wife, now a widow, mourned him for a long time.

Due to the way The Sims 4 takes screenshots, we're not seeing the foliage I set up to make the place prettier, so here's a better shot:

And so ends the story of Nosco Sabruka.

TS4: Oh Yeah, I Say, Life Goes On (Part 21)

Sorry I'm late! And you thought I wouldn't update this Let's Play again. Oh ye of little faith... In other news, I'm making the images bigger! So you can see them better. That's... that's an improvement...

OK, fine, I owe you an explanation. See, I really liked this series, but I found that simply following the day-to-day awkward shambling of simulated beings could be quite... dull. So I was trying to come up with a plot, a story if you will, to keep things interesting and fresh. But with Nosco and Myllenium's lives running out, I had to come up with something before they, um, made friends with worms. Anyways, I've got something now, which will begin in the next update (sorry, this one will be lacking in excitement), so updates should not be as few and far-between anymore.

Enjoy!

The Sims 4: Oh Yeah, I Say, Life Goes On

Ever since Isabel's death, life wasn't the same around the Sabruka Cottage. While Myllenium and Nosco barely knew her (actually, did they even speak once?), Lilith took her death quite hard, moping around for a few weeks and generally looking sad. Her job performance was affected, so I decided to try to cheer up the household... with a makeover!

I started by renovating the upstairs office. Two computers felt like too many, and visitors would always end up there, so I took one out. I decided to make the whole place cozier and add a few other commodities to make it homelier, with the help of the in-game design tools (the game provides some design tools and example rooms for those less creatively-gifted, such as myself).

Once that was done, I turned to the fact that I had two living rooms, and exactly 0 were used at any given time. I wanted to keep one, but the other one would have to go. It was a good thing I decided to check up on the living rooms, because unbeknownst to me Myllenium was on fire. Literally.

Didn't this exact thing happen before?

Lilith was at work, so it was up to Nosco to rescue her, but he was busy... running away.

Either he was fearful of the fire, or had some other nefarious plan. In the end, I managed to force him back into the house to save his wife from an untimely and painful death. No harm done, but Myllenium is now banned from getting near the fireplace. I took advantage of the damaged living room to renovate it.

It still feels kind of empty, so I will probably end up tearing down and rearranging the walls to make it cozier. Large, empty rooms have always felt awkward and cold to me. Anyways, I'll see what I can do.

Once Lilith came home from work, she immediately went upstairs to work out with her mother in their brand-new gym, where the old TV room was.

That bookshelf-hidden-door is now hiding an empty room. I don't know what to do with it.

Now, with the pool update, which added the ability to build pools, I decided to also remodel the back yard, see if I can get the characters to spend more time outside. I moved the table over to the other side of the balcony next to a small rock garden I made in a corner. I took advantage of the extra space to expand the balcony and have some of it under the sun, as it was previously shadowed by the solarium.

I took down the gazebo I had put at the back and replaced it with a modest pool and a small patio.

I was worried that all of this was for nothing, but the Sabrukas are really enjoying spending their time in the sun, swimming in their pool.

Nosco, what the f*ck do you have on your head??

That's it for this update. I know, I know, coming back after a short hiatus you would expect something better, but I promise the whole story thing I was talking about will begin with the next update (which won't be long, but where something will actually happen). Until then, I'll leave you with a shot of all the masterwork paintings Myllenium did during her life. Cheers!

TS4: Mors Certa, Hora Incerta (Part 20)

The Sims 4: Mors Certa, Hora Incerta

Have I talked about the cowplant before? The cowplant, also known by other names throughout the series, such as Laganaphyllis Simnovorii or the mutant plant, is the strange hybrid between what appears to be a Venus flytrap and a cow, as the name implies. It is usually an achievement to grow one, as it usually requires a high skill level to acquire. In TS4, it requires a high gardening skill in order to graft plants together.

I discovered by accident that if you graft a cherry to a snapdragon plant, you can get some dragon fruit. Experimenting further, grafting a dragon fruit to the same snapdragon plant will yield some cowberries, which when planted will grow into a cowplant. Of course, when I found out, I immediately set out to grow one myself.

And after some time, the cowplant grew.

Of course, you don't give the same care to an animal-plant hybrid that you would give to a regular garden vegetable, now. It requires regular feeding to avoid expiring.

Myllenium and Nosco have not done much since last time. They have been enjoying their retirement, relaxing and letting their pension pay for their outings and lavish lifestyle. Lilith on the other hand had to work hard to get a promotion in her career, but she eventually managed to get promoted to the position of Serious Musician.

She also spent her spare time gardening, playing music and working out.

She also became best friends with Isabel, whom I introduced to you earlier. However, over time I noticed that Isabel was becoming sadder and sadder. A little prying revealed that she had been arguing constantly with her family, so I decided to try something out; I would invite her to live with the Sabrukas for a few days, but wouldn't control her at all.

Then it all went horribly wrong.

See, one thing I did not know is that when you forget to feed a cowplant, it will attempt to nourish itself... by luring unsuspecting sims and devouring them.

Since I wasn't controlling Isabel, I wasn't checking to see if she was hungry or not. When I finally found her trying to eat the cake tongue, it was already too late.

The action had begun, and there was no turning back now.

This is the last picture taken of Isabel.

And just like that, she was gone.

The grim reaper showed up to reap her soul.

I felt bad about the whole thing, so I had Nosco move her gravestone from the yard to the local cemetery (although now that I think of it, I could have her interred in the Sabruka graveyard...).

Later, I saw that a new option to milk the cowplant had appeared, and doing so yielded a strange drink labelled Essence of Isabel's Life. I'm not sure what drinking this would do, so out of respect for poor Isabel I had it displayed in the solarium.

Lilith was, of course, devastated by the loss of her friend.

In Isabel's honour, she spent some time playing the violin at her grave, something she did almost every day off she had. Lilith had lost her first, and only, friend.

But I don't think she would remain friendless for long. Lilith invited Isabel's brother and sister (whose names evade me right now) over to extend her condolences, and she ended up befriending Isabel's sister; turns out they were twins, and share the same interests.

Twins they may be, the only physical resemblance seems to be the hair colour.

Well, I won't make the same mistake again. The next person moving in to the Sabruka Cottage will be Lilith's husband or wife.

Oh yeah, I also threw out the cowplant.

Anyways, that's it for now!