Survivor: Sims Edition! Let's Play Sims Castaway Stories!

WELCOME TO THE ISLAND

This LP features The Sims Castaway Stories, which is a game I hadn't even heard of until last week.

The Sims Stories series features three games. They are basically stripped down versions of The Sims 2, and were designed to run on laptops. Each features a story mode and free play mode. In Sims Life Stories and Sims Pet Stories, there is an introductory story that primarily serves to teach you how to play. The story is linear and there's no choices for you to make aside from the simple day-to-day priority management. The second story expands on some game mechanics and lets you make a choice at the end that impacts that household in some way when the game ends the story and moves the household into free play. Each game also comes with a sandbox neighborhood, should you decide to skip the story mode (though the incentive to play through the stories is the ability to unlock special items).

The Sims Castaway Stories is a bit different. Though the storyline is still linear, the game gives the player the sense that there is more control over the story outcome. Additionally, there is only one story instead of two (though it is quite longer than other stories).

In general, story mode does not let you pick your gender, skin color, friends, or let you enter build mode. The console is also neutered (so no cheats!). Castaway lets you choose which of two characters you want to play as, but I've already chosen since I'm the one stuck with the household when the story (and LP) concludes. ETA: Apparently you can choose a custom Sim to start out, but I didn't know before I started. Whups!

This LP is blind. I've played the other two games and finished their stories, but I've never played Castaway or any games like it. (Are there any Sims 2 expansions like it? I only have Nightlife and University.)

We will be playing as Jessica Knight, a sassy redhead from "the city" who goes on a singles cruise to find TRUE LOVE or something. Predictably, the ship crashes and she washes ashore.



Well, we're off to a great start!

Apologies for not getting better/more screenshots at the beginning, I was struggling with getting FRAPS to function how I wanted. Bladida knows what I'm talkin' about.

So, right, we're on the island. Jessica is miraculously alive, and appears to be the only survivor. She wakes up and is lookin' pretty good, all things considered.





What? What are you talking about?



Oh. That. Well I guess we'll go pick it up.



Well don't look so mopey about it. This axe might be your only friend, you know.

Actually I hope not. That would make this LP go into some morbid territory pretty quickly.

Jessica tries to help reassure me that this LP will be perfectly safe and totally not morbid.



Felicity Island it is! We begin to explore Felicity Island when a mysterious item is spotted!



Well obviously we have to go dig it up.



I like you, Jessica. Not afraid to get your hands dirty.



Ooh! It's the Steamer Trunk that saved us from certain death! THANKS, TRUNK!



I place Mr. Trunk next to Mr. Stick. They're our only friends, and a campground would not be right if friends can't stick together. Get it? Ahaha... yeah, just us and these awful puns. Boy I hope rescue comes soon.

Oh my goodness. I remember when I got this game--or some other Sims game involving being washed up on a desert island, possibly based on the Sims 2 engine instead--while full of great hopes and dreams.

I'm so, so sorry.

Yeah probably just he corpses of the other memebers of the ship washing ashore, but who cares about that right?

Google tells me that there is a game called Sims 2: Castaway, which is a console only release. I've not played any console versions of The Sims since... Playstation 1? I wouldn't even be able to tell you what the game was called, it was a long time ago.

Otherwise, this is the only other Castaway-themed game on the Sims 2 engine. There's no expansions for Sims 2 that are anything like it from what I can tell.

Oh, that was the one!

It was terrible. So terrible. SO TERRIBLE. Even aside from the horrors of game balance and mechanics and interface issues, it was hideously, hideously slow and laggy and buggy. With any luck, this one isn't half so bad.

Jessica is tired of my puns, and also thirsty, so she decides to climb a coconut tree.



Yeah, good luck with that.



Just shimmy on up.



DAMN, GURL. Well, that is something I certainly cannot do in real life. I would be so hosed if I were shipwrecked on a tropical island. Damn you, trees, for standing between me and sustenance!



So let's bust it open!



Jessica celebrates the fruit of her labor. Yes, I went there.

She then decides to show me up and climbs up another tree.



She proceeds to just hang out and monkey around.



Yes, this is going to be a painful LP.

(ETA: Holy pelvis glitch, batman! That looks kinda painful...)

Now that we've properly quenched ourselves, we need to gather materials to finish building our campsite. Materials can be gathered in a number of ways in this game, but for now all we can do is chop up a bunch of sticks. The cool thing is, they regenerate themselves after a period of time. The bad thing is, sticks don't yield a whole lot of resources.

*BEGIN BORING GAME MECHANICS EXPLANATION*


The HUD (or whatever you want to call it) is fairly similar to the regular Sims 2. Build mode is greyed out since we're in story mode, and buy mode is now called "barter mode" but is functionally the same. Another thing about story mode is that aging is turned off, in case you're a slow poke. This way your sim won't die before actually finishing the story, because that would be a huge bummer. Also instead of a clock we get a sun dial type thing.

The numbers at the bottom left are the most important for survival. The first is food, which I was given 20 units of off the bat. The second is resources, which are used to buy things in barter mode. Their value is about the same as a simolean, so those of you who have played any sims game before know that 43 is a pretty small number to work with. The campground items are functional and inexpensive but they really, really suck and are still "expensive" for what we start out with. The rest of the items are priced normally, and thus are out of our grasp. Perhaps one day we'll be able to afford a toilet!

Finally, there's our Goal and Wants. There's no Lifetime Achievement in story mode (but it does activate in free play). The story goals are usually adequate at keeping the aspiration meter at a decent level, and I usually ignore the wants during story mode. The three wants at present are pretty useless anyway; Jessica wants a rain collector (which is not even unlocked yet, let alone affordable), a lean-to (makeshift bed), and a bookcase. We'll see about the bed, out of necessity, but the other two are going to be ignored. The main goal is to build a fire pit, so that I can cook food and increase my temperature bar, which so far seems to not really do anything and has no tooltips telling me what it's for.

*END BORING GAME MECHANICS EXPLANATION*

Right. Choppin' up some sticks.



Don't worry, this isn't Mr. Stick, but one of the other four or so sticks in the area. I would never hurt you, Mr. Stick.



Jessica makes sawdust of all the sticks. Except Mr. Stick, of course.

Hey. You see that round thing at the top left? That's a coconut shell. THE coconut shell, that Jessica threw on the ground after she cracked it open for its juice. LITTERBUG. This place was pristine before this whole shipwreck business! So let's build a trash pit to put it in.



Here's our campsite! A trash pit for garbage disposal, a fire pit for cooking, Mr. Trunk, and Mr. Stick. All is as it should be.

Except for the fire pit. Something is missing.



AHA. Now we're good to go!

Upon our discovery of the sacred flame, it becomes dark.



I'll bet Mr. Stick resents your insinuation that he does not know how to throw a bitchin' party.

Unfortunately, I can't afford both a bed and a trash pit. So, I swap 'em out. Luckily, items don't depreciate over time, so we recover all of the resources. Woohoo!



Our new abode. There's some lighting bug right now that you can see in the top right. I have no idea why, but only the lot is dark, and not any of the surrounding areas.

Before we head to bed, I instruct Jessica to check out this suspicious patch of bamboo.



I wonder what it could be for?



...Oh.

Yeah, roughin' it is not glamorous.

Now that she's relieved her bladder, Jessica is ready to relieve herself of consciousness. She falls asleep in her new lean-to and promptly begins to dream about herself.



Girl's got self-confidence, I'll give her that.

THEN SUDDENLY A MOVIE HAPPENS



The cameraman is spying on her from the reeds. Also, now it's raining.



MR. TRUNK!



Uhh... Sasquatch?



Oh! A monkey! Complete with lighting glitches and Jessica dreaming about the friends she desperately hopes to see again some day.



Oh, no. OH HELL NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

End Chapter 1: Almost Paradise

YOU DO NOT FOOL ME, ORANGUTANS.
I HAVE READ MY POE.

Give them a break, Petalite , they're just monkeying around! No reason to go bananas.
I'll see myself out.

Ho hum, just looking at this here neat thread--

WAIT A SECOND MY MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE SENSE IS TINGLING

Best reference is best <3

ETA: Also, in the sims 2 proper, item value drops after midnight (or possibly 12 hours). Is that mechanic different here?

It appears so, as I've progressed quite a bit farther than this already and remodeled the living space several times.

God maxis stuff is still so ugly I had almost forgotten.

The lighting glitch is hilarious, though.

I don't play Sims games until I mod them so much that they don't look like Sims games any more.

Pretty much this. My Sims 2 game is nearly unrecognizable as Sims 2.

Except Sims 3 is apparently really hard to mod and also it's ridiculously hard to make attractive Sims and hair that doesn't look like three sizes too big for their heads....

Yeah, my Sims 2 game has a lot of CC in it. I don't think I can play it without any mods nor CC.

Sims 3 is harder to mod because EA is a bunch of idiots who just want to make money. It takes a while to make attractive Sims but I think it's worth it.

Sims 3 really isn't that hard to mod at all! (I have way too much CC for that to be true, haha.) If anyone ever needs help with CC for TS3, I might be able to help. I like to think my sims look okay/unique, though the gigantic hair issue is definitely a thing. People just love giant hair for some reason...

Jessica has pretty good survival skills for someone who lives in the city and was going on a singles cruise.

SAVE HIM MR. STICK

I play all of my Sims games as vanilla because I am hardcore.*


*Alternates: lazy, apathetic.

Another glitch I got (WHICH I DIDN'T EVEN FLAIL HARD ENOUGH AT TO SCREENSHOT ARGH) was a penguin that had spawned just outside of the property boundary, tried to get into the property, peed itself, then disappeared.

I just wanted to pet it... *sobbing forever*

We wake up the next morning to a new chapter! WOOHOO! We've survived our first night!



I told you Mr. Stick could throw a bangin' shindig. Oh, that's probably not what you're talking about.



Why is there litter on the ground? Jessica, were you sleep-littering? Damnit, I guess I need to build that trash pit agai--HEY WAIT A SECOND



WHY IS THE TRUNK OPEN?

Also how did I get more fruit than just coconuts?



Jessica, sometimes I wonder about your priorities.

I order her to chop up some of the sticks that magically grew back overnight, so there's enough resources to build a new trash pit.

By the time we get to it the garbage is starting to put off an odor.



Wait, where did Jessica get a trash bag from...?

Ugh, whatever just drop it into the pit.



That's better. Well, I feel better anyway. Except for that wrecked boat in the background. And it's still raining. Sigh.




At least she cares about the well-being of the fish.

Yeaaaah, I have literally several gigabytes of CC for Sims 2.

Everyone else but me can do it, apparently. I have only ever made one decent-looking Sim in Sims 3. I think I don't have the patience for it. It takes me over an hour to make a single Sim, so I just wind up not playing. Which sucks a lot.

That is the best glitch.

I think that's all for tonight.

Tomorrow: How many times will Jessica stab herself in her attempts to not harm fish? The answer may surprise you!

I spend about half an hour per sim, and end up with something relatively decent except for the mouth (and sometimes nose). Then again, I only just figured out how to make their faces less round, so now I think that all of my previous sims look a little deformed.

That's why I prefer The Sims 2. None of that unnecessary roundness that seems to infect the world of pudding.

I want to play it!! D:
Where did you get it? *-*
also...romance Mr. Stick :D

THIS. That's what bothers me the most, by far. No matter what you do, they always have really round faces. Even if they're stick-thin. It bothers me.

You can fix it using the "face width" option. I always thought that would turn them into skinny ovalheads, but you can make them look normal with it.

I've tried, but their cheeks are always really full no matter what, and if you bring that slider down they start looking like a skeleton with skin stretched over it. There's no real 'medium' and it gets to me after a while.

Try AwesomeMod and some custom sliders. That usually does the trick, as far as I've seen.

The one reason why I prefer Sims 2 than 3 is because of the availability of mods and custom content.

Plus, it's waaaay easier to make CC in Sims 2~ I just wish for Sims 3's progress story mode even if you're not playing with that household and the fact that you CAN interact with neighbors and the neighborhood in Sims 3. Otherwise though, Sims 2 is far by pretty decent.

If there's one thing I hope for Jessica, it's that by the end of this playthrough, she will be very much dapper. And fancier.

First off:


YYYYYOINK~ <3 new reaction imageeee

Second: well now i know what game i am totally getting legally mmhmm
Third: This whole thing is lovely and Alligator is lovely.
Fourth: I've made so many goddamn sims in TS3 and I understand completely what people mean when they say the people look kinda...doughy. They took an interesting design choice when making TS3, but I like to just think of TS2 and TS3 as completely different games. Otherwise I start making comparisons and complaining.

Mine was gifted to me through Origin, but from what I can tell it's not actually for sale there. I don't know how these things work D:

The other two games can be picked up off of Amazon for like $10 though. Castaway is probably my favorite of the three, because it seems less neutered than the other two compared to Sims 2, but that might have something to do with how a bunch of the items have been re-skinned to look tropical or whatever. Also, TATTOOS!

Castaway is like $70 on Amazon though so just keep your eyes peeled on eBay instead I guess? It's a good game, but it's not $70 good. If I had $70 I'd rather spend it on Complete Collection, which is an objectively shittier game, but has WAY more content, and is a game I already own (missing a disc though T_T).

If you're confident about buying from a reseller though, Amazon has used copies for as low as $30, which is much more reasonable.

The problem my dear friend is that I lack of dollars xD
Any other suggestion?
Sorry if it sounded rude! Didn't mean it THAT way...

If I knew of somewhere to get it free (legitimately), I'd pimp it the fuck out because this game is RAD.

When we left off, Jessica was whining about her au de island stench. Let's go swimming!

Another (minor) thing that sets Castaway apart from Sims 2 is that being an any body of water will improve the sim's hygiene score at about the same rate as using a bathtub or shower. Thank goodness.

It stops raining as soon as Jessica jumps into the water. Awesome!



Is that a fish? CAN WE CATCH FISH?



YESSSSSSSSS!!! Let's do this!



... What?




She missed the fish and stabbed herself in the foot. Times stabbed: 1.





She missed again. And stabbed herself again. Times stabbed: 2.



This might take a while.

WOOHOO! Jessica finally nabbed a fish, and only got stabbed twice! Now to cook it.



I just wanted to share with you all how angry she looks when she is trying to start a fire.



GRRRR! JESSICA WILL CONQUER NATURE!



Much better.



DAT FACE. How do you find your fish, m'lady?



Uhh... yeah, she likes it. Okay then.

So, now we are cleaned up and properly fed. What now?



What debris?



Oh, that debris!



Wait, Jessica, what are you doing?




A raft! Jessica, stop being secretly brilliant. Help me out here, I'm trying to get you off of this island too.

I then command her to go pick up some bamboo log things that were nearby. TAKE THAT!



She continues to do the hard part though.



Who still has scrunchies anymore? Let alone a whole trunk of them?

End Chapter 2: I Will Survive

Please tell me you can get a volleyball.


Wilson ;_;

There is not a volleyball.

See that green thing? The weird one that's out of place. Yeah, that one. Today is about that green thing. It's an ARROW.

But first, digging! Jessica is digging around in the sand for something.



There's, uh, nothing there. Or at least, I don't think there is?

Damnit, I hate when my Sim knows more than me!



Oh. HELL. Yes! MUTHATRUCKIN' MACHETE!

Now we can commit murder TWO ways! Not that there's anyone around to murder...



Or that. You can do that.



This game is horrible.



Okay, angry when lighting a fire, happy when using a machete on some bamboo. Duly noted.



That's why she's so happy about it?



I swear she's already snapped. She is so... serene.

So all the bamboo gets hacked down and she makes it down the trail.



NEW AREA GET! This place is called Broken Wings. The area our camp is set up in is called Castaway Beach.