Back to your saved games?

I go back to old saves when I need a picture from the time I played that generation, or just for old time’s sake. But more importantly: I return to old saves whenever I get a bug or glitch and then old saves are lifesavers. That’s not really old saves though, obviously ;) That concerns a few saves back at most.

I usually go back a save if something didn't go to plan.

It depends. Most of the time I just need a break and it may take me a few months but I do go back to that save. Like my Carp family/LEPacy challenge is almost 9 generations in. I don't intend on dumping that save.

Oh yes, lots. It's so much fun to load up an old save that I don't even remember and see what was going on. It's like seeing old friends!

I have several stories that I go back to. They are just on hold while I start a new story. So, yes, I go back to old saves all the time.
I have one family saved in a porter file that I plan to play again when I can add all my stuff back into a new puter, whenever that might be. :)

I've got a lot of older saves I want to get back into and some I just put on hold while I play my apocalypse challenge though I have another user account on this computer and can play in my other active Sims 3 folder with legacy challenges or my 100 baby challenge.

I have saves that go back to June 2009. I love going back to them occasionally and introducing those old families to all the shiny new things that are available in the game.

The other reason I like to go back to old saves is my style for making sims has changed a lot over the years and I like a big variety of sims in my games and giving my old sims, from 2009 and 2010 etc... a makeover with custom skin and hair helps me to add variety to the look of sims in my games now.

And, some old saves were games I really loved and got corrupted. Now I have mods that can fix them so I can do the necessary repairs and grab the Sims out of them for new games.

I've got the first pair of sims I ever made in my Big Game and they were in one of my recent videos.

I have made a video of Ella playing the the sprinkler for YouTube. Ella was the fifth Sim I made in 2009. I still have all 5 of them in my games.

The first two sims I made in June 2009 are a mother and daughter, Hawkins is their last name, can't remember their first names at the moment as I have hardly played them.

Then I made Patience who I refer to often and she is the matriarch of my Big Game with her 15 (now 16) children who have families of their own now. The 16th child is a son from one of the old games I opened. He is married with his family of 6 children. I can't find his siblings - I think the game got corrupt and I only managed to save him back in 2010 when I was playing it. I found that game recently and gave his family a makeover, used Master Controller to add him to Patience's family tree (she was his mother in the original game) and now Patience has 16 children in my Big Game. I'd love to find the rest of the old family but I suspect it is long gone.

https://i.postimg.cc/SsgvFqTy/Patience002.jpg
Original version of Patience

Next came Marcie who was made to be a live in nanny to Patience in some of my earliest games.

https://i.postimg.cc/V6DY061y/Marcie002.jpg
Marcie with new clothes

Just found the original Marcie from an old 2009 game.
https://i.postimg.cc/HxnfbhbM/Marcie003.jpg

And then I made Ella to replace Marcie occasionally. More rencently I've turned Ella into a mermaid and gave her a makeover and a new name. So I've got a couple of versions of Ella running around in my Big Game.

https://i.postimg.cc/J7G9wgBR/Estelle001.jpg
This is the original Ella turned into a mermaid. This version of her is named Estelle.

https://i.postimg.cc/xdWhrDhh/Julia002.jpg
This is Julia. She's Ella with new makeup, skin and hair and turned into a mermaid.

Another I made as a nanny back then was Maria. She sat in my library without being used for several years before I finally married her to a son of Marcie and Marty in my Big Game. Maria is now happily the mother of 5 which will allow her to eventually get her Lifetime Wish. She and Mark live in Lucky Palms in my Big Game and their eldest son, Mike, is a friend of Oscar from Oscar's Childhood series. I don't seem to have an easy to find picture of Maria, but she is in the Oscar's Childhood videos.

https://i.postimg.cc/52YD7gGc/Sally007.jpg
After I made Maria I made Sally. She's been in a lot of games too. She's had a lot of babies over the years but I've always abandoned her games before they grew beyond toddlers. However, in my Big Game a few of them have made it to become children and I've discovered, so far, they seem to strongly resemble their mother.

https://i.postimg.cc/KjYYrxNQ/Stephanie-Bartlett008.jpg

This is Stephanie, one of Sally's children.

After Sally I don't currently remember who I've made, but it runs into the hundreds and I have kept most, if not all of them. I have games backed up on DVD's and external hard drives. Occasionally I go looking for something and find an old game from way back and can't resist opening it and seeing who might be lurking inside.

This is Phyllis. I made her when Isla Paradiso was released. She recently got a makeover and became stunning, but this is her original version.
https://i.postimg.cc/VvwjmBhr/PhyllisKluver001.jpg

Another old sim I pulled out of an old game is Kitty. She's probably from 2010 or 11. She was originally a member of an 8 sim household. After I gave up on playing families due to broken family trees I played households of 8 unrelated young adults for a few years. I got a lot of new sims that way as when I got tired of a household I'd make another one. I have them all, I think, and I've got the versions with skills and sometimes I have the unskilled versions too. A lot of the 'townies' I've added to my Big Game started out this way.

This is Kitty - she married an imaginary friend of one of Patience's daughters.

https://i.postimg.cc/LXxcHHh5/Kitty020.jpg9


So, in answer to your question I do keep old games and go back to them and reuse sims I find in them. I also keep my files created by doing SaveAs because when I make my videos I often have to go back and record a bit more of something for my stories.

I don't. I always say I'm going to then I just don't lol.

I never really need to go back to backup saves. The only time I faced corruption in a save, I was able to move the family using the phone to another neighborhood, so the backup save wasn't needed.

On the other hand, saves that have other families/towns I keep coming back, because each of them is kinda special. I have only two saves that I haven't played in years, from the time the game was new and I didn't even have expansions. One is the save of my simself. Currently, I'm playing with aging and story progression (all other saves, except for the one with my simself and the current one have these disabled), so I'm staying on the same save for quite a while. If I get bored, I will probably go back to my favorite family.

I'll go to my saved games mostly. Starting from scratch can be daunting!