[Beta]The Orphan Challenge

Introduction

I’ve always loved survival challenges, such as the runaway teen challenge. In my rotational story, the More the Wilder, I actually did one and enjoyed it. However, I also felt it was extremely easy. Part of this was because of the lot I chose. My sim, Marina, had easy access to a park where she could play as a sea monster to raise her fun meter and socialize with the kids. There was a public bathroom where she could relieve her bladder and, if you spammed the interaction, could fully restore her hygiene so I never had to leave her neighborhood at all. I wanted something more difficult. So, I give you the orphan challenge. It's evolved a lot since I first conceived it with the help of several forum users: @CitizenErased14 @Julyvee94 @Skyfri_Himmel @BabyDollAnne and @Emma-LeeXOXO . This challenge is still in beta because, to my knowledge, I am the only one to have ever completed it, so all feedback is appreciated.

Premise

Your teen has been orphaned along with their younger sibling. The dying wish of their parent was for your teen to keep the family together and take care of their younger sibling. Your teen takes it upon his or herself to raise the younger sibling without the interference of adults. Because people where your sims live would hear about the death in your sims family, your teen must take their sibling to a new town to start fresh and keep their promise.

Set up

1. Make a teenager and a child in CAS. They should be siblings. You must roll for the child’s trait (you may choose the aspiration if you so desire). Give your teen any traits except those that will help them most with the challenge: no Loves Outdoors, Creative, or Loner traits. Include a random adult with them for household placing purposes.

• Hard Mode (Option 1): For a more difficult challenge, give your teen additional siblings to start the game with. You may decide how many. Choosing either Hard Mode variant comes with additional rules. All Hard Mode rules must be followed in addition to normal rules. Some Hard Mode rules make modifications to normal rules which means you will abide by whatever the Hard Mode rules says.

Upon moving into your lot, kill the random adult you created with your siblings. You may then remove the sad moodlet with a cheat. To kill the sim, open the cheat bar and enable testing cheats then enter this cheat:

sims.add_buff buff_Death_ElderExhaustion_Warning

To remove the sad moodlet from your sims, enter this cheat for each of them:

sims.remove_all_buffs

2. Move your sims onto a lot. It can be any lot in any world. If there is a house there already, bulldoze it. Next, place trees/shrubs/flowers around your lot, leaving approximately a 10×10 area clearing in the center. The clearing doesn’t have to be exact; all of your lot is playable, but this clearing will be your main living area. You must place at least 10 outdoor plants around your lot. This will help you later in the challenge. Make sure to keep 1000 simoleons in reserve (800 for Hard Mode).

• Hard Mode Rule: You must start your game on either a 50×40, 50×50, or 64×64 lot.
  

Below are options for an easy start to the challenge. Easy starts have access to public bathrooms/party bushes and a large availability of harvestables.

• Easy start: Purchase any lot in a neighborhood with access to a public bathroom or party bushes. IE the island in Windenburg, the Goth neighborhood in Willow Creek, or the 50×40 neighborhood in Newcrest.
  

You may buy any plant life that you wish, as much as you wish (though you do not have to buy more than 10 plants). However, take note that any plants that you place on the lot must stay there until otherwise directed. They can be moved, but cannot be sold or placed into the family inventory.

You do not need to spend everything. Once you are satisfied with your lot, use the Money X cheat to reduce your funds to 1000 simoleons. Do this by enabling testing cheats and typing Money 1000 in the cheat bar.

• Hard Mode Rule: Before buying any plants, purchase the Knight of the Octagon Table Suit of Armor found in the statues category and place it in the family inventory. You can never sell it or take it out. This will inflate your bills.
  
• Hard Mode Rule: Instead of 1000 simoleons, reduce your funds to 800.
  

3. Because you are an orphan, not a run away, you start out with a little bit of money. Below is a list of items you may buy at the beginning of your challenge. You must purchase at least two items from this list (you may purchase more than two if money allows). You will be allowed to buy more items later, after you have earned the money to do so.

• Fire pit
  
• Bed (it may be a double)
  
• Tent (if you have Outdoor Retreat)
  
• Bench
  
• Chairs
  
• Lighting
  
• Toys
  

You may only buy one of any single item. For instance, you can have a fire pit and a bed, but you cannot have two beds.

Exceptions:

• You may purchase two toys if their price together amounts to 100 simoleons or less. You cannot buy a toybox, as it comes with toys in it.
  
• You may purchase two chairs instead of one bench. You cannot buy one bench and two chairs.
  
• You may purchase up to three lights.
  

If there is any money remaining, you may keep it.

4. As with many challenges, no mods/CC that would make things easier are allowed. Many CC beds have the highest stats and there is a mod to make all beds have the highest stats. Any CC items that costs 1 simoleon (mattresses, lights, etc) are prohibited. Story progression mods like MC Command Center are permitted, but any features that would make their lives easier are prohibited.

5. This challenge must be played on normal age settings.

6. No potions of youth, death flowers, or any other anti-aging/anti-death items may be used in this challenge. Any other reward potions or traits are permitted.

Gameplay:

1. Because appearances must be kept up and so much is digital now, your family does have electricity, running water, and one cell phone (your teens. Your child does not have a phone and it must be ignored). This means you have to pay the bills. If you fail to pay the bills, someone might come around to deliver a final notice and see what is going on. If you can’t pay the bills and both your water and electricity are shut off, you lose the challenge.

2. Nobody can know that anything is wrong at home, so your sims have to keep up appearances. They must attend school. Vacation days may be taken, but use them wisely.

3. Taking care of your sibling is a lot of work – your teen doesn’t have the time for a real job! Your teen cannot have a part time job.

4. Your teen takes his or her parenting responsibilities very seriously. Though your teen may not have time to do homework, your child must complete their homework every night.

5. It is important to your teen that their sibling’s childhood is as natural as possible. Your teen may harvest plants, start a garden, go fishing, dig, hunt for frogs etc., but you cannot choose for the child to do it without him/her having a wish for it. If however he/she has a wish to do any of these things, you are allowed to direct him/her to do the activity. If they do not have a wish for it, but still does it autonomously, that is okay and you may let them continue.

6. If you bought a fire pit, roasting any of the available options is allowed. You may also cook on grills. You may cook on community lots with stoves, but you can only make things you have the ingredients for (no recipes that require no ingredients).

• Hard Mode Rule: Nothing is free or comes from thin air. If your sims are going to eat, they have to have the food in their inventory. They may roast fish at the fire pit (you will have to drag a fish into the child’s inventory). In order to grill, you must move one fish into your family inventory and never remove it. After your teen achieves level 3 cooking skill, they may grill fish directly from their inventory. You cannot cook on community lots.
  

7. Traveling costs 10 simoleons. To remove the 10 simoleons, you may use the Money X cheat. Open the cheat box, type Money and the amount of simoleons your sims have, minus 10. (Ex: You have 1000 simoleons before traveling. Enter Money 990 in the cheat bar to pay for traveling.) Going to school does not count as traveling.

• Exception: Traveling within your neighborhood does not cost money. You may visit residences or community lots within your neighborhood because you could reasonably walk there.
  

8. You can use public bathrooms found around the world. You cannot use a public bathroom to raise your hygiene bar by repeatedly using the bathroom. (This does work, but it’s too easy. Don’t do it.) To shower, you must travel to a public lot such as a gym or spa. You cannot bathe at friend’s houses.

You can visit friends – you just can’t bathe while there. You cannot cook at a sim’s home unless you are good friends.

• Hard Mode Rule: Socialization is important. You must visit a friend’s house or a community lot (the park, a café, etc) with friends at least once a week. You may use the “make friends” option when you are at school in order to meet someone.
  

9. Where your teen goes, your child goes and vice versa. Your teen is very worried someone will notice something is wrong, and children aren’t exactly known for keeping their mouths shut. Therefore, they only go places together. This includes sick or vacation days! If your teen takes a vacation day, your child stays home too. How else can your teen make sure their sibling doesn’t say something they shouldn’t to the bus driver? Your teen may still go around their own neighborhood alone; their sibling does not need to accompany them when gathering harvestables or digging. If visiting a lot within your neighborhood, however, all sims in the household must go.

10. Your sims cannot throw parties of any kind or invite friends over.

11. The internet is a wonderful thing. Your teen can purchase almost anything online through their phone. Contractors and delivery people aren’t paid enough to ask questions. That means you may choose to buy something once you have saved up the money to do so. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Musical instruments
  
• Easels
  
• Children’s skilling objects (the science table or art table)
  
• Additional beds (if you only bought one before, you’ll probably want this)
  
• Walls
  

Some items cannot be purchased until you have a room to put them in.

• All plumbing items (sinks, toilets, showers)*
  
• --- Exception: If you have Outdoor Retreat, you may purchase and use the It’s a Shower Tarp! shower without having a room for it.
  
• Stoves or refrigerators
  

Before you can have any of these items, you must build a room with four walls and a door. It does not need to have wallpaper.

12. Once you own a refrigerator, you are not restricted to having the necessary ingredients to make a recipe.

• Hard Mode Rule: Despite owning a refrigerator, your sims still may not eat quick meals. (Water is fine if they own a sink.)
  

13. Once you have purchased a shower, mood showers are allowed for both your teen and child sims.

14. Mood-altering items found in buy mode are allowed but you cannot use cheats to get them. Only what is legally purchasable may be used. Ex: You can buy and drink coffee to become energized.

15. Children with an art table can secretly help out the family pocket book. Drawings can be sold via the inventory.

Aging Up

You think you can breathe easy once your teen ages up to a young adult, but you’re wrong. Their sibling is still a teen and needs to be taken care of. If CPS saw the way you were living, they’d take them away in a heartbeat. However, on the bright side, teens are more trustworthy than children and can be left alone.

1. You cannot age up either of your sims until their life bar starts to sparkle. Once their life bar sparkles, you may bake a cake or allow the game to age them up. You cannot throw a birthday party.

2. You may now choose your now-adult’s trait. You cannot choose his/her sibling’s teenage trait or aspiration. You must roll for this, using a trait randomizer.

3. Your now-adult sim can get a job if you so desire. Your now-teen sim, however, cannot. Your adult wants their sibling to focus on school and being a kid.

4. Your now-teen is now allowed to help out by mopping up puddles, washing dishes, cleaning things, or taking out the trash, but cannot repair or upgrade objects unless prohibited by a trait restriction.

However, your teen still has a chance of making money to help support the family.

Trait and Aspiration Specific Rules

• If they roll the Creative trait or related aspirations, they may paint, write, or play music for tips/license songs.
  
• --- Sims without the creative trait can still play musical instruments, but not for money.
  
• If they roll the Geek trait or Computer Whiz aspiration, they may enter game tournaments and program.
  
• --- Sims without this trait or aspiration may still play video games, just not for money.
  
• If they roll the Genius trait, they may take up woodworking and repair/upgrade objects or enter game tournaments and program.
  
• If they roll the Chief of Mischief aspiration, they may hack on the computer.
  
• If they roll the Nerd Brain aspiration, they may take up woodworking and repair/upgrade objects but cannot enter game tournaments or program.
  
• If they roll Loves Outdoors or a nature aspiration, they may garden, dig, fish, and hunt for frogs.
  
• If they roll Materialistic or a wealth aspiration, they may take a part time job.
  
• If they roll a family aspiration, you may choose one activity from any of the options for them to do. They care deeply about their family, after all, and want to help out.
  

If your teen had any of these traits as a child, the rules still apply, however, if they roll a new trait from this list or one of the aspirations, you must choose which activity they will do – they cannot do both. Ex: your child has the Loves Outdoors trait and rolls Materialistic as a teen. They cannot garden and have a job.

If they do not roll one of these traits, the same rules apply from childhood. If you own an easel and they autonomously start to paint, for example, you may allow them to finish (and even direct them to complete the painting at a later date) and sell it. You cannot send them to start it, however.

Additional trait rules and restrictions

• Slob: They can never clean up around the house. The dirty dishes and puddles don’t bother them, so why should they clean it up? If they autonomously decide to clean, stop them.
  
• Foodie: They want to cook all the time. This is great, but food isn’t free. Still, that saves your adult from cooking. If your teen rolls the foodie trait, they can now cook all of the meals for the family. However, if they begin to cook (the money is taken from your account) you cannot stop them. This could result in extraneous food, but that’s the price you pay for having a foodie around.
  
• --- If they do not roll this trait, cooking is the adult’s responsibility unless your teen autonomously begins to cook or has a wish to do so.
  
• Childish: You thought your days of toys were behind you? Wrong. You can’t sell any old toys and must buy a new toy whenever your teen gets a wish for one.
  
• Lazy: Similar to a slob, they don’t care as much about the messes around them because they just can’t be bothered. Do not direct them to clean or repair broken objects. If they autonomously do these things, that is allowed.
  

4. Now with a young adult in the house, your sims are not quite as worried about people peeking over and seeing that it’s two kids on their own. Your sims are glad now that they live on such a woody lot because they can now get money for all that wood. You may completely bulldoze their lot and build something new if you wish. Before bulldozing, put anything you are keeping into your family inventory (if you rolled a childish teen, for example, you need to save all of their toys). You do not have to completely bulldoze however. You may sell off anything that you no longer wish to have on your lot.

5. Having a young adult around sure is great. Nobody is very worried about other people interfering, so they are happy to open up their home. Your sims may now throw parties and invite over friends.

Now that your sim has a job (or is at least able to pursue money making full time), there’s more money to go around. All sims in the house may use cellphones.

6. Hard Mode (Option 2): Now a young adult, your sim gets a little carried away celebrating their birthday out on the town. Impregnate a sim (or yourself if you are playing a female sim) within the fifth day from your YA birthday. If you are playing as a male, move the mother in until the baby is born, then move her out, as she abandons her child; she cannot bring any money into the household. If she does, you must use the Money X cheat to remove it. If you are playing a female sim, your sim may not move the baby’s father in at any time.

• Choose only one Hard Mode option (unless you wish for an Extreme Hard Mode challenge, in which case, you may choose both options).
  

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Winning in Normal Mode or Hard Mode (Option One)

To win the challenge, both of your sims (or more, if you are playing with additional siblings) must survive to young adulthood. If any sibling dies or is taken away, you immediately lose.

Winning in Hard Mode (Option Two)

To win this way, you must successfully raise your teenage sibling and your new child. You have won when you have a home with at least three bedrooms of 4×4 size or larger, one bathroom, one kitchen, and one living room, your sibling is a young adult, and your child is a teen or older. Essentially, you must now have a respectable home and your sims must not die of unnatural causes.

You immediately lose the challenge in any mode:

• Accidental death
  
• Social worker visits
  
• All utilities are shut off
  

Optional Scoring

- 2 for not completing homework (applies to all but main sim)
- 2 for not paying the bills within the first 24 hours
- 5 for peeing self
- 5 for passing out
- 10 for fire
- 10 for failing school

+ 3 for main sim completing homework/daily work task
+ 5 for anyone completing an aspiration milestone
+ 10 for completing an aspiration (child or adult)
+ 10 for A in school
+ 20 for maxing a skill (half that for photography and dancing)

There is a handy dandy Score Sheet made by the fabulous @ra3rei that you can use to keep track of your challenge.