How can we make pregnancy and infants more interesting? For this game or future ones

"SimsLovinLycan;c-17394665" wrote:
The best way to improve Babies is to actually give them some personality and activity as individual sims. Babies have always been treated very much like objects in these games, from the crib-bound babies of TS1 and TS4, to the floor baby problem in TS2, to the burrito babies of TS3. I've never really seen Babies done well in a Sims game. So:

1. Baby Personalities: Even as infants, human beings display individual personality traits. Some babies are very fussy and needy for attention, others are very quiet and only really cry when they're wet or hungry or sick, some babies are very giggly and smiley, some are very stoic and regard anyone who isn't Mama with calculating caution, some are easily startled, some would sleep through a herd of bison stampeding through the nursery...So, let's see that diversity in infant personality in sim Babies. Assign each Baby a random set of hidden personality traits at birth or allow the player to use some personality sliders to decide the Baby's starting personality profile. Depending on how the Baby is cared for, these base Baby traits can possibly morph into exclusive bonus traits that effect them for the rest of their lives.

2. Baby Skills, Movement, and Playability: Human infants are more than just a digestive system wrapped in a fleshy, immobile doll shell. They have levels of development even before learning to walk and talk. There's a point at which they learn to sit up, a point at which they learn to crawl, a point at which they start to figure out that whole Object Permanence thing, a point at which they start trying to stack that thing with the stick and the doughnuts, a point at which they start putting every everloving thing in their mouths in an attempt to understand what the heck those things are. Babies in TS4 should learn all of those skills and be playable through all of those early developmental experiences. Let's journey with them as they learn to crawl, to climb on furniture, what the cat's poop tastes like (My mom has a wonderful story about my dad leaving me unattended at a baby and me getting into the bag with our dog's poop in it and tasting it while his back was turned...), that objects don't disappear when you don't see them...all of that wonderful stuff! Let players play through that with their Baby sims if they want and experience the world through the eyes of someone who just got there!! It would be so cool if we could do that!!

3. Baby Toys and Furniture: Mini-pianos, the doughnut stacking tower thing, baby swings, walkers, play mats, playpens, plush blocks with jingle-bells inside them, clear balls with little marbles in them that fall through colorful panels with holes shaped like assorted things in them, cribside activity panels that make noises and play songs and are covered in colorful shapes and characters...those are just SOME of the things that people get for their babies in real life, most of which my own mom had for me and my siblings when we were babies. Sim Babies...have no toys, and no furniture except for cribs. This situation must be remedied.

Those are just three things that can be done to improve Babies in TS4...or any Sims title, for that matter. I mean, for such an important part of life, the Baby stage in this franchise has always been incredibly short and more centered on making the sim parents interact with this half-sim-half-object thing called a Baby than the Baby themself. It's a real shame, because the things that go on in the human brain and body during infancy are truly remarkable and it's a real missed opportunity not to explore that in an interactive medium like videogames...

"ListentoToppDogg;c-17396205" wrote:


I just hope they're as vocal about it one twitter as they are on youtube. That's the only place where the gurus are looking.