Local News Kit - a different take on memories and the family album
A thing I sometimes do is take screenshots of my sims watching TV and then replace the TV’s contents with screenshots from my rotational save in a photo editing program. That way it looks as if they were watching news about recent events in their world.
A speech of the mayor:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b54fd5a798dd3f8e23abdb335a755a27/52b82fbfa2a7209b-1f/s500x750/c5c71520e15d8fb9c59800c9f3ffdb3f3f8c77a5.png
A demonstration:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b20c5e793a797413d27e6733b94b67c0/6183afa4086891e3-1f/s1280x1920/ab63a7b210db1163f3df9865ebf3e4403155e3f5.png
Sims Sessions:
https://abload.de/img/24.08.21_23-37-13mxjqa.png
When Dream Home Decorator introduced the Before-After slide shows I thought that maybe this would be a good basis for creating custom news at TV and computer. Custom news are a different take on the memories and family album and could come in a kit or basegame update.
There would be a new option, “Watch Local News” on both devices.
TL;DR: The player selects seven screenshots, captions them and the game makes them into a slide show that can then get watched at TVs and computers.
The player creates local news from their own screenshots, using a new menu option on the TV and computer: “Create Local News”:
- Choose up to seven screenshots
- Add a short caption to each, for example “Fire at the Phillips residence – was it arson?”
- All filter options are available (for players of the Decades challenge and similar before color TV)
- Can override one of the seven slots anytime
- Once saved to the slide show, the original screenshot can safely get moved out of the screenshot folder (for players like me who clean out theirs regularly)
Now if a sim chooses to watch the local news channel, they see a slide show created from those seven pictures. They cet to see what the other households have been up to all week. The sims react normally, the way they do to the normal news channel, and the player can reminisce about all the chaos their other households created recently.
Of course you are not limited to reporting events that happened, you can also announce events this way. Got a charity party planned in the calendar? Why not snap a screenshot of your host and broadcast it on the local news? And then, after the party, you replace this picture with a new one that highlights a scene from the party.
But I don’t play rotationally!
In this case you can fill all seven slots with screenshots from your own household and make the news all about them! For celebrity sims that would even be a genuine option.
But you could also use the system in creative ways, like putting a series of screenshots with captions that make a comic. In this case the “Local News” station would air a cartoon show, not news.
Another option would be to allow the game to randomly snap screenshots of notable events and add one word captions to them: “Fire”, “Argument”, “Starlight Accolades”, “Wedding”. The downside of this is that sometimes important events like your daughter meeting her future husband would get skipped in favor of your neighbor catching his fish or so, and that automated screenshots are not as good as player made ones.
Maybe the player could also import files up to a certain size from your computer instead of using screenshots. (The second screenshot I posted is an example of this, it uses footage from a different game.)
And finally, for players who find the whole thing intrusive, the “Create local news” and “Watch local news” buttons can be hidden and unhidden from the TVs and computers.
Would you use such a feature? How would you improve my concept?
A speech of the mayor:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b54fd5a798dd3f8e23abdb335a755a27/52b82fbfa2a7209b-1f/s500x750/c5c71520e15d8fb9c59800c9f3ffdb3f3f8c77a5.png
A demonstration:
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b20c5e793a797413d27e6733b94b67c0/6183afa4086891e3-1f/s1280x1920/ab63a7b210db1163f3df9865ebf3e4403155e3f5.png
Sims Sessions:
https://abload.de/img/24.08.21_23-37-13mxjqa.png
When Dream Home Decorator introduced the Before-After slide shows I thought that maybe this would be a good basis for creating custom news at TV and computer. Custom news are a different take on the memories and family album and could come in a kit or basegame update.
There would be a new option, “Watch Local News” on both devices.
TL;DR: The player selects seven screenshots, captions them and the game makes them into a slide show that can then get watched at TVs and computers.
The player creates local news from their own screenshots, using a new menu option on the TV and computer: “Create Local News”:
- Choose up to seven screenshots
- Add a short caption to each, for example “Fire at the Phillips residence – was it arson?”
- All filter options are available (for players of the Decades challenge and similar before color TV)
- Can override one of the seven slots anytime
- Once saved to the slide show, the original screenshot can safely get moved out of the screenshot folder (for players like me who clean out theirs regularly)
Now if a sim chooses to watch the local news channel, they see a slide show created from those seven pictures. They cet to see what the other households have been up to all week. The sims react normally, the way they do to the normal news channel, and the player can reminisce about all the chaos their other households created recently.
Of course you are not limited to reporting events that happened, you can also announce events this way. Got a charity party planned in the calendar? Why not snap a screenshot of your host and broadcast it on the local news? And then, after the party, you replace this picture with a new one that highlights a scene from the party.
But I don’t play rotationally!
In this case you can fill all seven slots with screenshots from your own household and make the news all about them! For celebrity sims that would even be a genuine option.
But you could also use the system in creative ways, like putting a series of screenshots with captions that make a comic. In this case the “Local News” station would air a cartoon show, not news.
Another option would be to allow the game to randomly snap screenshots of notable events and add one word captions to them: “Fire”, “Argument”, “Starlight Accolades”, “Wedding”. The downside of this is that sometimes important events like your daughter meeting her future husband would get skipped in favor of your neighbor catching his fish or so, and that automated screenshots are not as good as player made ones.
Maybe the player could also import files up to a certain size from your computer instead of using screenshots. (The second screenshot I posted is an example of this, it uses footage from a different game.)
And finally, for players who find the whole thing intrusive, the “Create local news” and “Watch local news” buttons can be hidden and unhidden from the TVs and computers.
Would you use such a feature? How would you improve my concept?
