Mystery Mansion Challenge

Inspired by the famous Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, the Mystery Mansion Challenge is a build challenge that encourages you, the player, to construct the largest, most eccentric and intricately designed house imaginable.

It begins with a matriarch who is cursed with an irrational fear of gnomes. Having watched her father get electrocuted by a gnome-spawned lightning bolt when she was very young, after he failed to appease one of the mischievous garden statues visiting that day, she believes that the only way to keep herself safe is to perpetually build an elaborate maze of a home in order to confound and confuse any gnomes that may come to harm her.


GETTING STARTED

• First, set aging to normal in the options menu, then create one young adult female sim in Create-A-Sim. You may give her whatever name you’d like, but her first name must have the word “Lady” in front of it. For example: Lady Jane.
  
• Give her the aspiration of Mansion Barron and assign her with the following two traits: “Erratic”, and “Creative”. You may choose any trait you’d like for the third trait.
  
• Buy an lot 50 x 40 or larger. If you need to evict and bulldoze another sim’s property for your mansion, feel free to do so.
  
• Use the Set Household Funds Money Cheat and set household funds to zero.
  

GAME PLAY RULES

• At no point can the matriarch’s aspiration be changed before it is completed－and it must be completed before she dies of old age－after which, you are free to choose a new aspiration for her while she’s still alive.
  
• You may not extend the matriarch's lifespan with either the Potion of Youth or turning her into a vampire. All building must be done throughout her one and only normal life.
  
• Your matriarch may never have a job or, if you have Get to Work or Dine Out, run a business. She must start earning money to build her mansion by either fishing, collecting, and/or gardening (no money trees!). Later on, when she can afford it, she may earn additional income through the creative arts such as painting, sculpting, writing/publishing books, creating/publishing music, knitting (Nifty Knitting) and juice fabrication (Eco Lifestyle). All crafted items must be sold directly from the matriarch's inventory; that means no conducting yard sales using a sales table (City Living, Jungle Adventure, Eco Lifestyle) or selling your wares at the flea market (City Living) or at a community space marketplace (Eco Lifestyle). The more she earns, the more she builds.
  
• Your matriarch is allowed to marry another sim, but her spouse can only move in after they are married! She is not allowed to keep her spouse's money when he/she moves in－use the Set Household Funds money cheat again to subtract the incoming amount. You are also not permitted to invite any other sims to come and live with you (butlers are fine).
  
• Spouses and teen children, should she choose to have any, are not permitted to have a part time job or career. They, like the matriarch, can only earn income through digging, gardening, fishing and using their creative skills. Once her children become young adults, they must immediately move out of the house.
  
• Bonus: If you have Seasons installed, create a holiday in each season called “Gnome Attack” with the Holiday Gnomes tradition applied to it. When that day comes, the matriarch will have to defend herself from the attacking statues by kicking and destroying them when they come to visit. If you don’t have Seasons, don’t worry. Just hide 13 gnome statues in unusual places throughout the build instead.
  

BUILDING RULES
You are free to build her mansion in any architectural style you’d like so long as her home contains ALL of the following details:

3 hidden passageways

3 balconies

13 total rooms--a room is anything with 4 walls that sims can access via a door or archway. In order for a room to be considered complete, it must be decorated with wallpaper on all 4 walls, flooring and at least 1 piece of furniture in it.

13 windows on interior walls

13 total stairs－this can include porch stairs, deck stairs, main staircase, stairs that go nowhere, etc.

13 dead ends－these can be halls that have no exit, doors that open to a blank wall, corners that turn toward nothing, etc.

An altar for the matriarch with a painted portrait of her hanging above it (have a spouse or family member paint it for her)

A “door to nowhere”－a randomly placed door that opens to the outside but isn’t connected to any porch, balcony or stairs.

A gazebo

Attic space that sims can access

Basement

1 free-standing tower 2-4 stories high connected to the main house via bridge/catwalk on one of the upper floors

A fountain

Don't be afraid to go a little crazy with the design. You are trying to build the most labyrinthine mansion possible, after all.


FINISHING THE GAME

• Upon the matriarch’s death, all building and decorating must stop immediately and her urn must be placed on the altar you created for her. If she has any family, move them out of the house and change the lot type from Residential to Museum in build mode.
  
• The Mystery Mansion Challenge is won when the mansion contains all the items from the list above, everything that is involved in the Mansion Barron aspiration, and the interior and exterior of the build are as close to finished as possible before the matriarch dies of old age.
  

Should you choose to upload your mansion to the Sims 4 gallery, please do so with the hashtag #mysterymansionchallenge.

Thank you and good luck!