The Ambrosia Challenge! (Beta Testers Needed!)
THE AMBROSIA CHALLENGE
This challenge is only PARTIALLY tested. Desperately looking for some devoted Beta testers to try this out and help me tweak the rules as necessary :blush:
Note: This challenge was inspired by my SimLit story, Dust to Dust, and was created with storytelling in mind (though it could be fun to just play as well!). You do not have to adhere super closely to these rules and can be as creative as you want! Some of the very specific rules (like encountering the Grim Reaper) can be tweaked as you see fit.
Outdoor Retreat is required to successfully complete this challenge If you do not have OR and are scoring, begin the challenge with 900 points instead of 1000 to compensate for your advantage, and disregard the herbalism skill requirement and visit to Granite Falls :)
Setup:
- Played on normal lifespan
- You may use money cheats for this challenge to build your house (or buy your house)
Step One:
- Start this challenge with a YA Sim, with at least one other sim in the house (If you prefer, they can be a teen, but age up to a YA while you play, if you'd like to give them a little more of a backstory).
- Your Sim can have any traits or aspiration you want*** (See “Optional Challenge” section for more on this)
- This sim MUST die before they reach the halfway point of Young Adulthood, and before they have completed their aspiration. How they die does not matter.
- Leave their urn or grave on the lot.
Step Two:
- Now, move a single YA into the house (now haunted by the ghost).
- Move out the surviving family members/other sims from the household.
- Use cheats to add the ghost to your family the first time they appear
- Build a basement beneath your house with no entrance. This is the inside of your ghost's "Grave", where they live during the day. Use shift+click to "teleport" them to this grave area during daylight hours. They MUST be teleported to the surface between sundown and sunrise. (You can equip the grave with a toilet/kitchen/bed/etc if you don't want to use cheats for your ghost. My preference is to always have your ghost's needs cheated to be full with no decay, since "realistically", ghosts wouldn't have any need of eating or sleeping or going to the bathroom, etc)
NOW the challenge can really begin!
Object: Gather the necessary ingredients and create Ambrosia to resurrect the ghost that is haunting your sim’s house. You must complete this goal in as few generations as possible.
Rules:
1. Only ONE sim may work on the Ambrosia cure at a time (if a sim dies before a step is completed, their heir may pick up where they left off!)
2. Your sim may only work on ONE step of the Ambrosia cure at a time.
3. Only the child chosen as heir of each generation may know about the ghost’s existence and work on their cure.
4. The ghost is not allowed to be seen by (or interact with) ANYONE but the family’s heirs.
5. The ghost is NOT allowed to work on their aspiration until they are resurrected
6. Your sim’s work toward finding the Ambrosia is a secret, and must not interfere with their day-to-day lives. Each heir MUST have a career and complete their lifetime aspiration before their death (their knowledge of ghosts has reminded them that they must live life to the fullest!). They also must have at least two friends who do not live in their household.
7. Any graves (other than the original ghost’s grave) must not be kept on the lot. Only one ghost will be haunting this house, sorry!
8. Your ghost may never leave the lot. They are bound to their grave.
9. You may not use the wishing well to help in anyway
In the beginning: Your ghost is still shocked by their demise, and is afraid of being seen. Your ghost is not allowed ANY interaction with the sim now living in their house. They may only enter the house area when the sim living in the house has gone to sleep. Your YA you moved in needs to get married and have at least one child (one of whom can be chosen as the "heir").
During the heir's childhood, they encounter the ghost who haunts their house. They must…
1. Become BFFs with the ghost by the time they reach Young Adulthood (you may forego this step if you choose to give the challenge a more sinister twist. Perhaps the ghost is evil and is manipulating them? It’s up to you!). If you choose to have your first heir become BFFs with the ghost, ALL future heirs must also become BFFs with the ghost as well!
2. They also MUST have an encounter with the Grim Reaper at some point before their death. This cannot be forced by intentionally killing a sim, it must happen "naturally" (maybe hang out with some elders? ;) Haha). Your sim has decided they want to bring the ghost haunting their house back to life. Grim will tell your sim how they can do this.
Once the encounter with Grimmy has happened, your sim can begin the search for the ghost's cure. There are three steps to complete this, and you CANNOT begin the next step until a sim has completed the previous one and the steps must be completed in order!
(For example, you should not have your sim going out of their way to level up their handiness, fishing, or cooking skills until they've maxed herbalism and gardening and grown the Death Flower! Obviously things will break around the house so you may have to do some repairs now and then, and you have to feed your sim! But you shouldn't be making a conscious effort to build the skills necessary for the next step until you've finished the one you're working on!)
1. The Death Flower
- Your sim must travel to Granite Falls and meet the hermit who lives there (to get advice on how to grow the death flower).
- ONLY after your Sim has maxed BOTH the gardening and herbalism skills can they grow the death flower. (Once your sim has achieved this goal, you may do some research yourself to figure out how to cross-breed the flower!)
-This step is complete once you have successfully grown a Death Flower bush.
2. The Angelfish
- Your sim must max both the fishing and handiness skills before finding the angelfish. (Any angelfish caught before these skills are maxed do not count, and must be sold).
- Your sim must visit both secret fishing lots (in Oasis Springs and Willow Creek) before they catch the fish as well.
- This step is complete once you have successfully caught an Angel fish (you may store it in a fish bowl. It will not die)
3. The Youth Potion
- The final ingredient needed is the Youth Potion (which, in reality, can be purchased as a lifetime happiness reward. But in this challenge, finding the Youth Potion isn’t so simple!)
- Your sim must find (and plant) a cowplant berry.
- Once the cowplant reaches maturity, you must sacrifice a sim to the cow plant by having them eat the cake TWICE (so that they die). This can be your heir (they may choose to sacrifice themselves) or it could be a friend or family member. The choice is yours!
- After the sim has been devoured, another sim may milk the cow plant. Once the “essence of life” is in their inventory, you may purchase the Youth Potion lifetime reward. You have traded another sim’s life to bring the ghost back.
Once you have obtained all three ingredients, it’s time to make the Ambrosia. Your sim must max both the gourmet cooking skill and regular cooking skill. Once they've done this, they can cook the ambrosia and serve it to the ghost at last!
After the resurrection:
With their life restored, the ghost sim must now live as fulfilling a life as possible. They must complete their lifetime aspiration and die of old age.
Scoring…
Start with 1000 points.
You lose…
-1 point every time your ghost sim is in the same room as an awake, non-heir
-2 points every time your ghost INTERACTS with a non-heir
-10 points for every career level away from 10 that your heir ended their life with (for example, lose 10 points for level 9, lose 20 for level 8, lose 50 for level 5, etc)
-20 points any time your heir’s relationship with a friend decays back to “acquaintance” level (You gain back 15 of these points if you are able to restore the relationship!)
-50 points for every generation it takes you to complete the challenge.
You fail the challenge if…
- Any of your heirs dies without completing their lifetime Aspiration.
- Any heir dies before producing an heir of their own.
- Your resurrected ghost does not complete their lifetime Aspiration and/or does not die of old age.
- You run out of points.
***Optional Challenge – “Unfinished Business”
Why was your ghost kept behind in the first place? Why weren’t they allowed to move on to the afterlife? This optional part of the challenge will help to answer that question!
1. When creating your ghost sim, give them some sort of “negative” trait – Lazy, mean, evil, etc.
2. Throughout the challenge, your ghost sim must work to overcome this fault that they had in their life. For example, a “mean” or “evil” ghost would have to perform “good” actions and befriend as many of the heirs as they can. A “lazy” ghost must max their athletic and wellness skills. A “non-commital” ghost would have to fall in love and become the boyfriend or girlfriend of one of the heirs (but no marriage!). Those are just examples. This optional piece is very open-ended on purpose! Be as creative with this as you would like!
3. When the sim is resurrected, you may cheat in CAS to change their negative trait to a positive one, now that they’ve learned their lesson!
This challenge is only PARTIALLY tested. Desperately looking for some devoted Beta testers to try this out and help me tweak the rules as necessary :blush:
Note: This challenge was inspired by my SimLit story, Dust to Dust, and was created with storytelling in mind (though it could be fun to just play as well!). You do not have to adhere super closely to these rules and can be as creative as you want! Some of the very specific rules (like encountering the Grim Reaper) can be tweaked as you see fit.
Outdoor Retreat is required to successfully complete this challenge If you do not have OR and are scoring, begin the challenge with 900 points instead of 1000 to compensate for your advantage, and disregard the herbalism skill requirement and visit to Granite Falls :)
Setup:
- Played on normal lifespan
- You may use money cheats for this challenge to build your house (or buy your house)
Step One:
- Start this challenge with a YA Sim, with at least one other sim in the house (If you prefer, they can be a teen, but age up to a YA while you play, if you'd like to give them a little more of a backstory).
- Your Sim can have any traits or aspiration you want*** (See “Optional Challenge” section for more on this)
- This sim MUST die before they reach the halfway point of Young Adulthood, and before they have completed their aspiration. How they die does not matter.
- Leave their urn or grave on the lot.
Step Two:
- Now, move a single YA into the house (now haunted by the ghost).
- Move out the surviving family members/other sims from the household.
- Use cheats to add the ghost to your family the first time they appear
- Build a basement beneath your house with no entrance. This is the inside of your ghost's "Grave", where they live during the day. Use shift+click to "teleport" them to this grave area during daylight hours. They MUST be teleported to the surface between sundown and sunrise. (You can equip the grave with a toilet/kitchen/bed/etc if you don't want to use cheats for your ghost. My preference is to always have your ghost's needs cheated to be full with no decay, since "realistically", ghosts wouldn't have any need of eating or sleeping or going to the bathroom, etc)
NOW the challenge can really begin!
Object: Gather the necessary ingredients and create Ambrosia to resurrect the ghost that is haunting your sim’s house. You must complete this goal in as few generations as possible.
Rules:
1. Only ONE sim may work on the Ambrosia cure at a time (if a sim dies before a step is completed, their heir may pick up where they left off!)
2. Your sim may only work on ONE step of the Ambrosia cure at a time.
3. Only the child chosen as heir of each generation may know about the ghost’s existence and work on their cure.
4. The ghost is not allowed to be seen by (or interact with) ANYONE but the family’s heirs.
5. The ghost is NOT allowed to work on their aspiration until they are resurrected
6. Your sim’s work toward finding the Ambrosia is a secret, and must not interfere with their day-to-day lives. Each heir MUST have a career and complete their lifetime aspiration before their death (their knowledge of ghosts has reminded them that they must live life to the fullest!). They also must have at least two friends who do not live in their household.
7. Any graves (other than the original ghost’s grave) must not be kept on the lot. Only one ghost will be haunting this house, sorry!
8. Your ghost may never leave the lot. They are bound to their grave.
9. You may not use the wishing well to help in anyway
In the beginning: Your ghost is still shocked by their demise, and is afraid of being seen. Your ghost is not allowed ANY interaction with the sim now living in their house. They may only enter the house area when the sim living in the house has gone to sleep. Your YA you moved in needs to get married and have at least one child (one of whom can be chosen as the "heir").
During the heir's childhood, they encounter the ghost who haunts their house. They must…
1. Become BFFs with the ghost by the time they reach Young Adulthood (you may forego this step if you choose to give the challenge a more sinister twist. Perhaps the ghost is evil and is manipulating them? It’s up to you!). If you choose to have your first heir become BFFs with the ghost, ALL future heirs must also become BFFs with the ghost as well!
2. They also MUST have an encounter with the Grim Reaper at some point before their death. This cannot be forced by intentionally killing a sim, it must happen "naturally" (maybe hang out with some elders? ;) Haha). Your sim has decided they want to bring the ghost haunting their house back to life. Grim will tell your sim how they can do this.
Once the encounter with Grimmy has happened, your sim can begin the search for the ghost's cure. There are three steps to complete this, and you CANNOT begin the next step until a sim has completed the previous one and the steps must be completed in order!
(For example, you should not have your sim going out of their way to level up their handiness, fishing, or cooking skills until they've maxed herbalism and gardening and grown the Death Flower! Obviously things will break around the house so you may have to do some repairs now and then, and you have to feed your sim! But you shouldn't be making a conscious effort to build the skills necessary for the next step until you've finished the one you're working on!)
1. The Death Flower
- Your sim must travel to Granite Falls and meet the hermit who lives there (to get advice on how to grow the death flower).
- ONLY after your Sim has maxed BOTH the gardening and herbalism skills can they grow the death flower. (Once your sim has achieved this goal, you may do some research yourself to figure out how to cross-breed the flower!)
-This step is complete once you have successfully grown a Death Flower bush.
2. The Angelfish
- Your sim must max both the fishing and handiness skills before finding the angelfish. (Any angelfish caught before these skills are maxed do not count, and must be sold).
- Your sim must visit both secret fishing lots (in Oasis Springs and Willow Creek) before they catch the fish as well.
- This step is complete once you have successfully caught an Angel fish (you may store it in a fish bowl. It will not die)
3. The Youth Potion
- The final ingredient needed is the Youth Potion (which, in reality, can be purchased as a lifetime happiness reward. But in this challenge, finding the Youth Potion isn’t so simple!)
- Your sim must find (and plant) a cowplant berry.
- Once the cowplant reaches maturity, you must sacrifice a sim to the cow plant by having them eat the cake TWICE (so that they die). This can be your heir (they may choose to sacrifice themselves) or it could be a friend or family member. The choice is yours!
- After the sim has been devoured, another sim may milk the cow plant. Once the “essence of life” is in their inventory, you may purchase the Youth Potion lifetime reward. You have traded another sim’s life to bring the ghost back.
Once you have obtained all three ingredients, it’s time to make the Ambrosia. Your sim must max both the gourmet cooking skill and regular cooking skill. Once they've done this, they can cook the ambrosia and serve it to the ghost at last!
After the resurrection:
With their life restored, the ghost sim must now live as fulfilling a life as possible. They must complete their lifetime aspiration and die of old age.
Scoring…
Start with 1000 points.
You lose…
-1 point every time your ghost sim is in the same room as an awake, non-heir
-2 points every time your ghost INTERACTS with a non-heir
-10 points for every career level away from 10 that your heir ended their life with (for example, lose 10 points for level 9, lose 20 for level 8, lose 50 for level 5, etc)
-20 points any time your heir’s relationship with a friend decays back to “acquaintance” level (You gain back 15 of these points if you are able to restore the relationship!)
-50 points for every generation it takes you to complete the challenge.
You fail the challenge if…
- Any of your heirs dies without completing their lifetime Aspiration.
- Any heir dies before producing an heir of their own.
- Your resurrected ghost does not complete their lifetime Aspiration and/or does not die of old age.
- You run out of points.
***Optional Challenge – “Unfinished Business”
Why was your ghost kept behind in the first place? Why weren’t they allowed to move on to the afterlife? This optional part of the challenge will help to answer that question!
1. When creating your ghost sim, give them some sort of “negative” trait – Lazy, mean, evil, etc.
2. Throughout the challenge, your ghost sim must work to overcome this fault that they had in their life. For example, a “mean” or “evil” ghost would have to perform “good” actions and befriend as many of the heirs as they can. A “lazy” ghost must max their athletic and wellness skills. A “non-commital” ghost would have to fall in love and become the boyfriend or girlfriend of one of the heirs (but no marriage!). Those are just examples. This optional piece is very open-ended on purpose! Be as creative with this as you would like!
3. When the sim is resurrected, you may cheat in CAS to change their negative trait to a positive one, now that they’ve learned their lesson!
