The Halfway House (An Asylum Challenge Spin-Off)
If you're anything like me and absolutely love the Asylum challenge and would like to follow up on the sims who get discharged but are not quite sure they're all the way recovered yet, then this challenge is for you! First and foremost thank you so much @simswithcheese for updating the Asylum challenge for The Sims 4! The challenge can be found here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/966349/the-sims-4-asylum-challenge-updated-sept-2019.
The background of this challenge is, that you're a counselor at a halfway house for sims who have been discharged from the asylum but still need support in the outside world. You work with each individual recoveree 1 full day at a time in 8 day cycles. Your job as a counselor is to make sure the sims have enough skills, a steady income and a social support network so that they have the best possible chance at having an independent life outside of the halfway house. The recoverees have 5 individual gaming days to prove themselves.
The goals of the challenge:
Level up 5 skills
Reach a certain level of a career
Have at least 1 good friend and a certain number of additional friends inside the house.
The numbers and levels will depend on the difficulty level, which will be explained later.
Setting up the challenge:
Difficulty levels:
Easy
Medium
Hard
I realize the skill leveling system is a bit unfair if you're on level 4, but you you can decide to level it up to 5,5 if you wish.
I recommend you keep track of everything with a notebook or your phone or something where you can write down the recoverees initial goals and check with their progress. It is also super helpful to keep track of everyone's days if you end up having sims come in at different times due to someone dying or getting kicked off. It also kind of makes it feel more like you're a counselor if you have a notebook XD
Gameplay:
You start off by picking the 1st sim to play with. You take a look at their skills and decide which ones they will level up. You cannot change the decided skills after you've picked them. Then you choose a career for them. They cannot change their career or get fired. If they do, they get kicked out (or killed or sent back to the asylum, your choice).
With the goals in mind, you play one full day with the 1st sim without clicking on the others. When the clock strikes 8am the next day, you pause your game, clear the sim's action cue, and then switch off to the next sim. You can choose the order in which you play your each individual sim, but the order cannot be changed later in the challenge.
With the second sim, you choose the skills and the career just like you did with the first sim. Then you play your day and help them out with their goals as much as you can. When it's 8am again, you pause the game, clear their action cue and switch to the next sim. And you repeat.
After you've completed the first day for each 8 sims, you come to the end of the cycle. I call it the cycle because it's not really a week since it's more than 7 days. Keep playing these cycles until your sims have reached the end of their 5th individual day. When you pause your game for the 5th and last time for a sim, you take a look at their progress and evaluate whether or not they have achieved all of their goals. If the answer is yes, congratulations! They have sufficiently proven to you that they are capable of taking on the real world challenges by themselves! If they have fallen short, however, you must send them back to the asylum or kill them. You can either remove the sims from the house as soon as they've reached the end of their individual 5 days, or you can remove them at the end of the cycle.
If a recoveree dies or gets kicked out, you can bring a new sim in (from the asylum challenge or you make a brand new recoveree) and start their 1st day as you did with the others. It only brings more fun to the challenge if you have recoverees at different stages of their recovery living in your halfway house.
Feel free to comment and let me know if you stumble upon some shortcomings in the challenge! I wish you luck and happy simming!
The background of this challenge is, that you're a counselor at a halfway house for sims who have been discharged from the asylum but still need support in the outside world. You work with each individual recoveree 1 full day at a time in 8 day cycles. Your job as a counselor is to make sure the sims have enough skills, a steady income and a social support network so that they have the best possible chance at having an independent life outside of the halfway house. The recoverees have 5 individual gaming days to prove themselves.
The goals of the challenge:
The numbers and levels will depend on the difficulty level, which will be explained later.
Setting up the challenge:
- You need 8 sims who have been released from the asylum, or you can create a completely new household according to the Asylum challenge rules. You can also create a mixed house of discharged asylum dwellers and new sims. Whether they have reached their aspiration does not actually matter in this challenge.
- Occult sims are allowed but no spellcasting.
- If you have Parenthood and want character values, you must choose 1 positive and 1 negative value for each sim. No two sims can have the same combination of values. (You can find the cheat here https://reddit.com/r/sims4Cheats/wiki/parentcheats/)
- Build a house with only mid-tier furnishings. The halfway house should feel more like a home, but it is not a mansion. It is recommended to keep the costs under 70 000 simoleons (with that you can build a pretty comfortable two-story house)
- The house must include 8 beds. All recoverees must have the same kind of bed. If you build individual rooms, they have to have the exact same things in them.
- The house must include 2 bathrooms with a shower/bathtub and 2 bathrooms with no shower/bathtub.
- The house must include a tv and a computer.
- The house can include up to 5 skill building objects. Mirrors, gardening pots, computers, tv's and cooking appliances do not count as skill building objects.
- If you own City Living and wish to have lot traits, you may only choose from the following: private dwelling, cursed, filthy, gremlins, grody, haunted, mean vibe or quake zone.
- All decorative objects (not including plants) must be made by the recoverees.
- Upgrading objects is not allowed.
- No fire alarms allowed.
- You start off with 2000 simoleons (use the money cheat), but if you get bills during the first cycle of the game, you can cheat your way out of them.
- Have free will set to high.
- No cheats other than the ones mentioned in this post during gameplay. You may use resetsim if someone gets stuck.
- Curfew is 8am-11pm.
- If a recoveree gets fired from their job, they get kicked out from the house (or sent back to the asylum or killed) and make room for a new recoveree who starts from their individual day 1.
- Outside friends are allowed but do not count in terms of the goals.
Difficulty levels:
Easy
- Level up 5 skills in the following manner:
If you have not learned the skill yet, level it up until you reach level 3.
If your skill level is 1-5, level it up 2 levels (so if you're level 2, you must reach level 4).
If your skill level is 6-9, you must level it up 1 level.
If you have over half of the skill meter filled, it counts as the next level. If you have less than half of the skill meter filled, it counts as the level you're currently on. (So if you're initially on level 5 but the skill meter is over halfway filled towards level 6, your goal is to reach level 7). - Reach level 3 in a career
- Have at least 1 good friend and additional 2 friends inside the house.
- You have 5 individual sim gaming days to reach these goals.
Medium
- Level up 5 skills in the following manner:
If you have not learned the skill yet, level it up until you reach level 3.
If your skill level is 1-5, level it up 2 levels (so if you're level 2, you must reach level 4).
If your skill level is 6-9, you must level it up 1 level.
If you have over half of the skill meter filled, it counts as the next level. If you have less than half of the skill meter filled, it counts as the level you're currently on. (So if you're initially on level 5 but the skill meter is over halfway filled towards level 6, your goal is to reach level 7). - Reach level 4 in a career
- Have at least 1 good friend and additional 3 friends inside the house.
- You have 5 individual sim gaming days to reach these goals.
Hard
- Level up 6 skills in the following manner:
If you have not learned the skill yet, level it up until you reach level 3.
If your skill level is 1-5, level it up 2 levels (so if you're level 2, you must reach level 4).
If your skill level is 6-9, you must level it up 1 level.
If you have over half of the skill meter filled, it counts as the next level. If you have less than half of the skill meter filled, it counts as the level you're currently on. (So if you're initially on level 5 but the skill meter is over halfway filled towards level 6, your goal is to reach level 7). - Reach level 4 in a career
- Have at least 1 good friend and be friends with all the other sims in the house.
- You have 5 individual sim gaming days to reach these goals.
I realize the skill leveling system is a bit unfair if you're on level 4, but you you can decide to level it up to 5,5 if you wish.
I recommend you keep track of everything with a notebook or your phone or something where you can write down the recoverees initial goals and check with their progress. It is also super helpful to keep track of everyone's days if you end up having sims come in at different times due to someone dying or getting kicked off. It also kind of makes it feel more like you're a counselor if you have a notebook XD
Gameplay:
You start off by picking the 1st sim to play with. You take a look at their skills and decide which ones they will level up. You cannot change the decided skills after you've picked them. Then you choose a career for them. They cannot change their career or get fired. If they do, they get kicked out (or killed or sent back to the asylum, your choice).
With the goals in mind, you play one full day with the 1st sim without clicking on the others. When the clock strikes 8am the next day, you pause your game, clear the sim's action cue, and then switch off to the next sim. You can choose the order in which you play your each individual sim, but the order cannot be changed later in the challenge.
With the second sim, you choose the skills and the career just like you did with the first sim. Then you play your day and help them out with their goals as much as you can. When it's 8am again, you pause the game, clear their action cue and switch to the next sim. And you repeat.
After you've completed the first day for each 8 sims, you come to the end of the cycle. I call it the cycle because it's not really a week since it's more than 7 days. Keep playing these cycles until your sims have reached the end of their 5th individual day. When you pause your game for the 5th and last time for a sim, you take a look at their progress and evaluate whether or not they have achieved all of their goals. If the answer is yes, congratulations! They have sufficiently proven to you that they are capable of taking on the real world challenges by themselves! If they have fallen short, however, you must send them back to the asylum or kill them. You can either remove the sims from the house as soon as they've reached the end of their individual 5 days, or you can remove them at the end of the cycle.
If a recoveree dies or gets kicked out, you can bring a new sim in (from the asylum challenge or you make a brand new recoveree) and start their 1st day as you did with the others. It only brings more fun to the challenge if you have recoverees at different stages of their recovery living in your halfway house.
Feel free to comment and let me know if you stumble upon some shortcomings in the challenge! I wish you luck and happy simming!
