Preteen/Tween life stage + tween pack!!!
Now that we’ve had infants for awhile, it’s starting to feel a little weird that there are so many early life stages, but after your sim ages up from child, they go straight to teen… which looks and behaves EXACTLY as adults do, with a small handful of exceptions depending on which packs you have. Children in the Sims 4 appear to be around 8-10 years old. So, for a sim like that to age up and suddenly look like an adult, maybe 17 at youngest, it just feels bizarre. It reminds me of when newborn babies used to jump out of the bassinet as children, long ago when we didn’t even have toddlers yet. There are some simple mods that will make teens shorter than adults, or add a couple gameplay mechanics, but it isn’t the same as a fully-fleshed life stage.
Picture this—a new tween life stage, released alongside a simple pack! Similarly to how infants were released next to Growing Together, I think it would make sense to give tweens their own pack. Tweens should experience similar problems to what teens have in High School Years and Growing Together (puberty, phases, mood swings and such), but there are some things that would make more sense for a younger teen to experience. A pack may include things like first crush, growth pains, new hobbies, and of course—middle school! I could also imagine there being a new online school mechanic, since it may too be repetitive to do a pack so similar to High School Years. In this case, instead of a full EP with a new world and middle school lot, there could be a tween-centric online school GP. Of course, online school would be an option for school-goers of all ages, and tweens would attend regular middle school by default.
Tweens could have a relatively similar frame to teens/adults, but it would be preferable if they had a unique frame and clothes. Conversions for certain clothing items (such as from High School Years) would be nice but not a necessity. Basically, it would be best if they had clothes that were just for them, to best suit the tween life stage. If possible, it would be nice if tweens had more options for body customization than children, but of course it’d be difficult for sim genetic reasons, so I realize that’s a tall ask.
All of these are just suggestions. To be honest, any new life stage between child and teen would be a blessing in and of itself, since it’s always been frustrating to me that teens are so similar to adults. I just think it would be nice to get some extra stuff too! If anybody has any other ideas for things to incorporate into a tween pack, I’d love to talk about it.
