Suggestion - Sims 4 - Sims with Disabilities
I honestly believe Sims 4 is the perfect environment to represent people with disabilities. There are very few major games which do so. Elements that could be put in include: Wheelchair Bound Sim...
Forum Discussion
Can I suggest an idea for an expansion packs?
I used to be a nanny for a child with special needs. We still remain in contact. I was showing her Sims 4 and she took a huge interest in it. One of the questions she asked me about the Sims 4 is..."Is it wheelchair accessible?"
The answer is decidedly, no, it really isn’t.
Here is a list of ideas in which could be used in such an expansion pack.
Ramps (as an alternative to stairs)
Wheelchairs (fitness points go to a sim who uses a manual wheelchair)
Walkers and gait trainers
AAC Devices (Alternative Augmented Communication devices. These come in various forms, tablets that have speaking by tapping on the right words. Or computers that can sit on tables, desks, floors or be mounted to a wheelchair and can be controlled by eye movement (aka Eyegaze)
Sims could have various physical disabilities such as Cerebral palsy which could have various symptoms, unable to walk (without assistance, thus the various walkers, gait trainers and wheelchairs) unable to speak (thus the AAC Devices)
This would be a great opportunity to tie in the Cats and Dogs pack. Pets could be upgraded to service animals with special training. And then they can assist the sim whether they are at work, university, on a date, or on the town.
This could also introduce animals with disabilities and we could have dogs and cats with little wheelchairs for paralyzed back legs.
There could be public buildings set up for sims to have occupational and physical therapy.
Sims with wheelchairs can join in playing basket ball, or riding their wheelchairs in skate parks.
Another condition could be that the sim is blind. I certainly think that this would make things very interesting. I used to play the game Spore and sometimes for my creatures I would not give them eyes and so I would play them that way. It certainly was interesting.
Gameplay for a blind sim would be very different. Everything could be blacked out except for a ring of light around the sim which would show immediate objects or people.
Going into build mode would be just as normal as you design the house and objects and things inside. But in live mode everything is limited until the sim nears it. Perhaps after a certain amount of time being in that area, maybe after a few days in the same area that circle of light or visibility widens as the sim gets more familiar.
Other sims around the blind sim will get more clear the more times they meet or the stronger the friendship becomes, or if they are enemies and really hate each other.
The blind sim could have a service dog that provides more visibility to the sim as well.
The service animals in both scenarios can do much more on command then with the pets. Such as bringing things to the sim, like food, or leading them through the park, city festivals, museums, to the right university building, or sniffing out caves to explore in outdoor retreat.
Anyway that was my idea. Even if none of this comes to fruition I would very much like ramps, at least, to be added to sims 4.
Sorry but this is just not doable. There are no elevators so wheelchairs is out. While ramps could be done it doesn't help much. The gameplay you suggest would be unmanageable. Take the suggestion to make everything mostly blacked out for blind Sim. What would happen when you changed to a seeing Sim? AAC devices. There are no real talking so redundant. while I do sympathize with the disabled much of what you suggest would make for very dull gameplay and most disabled that do play don't do it to be reminded of their disability.
Well, you are wrong on several topics.
1. There are elevators featured (but not necessary used in game play) in University and City Living packs.
2. When raising a child in the sims there are options of teaching how to walk and talk. Could be easily substituted for a tablet or communication device.
3. Ramps are great where in bikes could be used as well. Instead of having to get off of a bike each time there are stairs.
4. And as someone who has lived with children with special special needs, I think it is quite dreadful of you to suggest that all people with disabilities wouldn't be interested in a game that stimulates real life scenarios.
All that being said. If wheelchairs became an option for sims 4, it would not just be usable for sims with special needs, there could be some play for characters healing from an injury rather than just being smashed into the floor by a malfunctioning bed, or electrocuted by an angry gnome. And consider the elderly, they could use it to lessen the need to sleep and rest and still do things they would like to do.
And sure going back and forth from a blind sim to a seeing sim could cause problems, but I think it would be fun game play as I have done that in the past with EA's Spore. And my remedy was that the more familiar a place became, the clearer it would be. So not every time it you played everything would be dark, just unfamiliar places (or if things got moved, which does causes issues for people with seeing disabilities.)
My roommate and night blindness, if an area is a little bit dark she cannot see at all, she happens to love the idea of all of this. With these simple filters I think the game would be very interesting. And it would perhaps work great as a teaching tool for kids on what life is like for people with disabilities.
@ChristianOtaku , I think what @jpkarlsen meant about not having elevators in the game is that the Sims don't actually use them; it is more just suggested. So we don't have real elevators in the game, more like a magical teleportation animation. While that could get around some of the mobility problems for Sims in wheelchairs or on crutches, it would be rather odd to add a very realistic state of life only to have that state be made usable by such an unrealistic mode of transport as the current games "elevators". 🤭 They would have to redo all the elevators in the game if this were to work realistically. 😉
Other problems exist with current venues in the game like libraries, bars, museums, etc. Many of the existing ones have stairs, so Sims that were wheelchair bound wouldn't be able to go to these places. 😢 That would mean that the developers would have to do a ton of work revamping a great deal of existing buildings that come with the game. It is unlikely that they would do this. If EA were to do this, i think it would best be done in a separate game where they could devote the level of detail necessary. 🤔
Also, there are 2 kinds of Sims players: those who want gameplay to closely mimic real life, and those who want fantasy gameplay. (I like both styles, but if I only had to pick one, I would pick fantasy! 🥳 ). This is why the first community voted pack was Laundry Day, and also why the Vampires pack is one of the most popular! So, while some players with disabilities would want to see their condition represented in the game, a lot of other players with disabilities wouldn't want that at all, because they do actually play the game to escape having to dwell upon their reality everyday. This depends entirely on the person involved, their personality, and also their age. I have seen that, in general, more younger players are more concerned about disabilities being represented in the game, while , in general, older players with disabilities do not want this, 🤨 (however, the game is for teen and older). I have an autoimmune disease, and trust me it would make for terrible gameplay!!! 😞😃 The blind aspect you suggested would be more interesting, though! Yes, it could help some people understand a bit better about the challenges blind people have to go through (more than some of the the other disabilities where you really couldn't convey what the experience is like. ) But total blindness would make the game impossible to play. There are some types of blindness that give you tunnel vision, some make everything extremely blurry, and others only give you pieces of the entire picture at any one time. So then, what if EA only does one of these? People with the other types of legal blindness would feel left out! 😞 Also, I grew up with one of my best friends being legally blind (She had some vision but not much). The Sims didn't exist then, but she would not have wanted blindness in the game or any other handicap. She didn't even like movies , books , or TV shows about the blind because it brought up painful feelings. She preferred her entertainment to be an escape. So, while it could help some people with disabilities, others it would drive them away.
Also, we have seen requests from everything from deafness, blindness, wheelchairs, crutches, asthma, autism, ADHD, cerebral palsy, MS, MD, epilepsy, vitiligo, diabetes, and more! It is doubtful EA would be able to put all of those in the game, so how do they choose? Someone is going to be left out, and if they address several other conditions but not theirs, they will be even more hurt than if EA didn't include any of these conditions. 😢 I do not work for EA . I'm just a volunteer who loves the game and loves helping others with play the game. But I do know about 3 or so years ago one of the Sim Gurus (developers) was asked about this, and while he was interested in the possibility of perhaps adding disabilities to the game (I believe he stated that he had a relative with a disability) and he was going to do more investigation and talk with other people who had disabilities who played the game to find out if there was a way to do this that wouldn't further hurt anybody with disabilities. I do not know if they are still looking into it or not, but it has ben several years. Not to mention I always have the worry that people might use disabilities in the game to inflict pain on their disabled Sims! 😢🤒 I wouldn't want some mean individual to make some YouTube video of them torturing disabled Sims and then some young disabled person seeing this ! 😢
I do understand your point on the gameplay mentioned being hard to implement (Some ideas I thought were pretty good!) But some would be likely impossible. Though I can't tell you how wrong you are about "Most disabled that do play don't do it to be reminded of their disability." Absolutely wrong. As someone who is disabled himself and wheelchair bound at 3 feet tall and with PLENTY of disabled friends, I can tell you we all have talked at one time or another of wishing more games had inclusion of wheelchairs, prosthetics or other disabilities.
No, it shouldn't make the gameplay clunky, but maybe think of it being "An alternative way to play." Just like a real disability is "An alternative way to live."
Obviously... we don't get the choice irl... But in a sense, most games don't give us the choice either. I've actually made a character heavily based on myself that is wheelchair bound and recreated him in a game called "Second Life". I get a lot of questions why I'd make him disabled... Like.. "Don't you wanna forget about that stuff for a while?" My answer is always the same. "He is a part of me. So is the disability. The wheelchair isn't WHO I am. But it is a part of who I am. And I'd rather accept it than to pretend it doesn't exist."
Not to mention... It makes those with disabilities feel more included to have some form of representation in a game they love. Sure, it's not possible to get EVERY disability represented properly... But even starting with wheelchairs, prosthetics, and the like would be a huge step in the right direction. (Look at the avatar system Xbox has rolled out in the last few years doing just that, including wheelchairs and prosthetics as well as a few other things of that nature, props to Microsoft!)
Again, some of the elements mentioned wouldn't make for good gameplay but I think others were fantastic ideas and could for sure be done if not better implemented.- @BLAZECAST Thank you for saying that. I'm also disabled and got really offended by that comment.
What confuses me about this thread was that the individuals who say that us disabled folk don't want to see their disabilities represented in this game often aren't disabled themselves and seem to have the mindset that just because some disabled folk use this game as escapism from their disability that there should be no disability options for everyone. I personally use a lot of mods to incorparate disabilites into my game (working elevators not just for apartments, wheelchairs, prosthetics, canes, hearling aids, etc.) so I know it's not impossible to include these things and if there are people who didn't want to play the game with disabilites included, they could simply not create disbled sims in the same way that if people don't want plant sims sims in their game they don't create plant sims. I find it frustrating that we get no representation in this game just becuase we're seen as "too logistically difficult" or "unwanted" when I know so many people who would love to create themselves and others in this game, disabilites in all: for a life simulation game it seems rather ridiculous to exclude something at least 15% of the world population experiences (which is over a billion people btw) or at least not give us the option to.
As a person with disability, I have to say that it's not true at all that most of us don't want to "be reminded of our disability". First of all because it's not something that we can forget about and even if it was, doesn't mean that we want it. Disability is not something horrible that we suffers off, it's just a normal part of life, a big part if who we are.And I would love to be able to play with sims that recembles me and my friends.
If now it's impossible in the game, well that's exactly why it was suggested to change it. And it shoud! Maybe if we had more representation, people without disabilities could star to accept us instead of thinking that we are a problem and that it would be impossible do things that acomodates us.
If you are not a person with disability, stop talking like you could speak for us. You don't represent us at all. Your comment was very ableist ans only show that behind the "I do sympathize with the disabled" mask you don't care at all about us. I suggest you star listening to what real PWD says.
@jpkarlsen wrote:Sorry but this is just not doable. There are no elevators so wheelchairs is out. While ramps could be done it doesn't help much. The gameplay you suggest would be unmanageable. Take the suggestion to make everything mostly blacked out for blind Sim. What would happen when you changed to a seeing Sim? AAC devices. There are no real talking so redundant. while I do sympathize with the disabled much of what you suggest would make for very dull gameplay and most disabled that do play don't do it to be reminded of their disability.
First off I'm disabled but not in a way that can be seen (permanent heart insufficiency if you wonder) and I personally know a wheelchair bound person (my brother in law (Parkinsons)). And I do know a few others so I do have some experience in what I'm talking about and with my programming background I also understand something about what is easy to program and what isn't.
If you have specific disabilities in mind that you feel can be incorporated in the game please create a new thread for each so it can be discussed and EA would be able to see the suggestion.
Can you imagine all the sims 4 characters with walking sticks? They'd be so cute bless them, them just waddling along trying to go about their daily business. 🙂 I always smile when I see elderly people with walking sticks, but I feel so bad as well because sometimes I see some of them really struggle and I just want to help. But that'd be embarrassing and weird (for myself personally) to do that to someone I don't know.
