On the importance of rotational play
I was thinking about how unique Sims 4 (and pretty much all sims games) is when played rotationally.
Imagine household A, that wants to live sustainably and makes money from canning home-grown fruit.
But then there is their neighbor, a robotics engineer, whom they don’t get along with.
Then one day the engineer gets electrocuted by her workstation and now disavows technology. At first it looks as if both families would bond now, but then the former engineer votes in “Back to the good old times”, causing the use of the stove to get fined and thus tanking the income of the canning family.
Household A now sees no choice but to join the criminal career to recoup their losses.
But then I want to play a new sim, of whom I only have a concept traitwise, but am undecided about their career. Looking at recent events in my game and the spike in crime, it seems as if the police would want to hire, so the detective career it’ll be, something I might not have considered, had I not played the other two households beforehand.
And now we have three households locked in a sort of light PvP that I’m playing against myself. The story wheel keeps turning, but it’s not just a story I’m telling myself, since there are ingame features that clearly define what a household can do and what skills they need to bring to the table if they want succeed. There are goals to meet and risks to take. (Is Sims 4 easy? Yes, but if it's easy for all households, then the playing field is even and an actual competition can occur between the sims instead of between the player and the game.)
I cannot think about another singleplayer game where I can actively destroy what I have worked for with another character. In Wildermyth I can have more than one party, but they all work together and even though there is a “rival” status, all that does is actually help the rivals in battle when they are in the same party.
The Sims rotationally is such a unique experience and I hope that future life simulations will expand that concept of playing a village instead of reverting to “main character explores the world and romances npcs”.
Imagine household A, that wants to live sustainably and makes money from canning home-grown fruit.
But then there is their neighbor, a robotics engineer, whom they don’t get along with.
Then one day the engineer gets electrocuted by her workstation and now disavows technology. At first it looks as if both families would bond now, but then the former engineer votes in “Back to the good old times”, causing the use of the stove to get fined and thus tanking the income of the canning family.
Household A now sees no choice but to join the criminal career to recoup their losses.
But then I want to play a new sim, of whom I only have a concept traitwise, but am undecided about their career. Looking at recent events in my game and the spike in crime, it seems as if the police would want to hire, so the detective career it’ll be, something I might not have considered, had I not played the other two households beforehand.
And now we have three households locked in a sort of light PvP that I’m playing against myself. The story wheel keeps turning, but it’s not just a story I’m telling myself, since there are ingame features that clearly define what a household can do and what skills they need to bring to the table if they want succeed. There are goals to meet and risks to take. (Is Sims 4 easy? Yes, but if it's easy for all households, then the playing field is even and an actual competition can occur between the sims instead of between the player and the game.)
I cannot think about another singleplayer game where I can actively destroy what I have worked for with another character. In Wildermyth I can have more than one party, but they all work together and even though there is a “rival” status, all that does is actually help the rivals in battle when they are in the same party.
The Sims rotationally is such a unique experience and I hope that future life simulations will expand that concept of playing a village instead of reverting to “main character explores the world and romances npcs”.
