4 years ago
The Creepy, Horrifying World of Family Relations
I ran into a downright disturbing quirk of the game mechanics over the past weekend's play that proved that no matter how much EA tries to sanitize it, Sims 4 is still capable of some truly horrifying depths of human depravity in gameplay.
Setting the scene, I had a male sim living alone in a place that was more than big enough for his own needs with plenty of room to spare, so he took in one of his friends along with her daughter. Didn't marry the mom, just gave her a place to live.
He ended up serving as kind of a surrogate father to the kid, and when she grew up and became a young adult, the full range of romantic interactions opened up between her and the guy to whom she had effectively seen as a de facto stepfather throughout her childhood.
In the real world, the term for this is "grooming", and I certainly wasn't about to cross that moral line, but the mere fact that a player with fewer moral scruples could basically simulate Woody Allen's romantic life...ugh. :s
The game needs to find a way to recognize that a child who develops a close relationship with an adult when they're young—especially if they live in the same residence—should be off-limits for romantic socials when they grow up. It might be impractical considering the weird way aging can work (thanks to Potion of Youth or just aging the kid up fairly quickly as they hit the milestones of youth and clear all the aspirations), but it would lower the ick factor.
Setting the scene, I had a male sim living alone in a place that was more than big enough for his own needs with plenty of room to spare, so he took in one of his friends along with her daughter. Didn't marry the mom, just gave her a place to live.
He ended up serving as kind of a surrogate father to the kid, and when she grew up and became a young adult, the full range of romantic interactions opened up between her and the guy to whom she had effectively seen as a de facto stepfather throughout her childhood.
In the real world, the term for this is "grooming", and I certainly wasn't about to cross that moral line, but the mere fact that a player with fewer moral scruples could basically simulate Woody Allen's romantic life...ugh. :s
The game needs to find a way to recognize that a child who develops a close relationship with an adult when they're young—especially if they live in the same residence—should be off-limits for romantic socials when they grow up. It might be impractical considering the weird way aging can work (thanks to Potion of Youth or just aging the kid up fairly quickly as they hit the milestones of youth and clear all the aspirations), but it would lower the ick factor.