Moving in.
Once your family is created, you have to move them in the Neighborhood. You can either choose an empty lot and build a house, or move in an existing house (more expensive than an empty lot, but you don't have to spend money on construction).

First purchases
Whether you built it or bought it, you are moving in an empty house. Now it is time to buy some furniture. You have to be careful to buy only what you can afford, and keep some money to be able to feed your family. Do not forget the bathroom, as the Sims have basic needs like all of us. If you do not buy a fridge, you will be limited to ordering pizza, not your most healthy food when eaten every day...

What do I control?
As soon as you select the "Live" mode, your Sims will come to life. The user can control any of the Sims that lives in the house. The user can not control the Sims that do not live in the house (visitors, services, anyone else showing up at the door).

They do not do anything by themselves?
The Sims are autonomous, but if you give them commands, they will do those first. You can accumulate the commands and they will do those one after another. When a Sim is selected, you can see at the top of the screen the list of commands that they have accumulated. By clicking on any of them you can remove that command from the list. The Sims starts the game with no skills, and unless they are in a very good environment they are not very good at choosing what they should do next. That's why it is so important for the user to control them, but it is not required all the time.

Can they die?
Yes, if they cannot feed themselves they can die of hunger. Or if they are locked in a room on fire (oh, I forgot to tell you about the fires) they can die. Those are the signs of a very badly run household.

Do they go to work?
Buying is fun, but sooner or later you have to pay for what you have. You also have to pay for food (if you have no cash the fridge is empty and you cannot call for pizza). The nicer the house the higher the bills. So at some point you will have to balance your budget (sounds familiar?). One fund way to do it is to get someone in the house hold to work and to get that person promoted to make more and more money. There are many career tracks to choose from. Once you have a job, you have to go to work when the carpool shows up in the morning at 8am. Then you come back at 3pm. Kids also have to go to school. They do not get promoted, but they have grades, (from F, to A). I suggest you don't let them have Fs for too long. If anyone misses work for 2 days, then they get fired, and they have to start and get a new job again.

How does one gets promoted or gets better grades?
It is directly related to their happiness when they get to work or school. The happier they are, the more likely they are to be promoted. So be happy! Quickly jobs require specific skills. And higher jobs requires connections (friends). So to get the best jobs, you will have to invest some time in learning the necessary skills, and make sure you have enough friends.

What happens when you do not pay your bills?
Well, your furniture will be repossessed. (forget that big flat TV...) get back to your job! Remember, if you do not have any money, you can't eat.

How do I make friends?
You can call them over (using the phone, did you buy a phone?), and when they are visiting if you are nice to them, maybe you can be friends. Kids will sometimes bring their friends back from school.

How can I grow my family?
Well, if you have very good friends, and you fall in love, and they also love you, maybe you can propose (when you are in a really good mood). If they accept, they will move in! Once you have a couple in the house, they can have kids (more on this later...)"

1. When you have close friends of the same gender you can have them move in as room mates. It is not family but house hold growth.
2. When you have a friend of the opposite gender, you can marry them, then they move in.
3. When everything is going well for a couple, the user can get the opportunity to let the couple have a baby. Then the couple has to take good care of the baby for a certain length of game time (it is tough!), after that the baby transform in to a child. So far children do not really transform into adult, although there is a remote possibility that we figure out a special and rare way to do it.
    
   The sims (except for babies) are not really getting older. We found that it complicated too much the game without adding any fun.
    
   Cheers,
    
   Luc

In general good interactions between Sims (joke, compliment, etc.) will improve the relationship between two Sims while bad interactions (insult, tease) will damage it. The current interactions available at a given point in time are dependent on many factors (personality, mood, current relationship). Most interactions can be selected either by the Sim automatically (when they go autonomous) or by the player.
 
The "love" flag is not necessarily symmetrical between two characters. In other words A may love B, but B may not love A. In fact B might hate A, in which case if A tries to kiss B then something bad might happen (like a slap). Also other social interactions can be dependent on the settings of the love flag. If A loves B, and A sees B kissing C, then A will become
jealous of C (and bad things might happen).
 
It is possible to get two SimMen or two SimWomen to a state where the love flag is set. The simulation makes no assumption as to what this means (they could be "in love" or just brothers or sisters) aside from the fact that it moderates certain social interactions. For instance two women living together with their "love" flags set tend to be more forgiving of each other
and are more likely to be allowed to hug and maybe kiss.
 
The "friend" flag is symmetrical. If A likes B more than +50 and B likes A more than +50 the friendship flags will be set for both of them automatically. Friends tend to have many benefits in the game (they can bring you presents, cheer you up and help you advance in a career) and are a crucial component to game play.
 
Another point to be made is that within a family no persistent (as opposed to events) representation is maintained of the relationship beyond what is described above. In other words I might have three adults living together, the simulation will know how they feel about each other but not whether two are married and one a roommate or maybe all three are siblings.
 
The exceptions to this are in the case of marriage (only w/ opposite genders) and childbirth. In these cases it's clear who the respective newlyweds and parents are. But this is only temporary during the course of these events.
 
Our intent here is to allow the most open-ended game play possible. What's really cool about the abstract nature of these data-structures (rather than a more closed, explicit model) is how each player interprets what they are seeing in the game in their own way.

 
-Will Wright"

I wanted to tell you about my trip to Maxis and my experience playing  "The  Sims."  Luc invited me up from my home in Tracy, Ca to visit the office and  get some first hand knowledge of "The Sims.  Hey, living in California does  have its benefits.

While I was there I met Luc, Will and Kana Ryan.  Kana is the producer of  "The Sims."  She is very friendly and was fun to be around. I also met Lucy Bradshaw.

The purpose of this email is to share my feelings about "The Sims."

I think the game is amazing.  I think it is amazing for several reasons but  specifically for these two:
 

1. The building tool is awesome.  I only watched Will use it.  But it  seemed very intuitive and easy to use.  If you have ever tried to use a home design program, you know how hard they can be.  I can't wait to see what the  creative members of SimCity  come up with.  You do have to be careful how  you spend your money.  If you over spend you won't have any money for  furniture or food.  You also need to plan out your house correctly.  No  windows in a room will make it dark.  The Sims won't like that very much.  The whole process of building your home is to plan for your Sims.
2. The actual game play of the game is also fantastic.  When you are  managing several characters you really have to plan ahead.  You want to give  them several commands at a time. Also, when they have several commands at a  time it becomes very fluid.  It is literally like taking the top off  someone's house and watching and controlling those people.

The combination of the building tool and  the game play almost give you two  games.  I think both could stand on their own as two separate products. Together they are what we have come to expect from Will Wright.  The magic  of creating something  and then seeing what happens with our decisions.

I would like to answer any questions that you might have.  Please feel free  to use the SimWatch to contact me.  I would like everyone to start some dialogue on this.  If for some reason you would rather email me, feel free. 

Teresa"

I have heard and read several different questions on "The Sims" and I thought I would try to clarify some things.
 
The game is primarily focused on their lives in their homes. They do go to work but that is only by carpool. They don't own a car. Believe me it would be a lot if they did that.  It is just like real life in the morning. They need to wake up and get dressed or they miss the carpool. Its really funny when something goes wrong they get mad and let you know they are upset.
 
The neighborhood is there to have people to socialize with.  Friends are important.  The Sims get depressed and sometimes won't do what you want. They don't like looking for work when they are depressed.
 
I could build and decorate homes all day.  It is that fun.  It is so easy to do.  But you don't have to if you don't want to.  You can buy an existing home.  You evict a family and buy the house.  You just have to have enough money.  Like real life!
 
Again, I encourage you to ask questions.  If I don't know the answer I know Luc will help out.
 
Teresa"
 

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