03 - Finding Creativity and Connection Through the Sims

This is a transcript for Episode 3 of Everybody is a Creative. Find the original shownotes and audio here.

Welcome to Everybody is a Creative, the show we embrace - you guessed it - everyone as a creative. Whether you're a business owner, a side-hustler, or just have a hobby or passion project that you love, we will be exploring creativity in all its forms and tapping into the things that keep us creative. I'm Ella, also known as Whimsicella, a copywriter who's also attempting to write her first novel, and a self-identified creative from birth. I hope you'll use this place to jam with me on what it means to be a creative, even if you don't identify as one, yet.

Ella 0:39

One thing I really love to do to unwind is play The Sims. And we're all familiar with The Sims franchise and the memes of like, “you don't think about the Sims for like, nine months, and then you have a two month period where you're playing it all the time.”

And that's definitely been me for a long time. But I feel like in the last few years, especially since the pandemic first started, I really dove into the Sims again, because obviously we had more time during the lockdowns. But even when lockdowns lifted, I feel like I've come back to the game more regularly than I used to, because it's just a really nice way to sort of disengage from the world a bit, you know, turn off the brain and engage a little bit of creativity.

You know, in The Sims, you're able to create these whole worlds and, like, build houses and create all these stories. And I think it's a really great way as an adult, as well as a child or a teenager, to just like, engage in play. You know, you can, just like, set aside a couple hours or eight hours, in some cases, to just really have fun and play.

And yeah, I've been playing it a lot recently, because especially whenever I get my period, it always like knocks me out. I feel like fatigue like no other but like, for the past three or four months, I feel like the fatigue for my period has hit me really hard, and it's hard to really do anything except for play The Sims. So I feel like, in the past few months, I've been returning to the game. It just reminded me, like, how important this game has been to me over the years. Like I'm not really a gamer. I didn't really grow up with, you know, video games, but the Sims has been like one constant in my life. The Sims also, in a weird, roundabout way, helped me realize that I wanted to be a writer and write for a living. So I wanted to talk a little bit about that and how that all got started.

Ella 2:40

The Sims franchise came out. I think that Sims 1 came out in like 2000. I was only seven years old at the time, so I hadn't started playing it yet. I didn't start playing The Sims until I was around 10 or 11. So like 2003/2004 time, because one of the times I was visiting my dad, he bought the game for me.

So the way me and my dad bonded, because we didn't see each other very often, is through computers. Like he built websites in the early age of the internet, and he was just in general, like a techie guy, and I guess, as a dad who only sees his daughter a couple times a year, he was like, “I don't know how to relate to you. Here's a game you can play.”

But that's how I first got introduced the game, and I really fell in love with this concept of a life simulator. And Sims 1, I didn't play it for very long, but Sims 1 was super chaotic.

Like there is this one save I remember specifically. It was a mum and a dad and their child, and I didn't send the child to school at all, like we just stayed home. I skipped the school bus whenever it came to pick the child up. I remember the parents would fight all the time, and the child would just mess around in the house, not really paying attention to any discipline.

And then one day, the kitchen set on fire, and the parents both died. And just as that was happening, the child's being taken away to military school because they missed so much school. And if that doesn't tell you about the chaos of the Sims 1, I don't know what will.

From their very first game, I was hooked. So around 2004 is like when the Sims 2 came out. So I wasn't really playing Sims 1 for very long at all before moving on to the Sims 2. And Sims 2 was my jam. Honestly, I miss the Sims 2 because there was so much depth to the game you could do so much like even though, comparatively, the graphics and the Sims 2 was subpar compared to now, I guess.

But just the storytelling, the layering, was just like amazing. There were so many different things you could do and you didn't have to buy that many packs. I had the original Sims 2 base game, the Nightlife expansion, the Business expansion, and the University expansion.

Ella 5:00

So I only had those three, but there was so much you could do. And even when I was just playing the base game, like, I was never bored, because, it had lore, like you click into, like, the pre-made houses, and they all had these storylines and lore and things like that.

I remember, I think it was like the Pleasant family in Pleasantview. If you load it into the game for the first time, it started with the dad, like cheating on his wife with the maid. And one of the kids, like one of the twin girls, Angela, found out and would cry and like that happened like so often.

And there was a family called the Broke family. So Brandy Broke was a single mother to two boys, and when you loaded the game, you found out she was pregnant with her deceased husband's child, who died of a pool ladder accident. So he was in the pool, and someone took away the pool ladder and he died.

Who could forget the Goth family? Where's Bella Goth? You load into the Goth family, and Cassandra is about to marry Don Lothario, and he leaves her at the altar. Then there's this whole conspiracy that Don Lothario was having an affair with Cassandra's mother, Bella, but then she disappeared on his rooftop.

It was such a complex and beautiful and, yeah, I fell in love with it as soon as I started playing it. I was obsessed with it as a preteen and a teenager, and I would just play it all the time.

So when I was like playing The Sims 2, they had this thing back in the day called the Exchange, like The Sims 2 Exchange. And it was basically similar to, like, what the Sims 4 has now with the Gallery, where you can, like upload things the gallery, so you can upload like houses you've made, or Sims you've made, and custom content and stuff like that.

So the Exchange was a place where you could, I guess, exchange things that you've made in your game. So in The Sims 2 Exchange you could also, because in-game, you could make photo albums for each of your households and families. So you could, like, take a screenshot and it would like, transport it into this like digital photo album where you could write captions like underneath each photo.

I went on the Exchange, and I found people uploading their Sims family photo albums and like, some of them were just standard, like, ‘here's the first day my sim went to work, here's the baby they had, and here's when they got married,” and stuff like that.

But then I found this community of people who were using the photo albums as a way to, like, tell like stories and like soap operas and dramas and stuff like that, which was really fun. And I never really thought, because obviously I played the game all the time, and I would create these intricate storylines in my head, but I never thought about like, sharing them with other people in this way.

So yeah, that encouraged me to use the photo album feature to take pictures of my game and write captions and create stories and share them with the people on the exchange. And as I was browsing through the exchange and seeing the stories people wrote, I came across this really great story, and it stood out to me, because not only was it well written, but like the graphics, the pictures looked like they had been edited like outside of the game.

Because as far as I was aware, you could only take screenshots, but it looked like someone had taken these photos from the game, put them into Photoshop or something like that, and created these hyperrealistic images.

I was like, “Wow, that's amazing, how they do that?” And at the end of the story of the album, it said, ‘Oh, this was a submission from The Sims 2 Scribblers’ Abode forum.’ And I was like, what's the Scribblers’ Abode forum?

I did a little Google search, and I found this whole forum dedicated to people who loved the Sims, people who loved writing, and people who loved graphic design. So combining these Venn diagram circles into this one thing, which was amazing, I joined this forum, this community of people all over the world who all love playing The Sims and all love writing.

I honestly spent so much time there, when I wasn't playing The Sims, I was on this forum talking to other people who played Sims and writing stories and sharing stories. I would have been around 12 or 13 around this time, and as I got into it and played more Sims and wrote more stories, I realized, “Hey, I think I want to do this for a living one day. I think I want to be a writer in some capacity.”

I have a lot of like, pleasant memories of that forum. I made some really, like, amazing connections with people, people I've never met in real life, but still follow like on Instagram.

Ella 10:00

Eventually you grow up, become a teenager, you become an adult. It kind of falls down your list of priorities, but a lot of people became bloggers and stuff like that. I would follow their blogs because I also had a blog. So yeah, I made some really great connections with people that I still sort of keep in touch with to this day.

Rewinding back to my forum days, I really love that forum. It really shaped me as someone who just was casually writing stories because of these Sim storylines, to actually developing a writing practice and getting better at writing, because I could feel myself improving on my writing, because I remember a section of the forum was dedicated to critiques and feedback.

So if you were like, “Oh yeah, I wrote the story, but I want to know how to improve it, how to make it better.” You could get basically peer-reviewed feedback on there and that was really helpful in improving my writing. And I thought that was really amazing, and really amazing to connect with people all over the world of all ages, because there are obviously teenagers there my age. But I know, like, one of the admins was, like a woman in her 40s who just, like, liked playing Sims. And I thought that was really great.

So it was great to have a range of people who were just like, brought together by the love of The Sims and a love of writing. I remember, like, there was also a section in that forum that was, like a role-play kind of thing.

So basically, it was a sort of similar thing where you could, like, create a Sim in your game, and you basically took that character onto the forum, and you created a little profile for them, you know, like their name, their age and stuff about them. And you could basically reach out to people to be like, who wants to create a role play, like story kind of thing. So you could do collaborative writing with other simmers, which was so cool, again, like another aspect to improve your writing kind of thing. So, you know, like some people wrote fan fiction, I did Sims roleplay with people all over the world on the internet. So yeah, it was like a really formative time, a really great way to experiment with writing. And as I obviously got older and became a teenager and spent more time in the outside world, playing Sims just wasn't as much of a priority. Definitely not. By the time I went to uni, I had pretty much fallen off playing The Sims by then. So I went to Union 2011 and I think the Sims three had already been out for a few years, and I had bought the Sims three, but I didn't really like it. I bought it. I started playing a bit, but because the Sims three was a completely open world, it massively slowed down my computer, like my old hand me down computer from my uncle, was not really able to process the open world element of the game. And also, like the graphics were hugely different, like where in The Sims two, it was a little bit more cartoony. In The Sims three, it was a bit more hyper realistic. And honestly, part of the reason why I didn't really like Sims three is because it gave me uncanny valley. It's like that kind of concept where you're looking at something and it almost looks human, but you can tell something's not quite right. And that's kind of what the Sims three gave me. It's like, I'm looking at this sim I'm creating, and I know it's not a real human, but it almost looks like a real human, but something's off, and that kind of like, freaked me out. By that time, I was already in my late teens, I was not really interested in playing Sims as much anymore. So yeah, I didn't really play The Sims for a long time in my late teens, early 20s. I think Sims four came out in 2014 that was when I was finishing uni. And, yeah, I kind of had already, like, fallen off. I was just, you know, getting into adult life and, like, living my life and stuff. And yeah, it wasn't until, actually, I think it was 2019 when I decided to get back into Sims. I remember because on origin, which is where the Sims four used to be hosted on it would tell you, like, how many hours you played, or like, when was the last time you played. And I remember when I got back into the Sims in the pandemic, I opened my origin and I saw had, I had only played like nine hours of The Sims, and the last time I had played, it was like September 2019 something like that. So, yeah, I downloaded in 2019 obviously didn't play very much. And then during the pandemic, early days of the pandemic, I got back into it again.

Ella 15:00

And as of recording this right now, on the 26th of August, I have finally passed the 1000 hours threshold. And to be fair, that's over like four years, so I think done pretty well. That's what, like, 250 hours a year.

Gosh, but yeah, like I briefly mentioned, during the lockdowns and the pandemic, there wasn't a lot to do. It was either a lot of watching the news and getting scared by the news, or scrolling on social media like Doom scrolling. And I just needed something to switch off the brain. So I thought, why not get back into my childhood love of of The Sims and listen? I don't want to get into what I don't like about the Sims four, because that's a whole nother podcast, and we could be here forever. There is a lot to like, but I think one of my main gripes with The Sims four is, unlike the Sims two, which was such like a rich game, and you didn't have to buy many of the expansion packs with The Sims four, you kind of have to buy a lot of expansions in order to like. Because I remember when I did only play the base game of Sims four. I was like, okay, there aren't really a lot of interactions. It does feel like a more basic game compared to what the Sims two used to be. And I used to think like, Oh, am I just like, super nostalgic for The Sims two, and that's why I feel this way. But I've come across some Sims creators on YouTube who very much share the same opinion as me and have found ways to play The Sims two. I would love to have the Sims two on my laptop, but maybe I need to invest in a gaming PC one day and find some old CDs of The Sims two, because I certainly don't have them anymore. Anyway, I'm digressing. I love the Sims four. I think it's a great game, but you do have to spend a lot of money, unfortunately, to make it like a super interesting and complex game like The Sims two used to be. But yeah, obviously I've played like 1000 hours of it at this point, so I obviously do love it. And yeah, I think something I really love about it, and what I love about it playing as an adult is as the escapism element. It's just a nice way to switch off the brain and just engage in creative play. I think playing it as an adult now just makes me realize why I liked it so much as a child, as a tween, as a teenager, because it really does engage that creative part of my brain like nothing else does. So I'll be playing a household, and I'll create all these intricate storylines for them, and in my head, they're having conversations with each other. Obviously, in the game, they're having conversations in Simlish, but in my head, they're having conversations in English that I can understand. And yeah, it just like sparks all of these ideas. And because it's like a simulated reality where you can, like, do pretty much anything you want, it unlocks, like, endless possibilities. It kind of like reminds me of like, those memes, like, this is your brain on Sims four, a really, like special part of my creativity, which is why I love to play it, because it's like a silly little game. But no, I have so much fun just, you know, engaging in play. And, yeah, I've had like, loads of like legitimate story ideas, like short story ideas from a game I played, like in The Sims. And even just for fun, it's just nice to create different scenarios and different outcomes for things. And even as a game, it still surprises you, because things will happen that you didn't expect. I remember one of my Sims laughed themselves to death, which I did not even know could happen. I just really love it, and I would recommend anyone play The Sims. Someone asked me the other day, when you play The Sims, do you create a sim version of yourself and play as yourself? And I actually don't like doing that. I've tried doing it a couple of times, but I don't know. Maybe it's the uncanny valley vibes again, or like, I don't know. I just don't like playing as myself, because I know it's like, you know, it's the SIMS I can do, like, whatever I want, so I can create, like, this dream reality for myself, or like, different alternate realities for myself. But I don't know. I guess it just that's not as fun for me.

Ella 19:24

I think it's just more fun to create completely new people and families and like, you know, do shit to their lives, rather than, like, my own life. But yeah, that's just something about me. I'm also not a builder when it comes to the Sims. Like, I know a lot of people who basically play Sims just to build houses and decorate houses. I think it's a great way to flex those creative skills like interior design and architecture and problem solving, but I'm not a very good builder, and it doesn't really bring me joy. It is fun from time to time, but I won't build a house from scratch.

Ella 20:00

I'll either make over a house already existing in the game, or I'll add a room or something like that. Usually, I can't sit down and build a whole house or decorate a whole house, because after a while I do get bored. My joy for the game really lies in creating the families and creating storylines and things like that. Yeah, because I love people. I love stories, I guess. And yeah, like, one thing I really love that the Sims four introduced recently is scenarios. And I think they did this for newer players of the Sims who, like, are just getting started and that, you know, find the game but overwhelming, because there is so much you can do. And basically you can pick a scenario like it'll have like pre made Sims, and they'll create a little bit of backstory for them. So one I played recently was you play as a sim called Nova, who has recently graduated University and is starting out in the tech career, but she's come across an old uni enemy who's also working in the same tech company as her, and so they basically bring back an old uni rivalry, and you have to decide whether you befriend your enemy or If you become the underdog, who wins and becomes promoted, there was like a potential, like enemies to lovers arc that you could do, yeah, so, like, it gives you a scenario that you can play out, and different options of how it can end. And it's up to you to decide which path you take, which was really cool and it was really fun, and the path that my sim decided to take was to completely obliterate her enemy. And, yeah, it was really fun. And then I'm playing a scenario now, which is three grandchildren who do not get along, are all fighting for their grandmother's inheritance. And I've only just started playing this scenario, so I don't know how it ends yet, but like, the different options are like, you either give away your inheritance, your friend, your siblings, or everything crashes and burns and yeah, it's just really fun, and I think it adds another layer to the game. Even me, as an experienced Sims player, the scenarios are really a great way to re engage my brain if I feel like I'm feeling a bit bored of playing, because sometimes you get into a bit of routine, even in The Sims where you can do pretty much anything, I feel like, after a while, I just kind of keep playing the same way and picking a lot of the same clothes or the same careers and stuff like that. So like, playing the scenarios really kind of like takes me out of my usual way of playing to sort of like re engage, and that's always fun. And yeah, I just wanted to sit here and talk about the Sims for a bit, because it felt like relevant, and I think it's a really useful tool for my creativity, because not only is it a form of like creative rest, but it also is a really great source of inspiration, like when I'm just writing in my spare time, when I'm not working. So what I'd really love to know about you is, what are your favorite ways to unwind or take creative rest? Let me know on threads or on Instagram or on LinkedIn, wherever you find me, just let me know. What are your favorite ways to unwind or to engage in creative rest. Are they things used to do in your childhood, or are they completely new things I would love to hear from you? Thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you next time.