#1 Reason Why You Should Turn Aging On In The Sims

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[00:00:00] Gloria from Yellow Llama Co.:

Welcome to Sentimental Simmer, a podcast made for emotionally attached simmers and storytellers with wild imaginations. I’m your host, Gloria, and I run Yellow Llama Co., a planner shop made to help simmers play with purpose. Every week, I talk all about things, sim life planning, storytelling, and memory keeping. I’ll also brainstorm new ways to obsess over our pixel people, whether they’d be in the Sims or another live sim game. And now let’s get into it. Today, I’m gonna talk about how letting go of your sims and turning aging on will open up a whole new world of gameplay opportunities that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. As I mentioned back in episode 2 about how to fall back in love with your sims, turning aging on also allows your game to progress and gives your sim a future. I personally feel like, at least for me, I can speak for myself here, I feel like keeping aging off is simply another form of procrastination, but in The Sims. Hear me out.

Gloria [00:01:03]:

I know some simmers do age their sims up, but they mainly do it on their own time. Sure. There’s a lot of fun to be had in just, you know, playing your your sims that You’ve made maybe you just wanna live out their story forever and on. In my case, though, I feel like I’m just pushing off the inevitable, losing them, Missing out on experiences I might feel like I haven’t had time to do. And let’s be real. I think ever since, high school years or something dropped, they bumped up the aging, like, the number of days that it takes for a sim to actually pass. And I think we’re at, like, 560 now on a long age span. I’m missing out on nothing.

Gloria [00:01:39]:

Okay? These Sims have a long enough life, and I’m really not gonna miss out on anything that I wanna experience with them. And anything that I wouldn’t experience with them, I can I can experience with the next generation or with another set of sins? I’m not missing out on anything really, but still we’re very sentimental and attached. I know. I understand. Okay. The game, and I think there’s a lot of gameplay that we might be missing out on if we just let time stand still. I know some simmers do like to age their sims up, and I really commend them for that. I feel like there’s a lot of work involved with keeping track of sims and Lord knows I’m not a stranger to keeping track of my sims.

Gloria [00:02:16]:

Okay? I love to micromanage, but I’m not one to manually do all that on my on time of aging the Sims up. I do like the immersion and the feeling of realism that the game brings when they just, you know, age up on their own. Same for when they die on their own. I don’t like choosing the traits a sims gets. You know, for example, when there’s, you know, Oh, your simmers, you know, is dancing to music. Do they like to dance? And I’m like, yes. I don’t wanna actually have that choice. I want them to just automatically develop that.

Gloria [00:02:49]:

And the same goes for, you know, whenever they age up or die. I don’t wanna have that much control because I just want it To feel more, you know, like a natural organic progression and not something that I’m micromanaging. I wanna micromanage who, you know, they maybe fall in love with. Though I I do appreciate whenever that happens on its own. But, you know, there are certain things I like to control and certain things I’ll you know, for example, What outfit anybody’s wearing? Please do not change that on her own or moving. I don’t really like that too much if I’ve, you know, moved you into a home, decorated everything, and then you’re You’re in a different one. The next time I load your household up, they you know, the way I wanna play. But important milestones, You know? Okay.

Gloria [00:03:29]:

I also like to. These are really bad, comparisons. Basically, I don’t like to you know, when they’re born and, you know, when a sim gets pregnant, Pregnant, for example. I don’t wanna control that. I would just want them to get pregnant as they get pregnant. Like, of course, I try for baby, try for baby, try for baby. But, ultimately, you know, whatever random dice is moving in the background Besides whether or not my sim gets pregnant, not me. I mean, I could with a a cheat, but I’d like to let, you know, the dice roll on that decision.

Gloria [00:03:56]:

And same goes for When They Age Up and Die. I feel like giving up that control, something about it just makes the progression feel more meaningful to me. At the same time, I do struggle with some serious FOMO and, you know, missing out on my sins’ lives, and they are finite. Right? They won’t go on forever. And so I must be honest here. I do usually keep aging off. And, yeah, that’s why I’m just stuck with my sims sometimes. Or I think I actually have a long lifespan on.

Gloria [00:04:21]:

It feels like I have aging off because 560 days, girl, but, I digress. My point here the thing is I think I’m actually missing out, and you are too. I think we’re all missing out on gameplay. That is only possible if we actually let that time pass. Eventually also let go of our our sims. What am I actually missing out on? You ask. Okay. I’m gonna tell you.

Gloria [00:04:43]:

Okay. I’m gonna tell you some cool, cool gameplay ideas You might not even have thought of or had the, you know, possibility to play it because you’re stuck in the present with your Sims forever, and that’s boring. Obviously, can’t be that boring. You’ve been doing it for the longest. Right? It has some sort of hold on your potential. I think we should work through our attachment issues. Let go of our sims. One new thing you’ll be able to experience if you actually let this in age and time passed naturally and let them fly off into the Sims Afterworld, I think it’ll allow you to build your own lore and add historical context.

Gloria [00:05:20]:

So if you let time pass, It’ll create a sense of history in your gameplay or in your save file, for example. Family drama and rivalries that are carried on for generation after generation. For example, could be a fun way to play. You know? Maybe there could be family drama or and rivalries that are being carried on generation after generation that really hold strong. 2 families that, like, you know, bumping heads until maybe 2 descendants fall in love, Romeo Juliet, but in the Sims. That’s a fun storyline, but you need that background that, like, hardened hate between those 2 families to really develop throughout generations or maybe have legends that come up from your story. And legends really only are a product of something something that’s developed over time. So for example, you could have a sim Tell a story, about their great grandpa, the magnificent magician.

Gloria [00:06:16]:

He could do all these things. That’s really hard for your sim to tell that story If great grandpa is still alive and well down the road, right, it ain’t gonna work. It’s more legendary if the guy is not here anymore. Also, historical events can be created and help create another sense of time passing if you actually have sims pass on and then you have new generations and new new new generations It’s a community that develops. So, for example, you could celebrate the founding day. Call it founding day. It’s whenever the family legacy was started or maybe when you started to play that save file. You know, maybe the first of usually make up a day, you can say that’s, you know, always celebrated throughout the generations.

Gloria [00:06:54]:

Going back to family rivalry, maybe that lasted for a certain amount of generations, and it’s finally come to an end. So the community now celebrates the peace that reigns. How about that? Peace day or something. Letting time pass and eventually also letting go of your sims also gives you the opportunity to celebrate the life of each individual sim in a away. For example, you can can classically hold a funeral for that sim. It’s unfortunate we don’t have a proper funeral event or venue for the sims. If they don’t actually have a funeral when they pass, you know, it’s actually quite terrible that, you know, they just go poof when they die and there’s no proper sending away party. But you can give your sims back their integrity and give them the goodbye that they deserve with a decked out funeral party.

Gloria [00:07:36]:

I really recommend the mortem mod by Sim realist, I’ll, you know, have that linked in the show notes. You can have a condolence visit. They even have, different Venues that can act as funeral homes where you can hold the funeral service. It’s really, really cool. You can have, like, a a medical examiner come and, you know, check The body and all that stuff, it’s really fun and immersive and lets, you know, your sim actually be celebrated. Another way you can celebrate the life of that sim is with a candlelight vigil. If the sim will be especially missed by the entire community, you know, why not do that for them? So, again, no proper event in the game. You know, let’s play a little make believe.

Gloria [00:08:14]:

We’re used to it now in a sense. So why not set up the vigil event In the evening at a public space, you know, with some somber music and candles, and then you can even resize the candles, you know, or adjust their Color and intensity to create, you know, the perfect atmosphere. But let’s say you have, you know, Barbie in your game and she died, well, Why not have the candles shining pink and magenta and, you know, really bright and, you know, happy music playing in the ground. You can create any type of visual candlelight visual event you’d like. You can say goodbye to your sims. The sims can say goodbye to your sim, And it’s just a fun excuse also for an event. You could also create a holiday in the name of the sim. For example, we can celebrate legendary sims who have passed away.

Gloria [00:08:56]:

You know, maybe Great grandpa finally kicked the bucket, your or your legacy founder or, you know, a brave and accomplished mountain climber or a beloved celeb celebrity. There are Plenty of sims that deserve a holiday in their name. So you could use different holiday traditions to actually create this holiday. So we’ve got remembrance, which is a holiday tradition which lets you or triggers or prompts your sims to interact with gravestones. You can have, you know, tell stories as a tradition. I think fire would be a good tradition because fire in certain cultures or religions is symbolic for eternity and also remembrance. So you can have your Sims light up a bonfire every semi year when Barbie has passed, you know, to celebrate her In her life, you can also plant a tree in the sims name. So you can actually either plant a real tree or just Grab 1 from build mode and blend it.

Gloria [00:09:47]:

So you can’t actually name the tree. That checking game, it’s not really possible, at least not as far as I can tell. But one way you can mark that tree as In the name of the sim is to place a frame with their photo in front of the tree and add, like, a special title to that frame about their memory, for example. There’s also a mod called It’s All Gravy by Revesheen, which is really cool. You can transfer your sim’s gravestone, their Earn, so to say, to a plaque where you can then also add even more details about them. And whether you’re using a photo or a plaque, You can in build mode, you can place onto the tree with, so if you use the cheat bb.moveobjects on and use the, 9 key, the number 9. You can you can place it really wherever you’d like. So you can use the 9 key to move the object to the height you’d like on the tree and move objects to really just, you know, move it anywhere.

Gloria [00:10:42]:

And so that’s how you can plant a tree and also Symbolicly have a photo or plaque in front of it that actually tells a little bit more about the story whether it’s just the name or yeah. The mod and you write a bit more. It’s also fun to Play long term goals that transcend generations. So, you know, just playing the long game. For example, you can play with hereditary traits. For example, we have the ancient Bloodline in the Sims 4, you actually have to play multiple generations of spellcasters to acquire this trait. You can’t actually just have A sim be born with this automatically is something that is cultivated generation after generation. You have to actually have, I think, Spellcasters with a certain strength of bloodline intermingle so that they can can create, you know, even stronger and stronger spellcasters.

Gloria [00:11:28]:

Also, I think really fun traits are, Yeah. In the Sims 3 are the immune to fire and the pyromaniac traits, which can be inherited from firefighters. Imagine if you have a scandal, if, like, A famous line of brave firefighters, you know, they’re they’ve been known for years, for generations, to be the firefighters. They even have, like, their own firefighter, venue. I don’t know what it’s called. Firehouse. But their reputation is absolutely ruined after a tenacious journalist finds out that they were haunting the flames themselves. And, unfortunately, they couldn’t help themselves because they’re pyromaniacs, but still it’s kind of like messed up that they kinda made a business out of it.

Gloria [00:12:05]:

That’s something you can play with. Or you can think of other ideas with immune to fire and paramaniac, but those are inheritable traits that, you know, you really can’t do much with inheritable traits or hereditary traits if you’re not actually letting your sims, You know, transition and, you know, pass away and new generations to flourish. You can also, you know, have a family business being passed on to the next generation, And each new heir creates their own spin on things. So perhaps there’s even a rivalry amongst the siblings to take over the business, to have their say on its future. Michelle and John, you know, just don’t get along. Maybe the last air wasn’t clear on which one’s the current air, so they’re, like, fighting. You know, maybe you let that air pass before they could, like, write their will, and now, you know, Michelle and John are, like, bumping heads. I wanna turn it into a Florist place, and all the one’s like, no.

Gloria [00:12:55]:

I wanna make it into a dog cafe. You know? I don’t know. So something you play around with. Or Why not make a new spin on, you know, some a challenge that already exists? For example, rags to riches. You can have rags to riches, but build wealth throughout the generations, you know, to have more realistic gameplay because rags to riches It’s more fun if it’s something that’s, like, really drawn out over generations. Like, I remember in The Sims 3, I had this this sim. Her name was something Corazon, And she was down and out, and she just, you know, had come to this new town, and she was just hardworking woman. And, you know, she had, A family then, and and they grew and grew and grew, and eventually, they had built an empire, and that didn’t happen within her lifetime.

Gloria [00:13:39]:

It was just, you know, the future generations were so proud to be part of the family because they knew and and were so thankful for what she had done, you know, what the founding lady of this generation had built so that they could be where they are now. So, yeah, I think it’s fun if We maybe take a challenge that already exists, extend it throughout different generations. Another fun thing that naturally happens if, you know, you let Time passed and you let your sims also, pass with that time is you can shape your worlds, you know, with future generations in mind and also watch how communities evolve. So you can have a little dynamic population that just organically develops. As the population ages as a whole, you know, you We’re also the kin of, you know, those OG townies. You see them age. You see how relationships evolve. You know, people move around.

Gloria [00:14:28]:

It’s interesting also just to to observe even if you’re not playing those other sims. And of course, as certain, you know, Kids turn into teens, turn into adults. You have new sims that you can in like, pair up with other sims and the whole cool new things that can happen Naturally, since the world is aging, and also, of course, as communities evolve, venues change as well. So perhaps a local pop shop goes bust After the committed grandpa passes away, but no one’s interested in taking over, so will a new owner renovate the place or demolish it, replace it with, like, a big box business or maybe due to high demand. There was a, you know, previously a commercial lot that is now being transformed into an apartment complex to accommodate for, you know, increasing population over the years. I don’t think it’s really possible at this moment to create an apartment outside of Sam Mecino Butts. There is a tutorial by Ardo Sims on how to make apartments anywhere with a few you know, couple of hacks. I’ll link in the show notes their tutorial.

Gloria [00:15:31]:

It sounds really cool and even lets you have neighbors. If you you can use roommate system to have neighbors. And that way, you can, like, maybe build, like, a apartment complex somewhere else other than San Mascino. And speaking about shaping the world with future generations in mind, You can also maybe focus some gameplay on community projects and on neighborhood cleanup, for example. You can do that, of course, without Killing off Sims, but I feel like it’s more organic to the idea of a growing and aging community to to have this type of gameplay. I think If you know that this community will be here and and grow stronger, grow a culture for future generations, Then I feel it it makes it even more fun and more worth your time to actually invest in, you know, making the environment cleaner, you know, with, you know, eco living, you you have Some gameplay there that you can actually use, and you can also create local clubs that celebrate what makes the world unique and maybe also that celebrate The, you know, developing history of each world. You can also create support networks or, you know, also aging sims, You know, connecting aging Sims with younger Sims and with clubs, you can do that. So I think there are different ways you can play the game, obviously, even without Time actually passing, but I feel like it they have these things have more meaning if you actually are playing with aging on because they They lend themselves to the idea of an actual dynamic aging community.

Gloria [00:17:00]:

Talking about aging, turning aging on and letting your sims pass Also gives you more of an opportunity to play, you know, more elders focused gameplay. So if you let your sims age, you know, coincidentally, you’ll also have more elder sims to play with. For example, you can move a bunch of your dearly aged sims into a senior home and play them as a household, and And you could also create a club just for the old people in town to meet up, you know, for coffee or rock climbing or whatever, you know, they’re interested in. You can also regularly invite, you know, all the extended families to the senior home for a giant, you know, family reunion potluck. That would be fun. And you can have the seniors compete for who will have the most grandkids or cats. I mean, wouldn’t that be fun? I think it’s fun. I never play with elders Unless, you know, it’s within a family legacy gameplay, then I maybe have a couple of elders here that I play around with, but I’m not really playing with them.

Gloria [00:17:53]:

I’m playing more, like, with the heirs at that point, and they’re just like collateral. Having an aging community and actually investing more time in those aged sims Can really be fun and and, you know, add more, gameplay in that aspect. And once they pass, you could play with ghosts. I never play with ghosts. I feel like that is another rabbit hole of gameplay that is being left unexplored. And lord knows that there are so many Ideas and ways to play the game that we will not be able to play as I’ve divulged in last episode. FOMO. But, yeah, you can play with ghosts as well.

Gloria [00:18:32]:

And when they are no longer elders, they pass and maybe they can, you know, keep a connection to to our sim world. Another big bonus of letting time pass is the ability then to experience that warm, ooey gooey cozy feeling of nostalgia. And I actually looked up the definition of nostalgia. And it is, a sentimental longing or affectionate remembrance of past experiences, events, places, or people. Oh, how I love to wallow in this sentiment. Obviously, you know, granted we can still feel nostalgia even when the sims are still alive because, you know, as The definition says it’s past experiences or events that you’re also, you know, feeling sentimental about. And so I can have a An adult sim and be sentimental about, you know, their childhood, but I think it’s something especially special. If you’ve actually had to say goodbye to a sim and things have fundamentally changed in your save file because of it.

Gloria [00:19:30]:

Word, you know, communities have changed in some significant way. It’s just so nice Have that to look back on longingly and to, like, look back on, you know, if you, you know, log things and document, then look back on the screenshots or on the memories of the stories you’ve written About those experiences, oh, I just love that feeling. And I feel like, It’s just it’s a natural thing that, you know, we’re playing a life simulation and life I think I mentioned this in a previous episode. Life is finite. It ends at one point, and I think that makes us appreciate every moment we have right now. And so I think we would appreciate Our sims lives more if we, you know, actually know for sure. We will let them go at some point if if the clock is constantly ticking. Right? And if we don’t, you know, how take our watcher power and turn aging off.

Gloria [00:20:19]:

If we leave it on, I think, we’ll be rewarded with That cozy feeling of nostalgia layered down the line. Now I’ll let you in on a little cheat since I know you’re You’re probably having a hard time letting go of your sims as am I, very attached. So why not create an eternity safe? Like, Save file that represents the afterlife of your Sims. I mean, I really wish there was an afterlife in the Sims because It’s really hard for me to let go, but you can make one for yourself. You can make a save file that has, like, just a bunch of fun things in it to do, And you can save your Sims there, and you can, like, play them maybe in a different environment and just, you know, they exist somewhere still. Maybe that’ll help with the the process of letting go. And there’s always the option of saving them to your bin, and so, you know, you can have the opportunity to play them maybe in a different, safe file and then with a completely different storyline that’s always possible. So you know why you can let go of them and let them pass in Their main save files, so to say, you can still enjoy them in a different save file or a different storyline.

Gloria [00:21:26]:

So I hope these gameplay ideas have, you know, sparked an interest in you and you feel a bit more comfortable now to turn aging on and let your sims die because, Oh my god. It’s gonna be so fun to do all that other stuff. Right? So, you know, building lore, celebrating the lives of your Sims, you know, once they’ve finally passed, achieving long term goals that actually transcend generations, building dynamic and involving communities, playing with elders and ghosts, experiencing true nostalgia and maybe even opening up an eternity save to play all of your Sims that you’ve lost in one go. In the next episode, we’re gonna be talking about ways to save memories in game so that your sims can experience nostalgia at any moment in time as well. I hope you’ve had fun listening in. Thank you very much for listening. Until next time. Happy Simming!