Post-asylum post
Sep. 19th, 2009 04:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dicreasy2Yup it is time once again for me to ramble on about my latest piece of writing, the asylum.
First off I had an absolute blast playing this, even though it did end up taking me longer to do that I originally thought. A big part of that is due to the fact that I took a little break from it when Grandad died. Anyway it really was a lot of fun, and very funny at times. Not every laugh made it into the updates, because of how I chose to write it, but I'll talk a bit more about that in a moment.
So why did I choose to do an asylum in the first place? There are several reasons for it. Firstly the very first challenge I ever attempted was an asylum. I failed miserably because I got bored of the inmates and the LTW I was shooting for, but I've always wanted to give it another go. I had started planning a totally unrelated-to-the legacy asylum waaaay back at the end of 2007, but I lost the neighbourhood and the motivation to do it when I had to rebuild my game following the black out glitch in January 2008. For a while I forgot about doing the challenge and concentrated on the legacy and playing a BC. It was only in about February/March time, when I knew I was coming to the end of Eddie's plot and thinking about what sort of Punishment I would do for Marielle that the idea started to come back to me. Part of me still wonders if I should have stuck with doing a Punishment like the one I did for Joe, but I wasn't keen on the fact that it might seem like I was rehashing the idea, so I started exploring alternatives. I was chatting to Lauri one morning when I decided to go for it, and put Marielle in an asylum, but not as the playable. In fact I have to say a huge thank you to Lauri, since the two of us did quite a bit of brainstorming that morning and the basics of the asylum, as well as the other inmates were decided then. She also volunteered Ari as the playable, which I am very grateful for especially since she was such a great sim throughout this challenge. So yes, a lot of this was all Lauri's fault too.
The idea to narrate it like Marielle's diary came to me during that conversation too, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make it cannon, so I then had to tie it in with the legacy. The fact that I decided to do that made it pretty challenging to write at times, and probably made it less funny than it could have been, but I realised that when I made the decision. No matter, I hope that you all enjoyed it and laughed at the fact that some of the villains from some of my favourite legacies were tortured and humiliated during their stay at Simdon-Leys.
It occurs to me that I never shared plans for the asylum with you all.
A very simple layout all told, but that works for a challenge where you can't control 7 of the sims in the house.
I really like the look of the house, and I'm probably going to reuse it in Simdon, change the bricks for some that aren't as rotten, and give it a new layout inside and I'm sure it'll make a nice home for a spare or cousin somewhere down the line.
There were quite a few (make that lots) of pictures I couldn't work into the updates because of how I was narrating it. I tried to share some in my round up bits to the chapters, but it was for pictures like the following that I sometimes wished I was writing it as a commentary.
Lisa and her amazing invisible mop!
Ouch.
Yeah...never allow Meadow to adopt, I don't think it would end well.
Meredith's face got glitched doing the whistle animation at one point.
There were quite a few pileups in the bathroom and loo at some points. I did put down room dividers, but I like to leave plenty of room around the objects they divide off because of this:
"Can't step over strip of black plastic because it is a wall."
It also probably didn't come off as such in the narrative, but I did see lots of needs desperation.
Part of the reason I didn't keep mentioning them is due to repetition. By the third week the sims had settled into a routine and I was seeing the same things again and again. I didn't want things to get boring for my readers since, how many different ways can you write that someone is hungry, or needs the loo or is about to pass out?
One thing that didn't get boring as a player, was seeing the inmates suffer in more palpable ways.
I wanted to talk a bit about the relationships in the asylum. For the most part the inmates actually got on well.
Everyone was best friends with at least six of the others by the end of the challenge. However, there were a few grouchy faces:
and flamey thought bubbles:
Oh and Lisa really doesn't like being punched hard.
Then there was Brittany and Melody:
By the end of the challenge I was almost sick of seeing them fighting. Almost.
This was taken the day before Indy visited. He had been in the welcome wagon and Ari had started to befriend him, so I invited him round on her day off to try to get them to high best friends.
"You know Indy Vetinari?"
"Yeah."
"He's like, totally hand tilty."
"Nah, really?"
"Yeah, and I'm gonna tell him next time I see him."
That's not exactly what she did, but never mind.
"Baby, you're totally hot when you try to beat the snot out of me, call me sometime."
Oh Indy, I do love you, but I don't think SimDi would like that.
Random walk by invited in to get the family friend number up would call him though I think.
Melody really did take offence to Bruce, but I have no idea why.
The next day he walked past at least four times.
I suppose now's as good a time as any to talk about how I ended the asylum and why. The big reason is I needed to have Marielle released (I have a few things planned she needs to be present for), but because of how I had set it all up, I couldn't exactly Ari come home and say "guess what, I'm the Law now, you can all go home." I also knew I wouldn't be adding the six other non playables to the neighbourhood, so i had to come up with an idea that dealt with what would happen to them too. In a fairly typical turn of events, my brain was half a step in front of me. I'd been thinking about reasons why the visitors would be at the asylum as I was shooting and playing, and came up with the idea that Bruce would be a doctor as I was having Ari befriend him. The original idea though was that he was just there to study Gavigan's methods and there wouldn't be any follow up. It was only as I was putting the finishing touches to part 3 (three days before I finished the challenge) that I came up with the idea of an investigation that would close the asylum. Those scenes were shot in a combination of the challenge hood with a Robert-clone, Archie and Bruce, and in my dummy hood with the real Gavigans an Archie-clone and Bruce in a different outfit to the one he normally wears in Regalton.
I had to shoot Nathaniel and Mary twice.
First time they were wearing the same clothes as in the prologue, but as I was writing, I decided that it would be more in character if they were wearing new clothes. To my mind it showed that flash side of Nathaniel's character and how he spent money like water on himself and making his wife look the part too.
By the end of the challenge the inmates' sleeping schedules were completely up the wall, and it wasn't unusual for there to be only a few still awake by two in the afternoon.
Marielle spent a lot of time dreaming about herself, which didn't surprise me in the least.
Meredith was very creepy by the end too. She really didn't do well in the asylum (she gained only 4,250 aspiration points) and really did take to stalking the other inmates but not talking to them. It was odd.
I never move the dustbin or postbox on lots I build because I have had lots corrupt when either I've done it, or another creator has on a lot I've downloaded, so I did experiment with locking the gates to the asylum. The trouble with that was the sims wouldn't give up on trying to get to the postbox or the bin, and so just stood there getting annoyed. In the end I decided it was less trouble to let them out.
I really didn't take many pictures of Ari, for the simple reason, she worked her socks off in this challenge. She spent all her time skilling or making friends, and she didn't complain. It was also pretty strange for me, because I had to think strategically for once. My normal style of play is a bit lackadaisical, with me kinda bumbling through getting my sims skill points and promotions, but for this I had to really plan when Ari would be skilling, what she would be skilling and how she would make and keep 13 friends. Getting the logic points was handy for that since, I had her greet a walk by and then play chess with them, thus killing two birds with one stone. This was especially true of the last week where I was trying to get her three promotions, four and a half big skill points and 2 friends in five days. I don't think I could have had a better playable, so thank you again Lauri.
The last big thing I wanted to talk about before ending with a few more random shots was the fire. As I've already said, there was no TV, so every cooking skill point the inmates earned was through cooking their meals. There are probably some of you who think that I'm mad for doing that, but I wasn't worried for a couple of reasons. Firstly fires in the game don't worry me at all. For over two years I've been playing a neighbourhood by the behind the times handicap. The only lots which have fire alarms are lots I've downloaded and not noticed they are there and taken them out yet. Every single lot I build, I build without a fire alarm and without a burglar alarm. In addition I use Numenor's old time stove a lot, and it is a very flammable stove. If you don't clean it regularly, it catches fire when someone disposes of rubbish in it or cooks on it, and sometimes even when it's clean it catches fire randomly. I didn't use it in the asylum for that very reason. What I'm saying is I'm used to fires with no alarm in the house.
Secondly, the danger time was when Ari was at work, because if she was at home she could call the fire brigade. For most of the time Ari was out of the house, only the lunch options were available, and since sims need 2 cooking points before they can cook grilled cheese sandwiches, for the majority of the challenge, the only lunch dish being prepared was lunch meat sandwiches. It was only for the last week or so that I started to see sims use the stove during the day, and then it wasn't often.
Having said that, I was disappointed that I didn't make it to the end of the challenge without a fire, I would have liked that. Oh and no one had a break down over it either, so I guess they were as calm about it as I was.
Just a few random pictures to end on now:
Puddle splashing in a thunder storm on the very first day. This did worry me: I didn't want a death only a couple of hours into the challenge.
"So Katherine, have you found today tiring?"
She is a pretty sim, I'll give her that and she does pull some of the best faces I've seen.
Right, so now the asylum is over, I can move onto Vicky and Rosie's first case. I've actually about finished building for it: I'm going to create my dummy hood now and do any more set dressing or building in that. The reason being, I might have to put down a few more lots to fill some spaces, but they will be temporary lots since I don't have plans for those spaces at the moment. I don't want to have to bulldoze a load of lots further down the line, so this seems the best way.
I might be popping up with some WCIFs in the near future too as I get my outline and shooting script sorted. I'm so excited to be making a start on this project, I can't wait to get on with it and share the finished project with you all. I hope you all like it.
First off I had an absolute blast playing this, even though it did end up taking me longer to do that I originally thought. A big part of that is due to the fact that I took a little break from it when Grandad died. Anyway it really was a lot of fun, and very funny at times. Not every laugh made it into the updates, because of how I chose to write it, but I'll talk a bit more about that in a moment.
So why did I choose to do an asylum in the first place? There are several reasons for it. Firstly the very first challenge I ever attempted was an asylum. I failed miserably because I got bored of the inmates and the LTW I was shooting for, but I've always wanted to give it another go. I had started planning a totally unrelated-to-the legacy asylum waaaay back at the end of 2007, but I lost the neighbourhood and the motivation to do it when I had to rebuild my game following the black out glitch in January 2008. For a while I forgot about doing the challenge and concentrated on the legacy and playing a BC. It was only in about February/March time, when I knew I was coming to the end of Eddie's plot and thinking about what sort of Punishment I would do for Marielle that the idea started to come back to me. Part of me still wonders if I should have stuck with doing a Punishment like the one I did for Joe, but I wasn't keen on the fact that it might seem like I was rehashing the idea, so I started exploring alternatives. I was chatting to Lauri one morning when I decided to go for it, and put Marielle in an asylum, but not as the playable. In fact I have to say a huge thank you to Lauri, since the two of us did quite a bit of brainstorming that morning and the basics of the asylum, as well as the other inmates were decided then. She also volunteered Ari as the playable, which I am very grateful for especially since she was such a great sim throughout this challenge. So yes, a lot of this was all Lauri's fault too.
The idea to narrate it like Marielle's diary came to me during that conversation too, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to make it cannon, so I then had to tie it in with the legacy. The fact that I decided to do that made it pretty challenging to write at times, and probably made it less funny than it could have been, but I realised that when I made the decision. No matter, I hope that you all enjoyed it and laughed at the fact that some of the villains from some of my favourite legacies were tortured and humiliated during their stay at Simdon-Leys.
It occurs to me that I never shared plans for the asylum with you all.
A very simple layout all told, but that works for a challenge where you can't control 7 of the sims in the house.
I really like the look of the house, and I'm probably going to reuse it in Simdon, change the bricks for some that aren't as rotten, and give it a new layout inside and I'm sure it'll make a nice home for a spare or cousin somewhere down the line.
There were quite a few (make that lots) of pictures I couldn't work into the updates because of how I was narrating it. I tried to share some in my round up bits to the chapters, but it was for pictures like the following that I sometimes wished I was writing it as a commentary.
Lisa and her amazing invisible mop!
Ouch.
Yeah...never allow Meadow to adopt, I don't think it would end well.
Meredith's face got glitched doing the whistle animation at one point.
There were quite a few pileups in the bathroom and loo at some points. I did put down room dividers, but I like to leave plenty of room around the objects they divide off because of this:
"Can't step over strip of black plastic because it is a wall."
It also probably didn't come off as such in the narrative, but I did see lots of needs desperation.
Part of the reason I didn't keep mentioning them is due to repetition. By the third week the sims had settled into a routine and I was seeing the same things again and again. I didn't want things to get boring for my readers since, how many different ways can you write that someone is hungry, or needs the loo or is about to pass out?
One thing that didn't get boring as a player, was seeing the inmates suffer in more palpable ways.
I wanted to talk a bit about the relationships in the asylum. For the most part the inmates actually got on well.
Everyone was best friends with at least six of the others by the end of the challenge. However, there were a few grouchy faces:
and flamey thought bubbles:
Oh and Lisa really doesn't like being punched hard.
Then there was Brittany and Melody:
By the end of the challenge I was almost sick of seeing them fighting. Almost.
This was taken the day before Indy visited. He had been in the welcome wagon and Ari had started to befriend him, so I invited him round on her day off to try to get them to high best friends.
"You know Indy Vetinari?"
"Yeah."
"He's like, totally hand tilty."
"Nah, really?"
"Yeah, and I'm gonna tell him next time I see him."
That's not exactly what she did, but never mind.
"Baby, you're totally hot when you try to beat the snot out of me, call me sometime."
Oh Indy, I do love you, but I don't think SimDi would like that.
Random walk by invited in to get the family friend number up would call him though I think.
Melody really did take offence to Bruce, but I have no idea why.
The next day he walked past at least four times.
I suppose now's as good a time as any to talk about how I ended the asylum and why. The big reason is I needed to have Marielle released (I have a few things planned she needs to be present for), but because of how I had set it all up, I couldn't exactly Ari come home and say "guess what, I'm the Law now, you can all go home." I also knew I wouldn't be adding the six other non playables to the neighbourhood, so i had to come up with an idea that dealt with what would happen to them too. In a fairly typical turn of events, my brain was half a step in front of me. I'd been thinking about reasons why the visitors would be at the asylum as I was shooting and playing, and came up with the idea that Bruce would be a doctor as I was having Ari befriend him. The original idea though was that he was just there to study Gavigan's methods and there wouldn't be any follow up. It was only as I was putting the finishing touches to part 3 (three days before I finished the challenge) that I came up with the idea of an investigation that would close the asylum. Those scenes were shot in a combination of the challenge hood with a Robert-clone, Archie and Bruce, and in my dummy hood with the real Gavigans an Archie-clone and Bruce in a different outfit to the one he normally wears in Regalton.
I had to shoot Nathaniel and Mary twice.
First time they were wearing the same clothes as in the prologue, but as I was writing, I decided that it would be more in character if they were wearing new clothes. To my mind it showed that flash side of Nathaniel's character and how he spent money like water on himself and making his wife look the part too.
By the end of the challenge the inmates' sleeping schedules were completely up the wall, and it wasn't unusual for there to be only a few still awake by two in the afternoon.
Marielle spent a lot of time dreaming about herself, which didn't surprise me in the least.
Meredith was very creepy by the end too. She really didn't do well in the asylum (she gained only 4,250 aspiration points) and really did take to stalking the other inmates but not talking to them. It was odd.
I never move the dustbin or postbox on lots I build because I have had lots corrupt when either I've done it, or another creator has on a lot I've downloaded, so I did experiment with locking the gates to the asylum. The trouble with that was the sims wouldn't give up on trying to get to the postbox or the bin, and so just stood there getting annoyed. In the end I decided it was less trouble to let them out.
I really didn't take many pictures of Ari, for the simple reason, she worked her socks off in this challenge. She spent all her time skilling or making friends, and she didn't complain. It was also pretty strange for me, because I had to think strategically for once. My normal style of play is a bit lackadaisical, with me kinda bumbling through getting my sims skill points and promotions, but for this I had to really plan when Ari would be skilling, what she would be skilling and how she would make and keep 13 friends. Getting the logic points was handy for that since, I had her greet a walk by and then play chess with them, thus killing two birds with one stone. This was especially true of the last week where I was trying to get her three promotions, four and a half big skill points and 2 friends in five days. I don't think I could have had a better playable, so thank you again Lauri.
The last big thing I wanted to talk about before ending with a few more random shots was the fire. As I've already said, there was no TV, so every cooking skill point the inmates earned was through cooking their meals. There are probably some of you who think that I'm mad for doing that, but I wasn't worried for a couple of reasons. Firstly fires in the game don't worry me at all. For over two years I've been playing a neighbourhood by the behind the times handicap. The only lots which have fire alarms are lots I've downloaded and not noticed they are there and taken them out yet. Every single lot I build, I build without a fire alarm and without a burglar alarm. In addition I use Numenor's old time stove a lot, and it is a very flammable stove. If you don't clean it regularly, it catches fire when someone disposes of rubbish in it or cooks on it, and sometimes even when it's clean it catches fire randomly. I didn't use it in the asylum for that very reason. What I'm saying is I'm used to fires with no alarm in the house.
Secondly, the danger time was when Ari was at work, because if she was at home she could call the fire brigade. For most of the time Ari was out of the house, only the lunch options were available, and since sims need 2 cooking points before they can cook grilled cheese sandwiches, for the majority of the challenge, the only lunch dish being prepared was lunch meat sandwiches. It was only for the last week or so that I started to see sims use the stove during the day, and then it wasn't often.
Having said that, I was disappointed that I didn't make it to the end of the challenge without a fire, I would have liked that. Oh and no one had a break down over it either, so I guess they were as calm about it as I was.
Just a few random pictures to end on now:
Puddle splashing in a thunder storm on the very first day. This did worry me: I didn't want a death only a couple of hours into the challenge.
"So Katherine, have you found today tiring?"
She is a pretty sim, I'll give her that and she does pull some of the best faces I've seen.
Right, so now the asylum is over, I can move onto Vicky and Rosie's first case. I've actually about finished building for it: I'm going to create my dummy hood now and do any more set dressing or building in that. The reason being, I might have to put down a few more lots to fill some spaces, but they will be temporary lots since I don't have plans for those spaces at the moment. I don't want to have to bulldoze a load of lots further down the line, so this seems the best way.
I might be popping up with some WCIFs in the near future too as I get my outline and shooting script sorted. I'm so excited to be making a start on this project, I can't wait to get on with it and share the finished project with you all. I hope you all like it.
