Poopsie Sims

Note: There is now a Sims 4 Apocalypse Discord server! Come chat about wanton sim torture with us: https://discord.gg/cEvymMR38K

Foreword

About a year ago I started this blog with the intention of chronicling the nonsense that happens in my Sims games. Back in the day, one of my favorite aspects of The Sims 2 was the online exchange which, apart from offering people’s builds and stuff, had a really great storytelling interface where people could write sims2.com-hosted stories based on the screenshots they took. It was an amazing community builder. In my opinion stories were the best thing Maxis has done with The Sims so far and the worst thing they decided to quit on. The most popular stories from back then are archived online. Look, here they are! https://clockwatching.net/~jack/s2/reader/

This was also the age of Pinstar’s Legacy and Apocalypse Challenges, which provided the framework for a lot of these stories. As we all know, the ability to make every day your sim greets another fresh and unrelenting hell is one of the great joys of this game, and the Apocalypse Challenge gave a long-form structure to this pathological impulse wholesome family fun. He adapted the rules for Sims 3 and later Sims 4, but for whatever reason seems to have lost interest in updating the Apocalypse challenge for most of the expansion packs.

Which brings me to this post. When I wrote the introduction to my Wonder Child challenge I was hoping to recapture the feeling the Sims 2 exchange stories gave me. It worked to a degree in that it was fun to write, but ugh, it’s just not the same. Having to make a blog, the apparent impossibility of finding a good slideshow feature, the fact that in-game screenshots don’t include speech bubbles—there are too many obstacles for this to be fun for me. I’m given to understand that there are still some people who write Sims stories and have fun with it, but even if you don’t, I’m hoping this post helps someone plan their game. Just call me more of a Nick Fury than an Avenger. More of a Master Splitter than a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  Whether you write your stories down or they’re all in your head, I’m here to update the Apocalypse Challenge for all your sim-torturing needs.

These rules are based on Pinstar’s original Sims 4 rules, though I’ve changed and shifted a lot to account for the many, many, MANY careers added since the base game. If you’d like to look at his original setup, here you go: https://www.simslegacychallenge.com/sims-4-apocalypse-challenge-rules/

Before we get started, if you’d like these rules in a handy excel sheet form so you don’t have to sift through the upcoming wall of text, here you go:

Key:

Pinstar’s Text

Poopsie’s Text

Briefing

Greetings citizen. No doubt you have heard of the devastation. Much of the media reports coming out of the City of Glassbolt has been white washed to gloss over what happened there. We know that approximately 5 minutes after half time of the super bowl, the nuclear power plant of Glassbolt melted down, devastating the entire region. The army core of engineers cites that a simultaneous flush of every toilet in the city caused a massive drop in water pressure, thus causing the plant to lose coolant and melt down. This isn’t your ordinary meltdown. That plant was experimental! The fallout is causing strange and odd problems in the region and we have very little detail about what is going on in there.

What we DO know is that we need a leader, a hero to willingly go in there, establish themselves in the region and help restore the region back to normal. We have one other bit of declassified information. This actually happened 20 years ago. We’ve lost contact with the region. You, citizen, have graduated from our Wonder Child project. You were specially created to be able to solve these issues. So get in there and show us what you are made of! The lost city of Glassbolt is depending on you!

The Apocalypse Challenge has many restrictions and is, by design, extremely difficult in the very beginning. The way you make life easier for yourself is by having Sims reach the tops of careers. Each career branch has its own set of restrictions tied to it. You must abide by all of those restrictions.

However, once a Sim reaches the top of a career branch, the restrictions related to that career branch are lifted. You no longer have to obey them. Even if that Sim quits their job, the act of reaching the top level of a career will permanently lift that career branch’s restrictions.

There is a catch, however. Only one set of restrictions may be lifted per Sim. Even if you can get them to the top of more than one career in their lifetime, only the first one counts towards completing this challenge. This includes teenage careers. If a Sim reaches the top of a teenage career, they are unable to lift any restrictions related to a future adult career.

The challenge ends when every set of restrictions has been lifted. Your “Score” is the number of Sim days it takes you to accomplish this feat, with the fewer days taken being a better score (like Golf).

These rules are always in effect and are not tied to any careers. These rules cannot be ‘lifted’ and must be followed during the entire challenge.

1. No cheats, custom content, or mods that would give you an unfair advantage over someone who didn’t have them. The Move Objects cheat is allowed, but restricted by a career-specific restriction that must be lifted before you can use it.

2. You may not age up sims early.

3. You may not adopt infants or children.

4. Play on normal lifespans.

5. You must follow all career-specific restrictions until a Sim reaches the top of that career, at which point the actions and objects previously forbidden by the restriction are now allowed for all sims in the household.

6. You may only play your Apocalypse family in the neighborhood and they may not move to new lots during the challenge.

Your strategy is up to you, but note that certain restrictions effect other restrictions, which will define the order of how you unlock careers to an extent. For example (assuming you’re playing with all expansion packs), the Judge career track has to be unlocked before you can permanently unlock the Detective career track, and you can’t take the Detective career track anyway unless you’ve unlocked the Politician track first. As another example, you can’t go to college until the Professor track is unlocked, but you also can’t go anyway unless Officer is unlocked, UNLESS you’ve also already unlocked Administrator and can therefore get a degree from home. Complicated, right? Ohoho, just you wait.

Getting Started

You start with a single founder Sim. Unlike the Legacy Challenge, this may be ANY sim, young adult or older. This may be a previously played sim with skill points, perks and other advantages. You may download this Sim from the gallery or use your own. In fact, if you’re looking for some very well bred sims, I would suggest downloading a #WonderChild. If a downloaded sim comes as part of a larger household, simply split them off.

Your founder must be moved into an empty lot, but you may choose any empty lot you want in any neighborhood. You may demolish a pre-existing house if you happen to want the lot it was sitting on. (Oasis Springs is suggested as it fits with the theme of the challenge better, but there is no rule requiring it)

Once moved into the lot, your Sim must quit any job they were previously part of. If they were at the top of a career, it does not lift the restrictions associated with that career, nor does it bar them from re-taking that same job. Once a sim has no career and is the only sim on the empty lot, the challenge begins and all of the career-specific restrictions go into effect.

Variations

This challenge is complicated by design, and beginning to end takes a nutso amount of time to finish. But maybe you just a want a mini-pocalypse, hmm? Something to distract you, not consume you. Well, I can’t say my self-destructive nature understands that impulse, but here are a few variations on this challenge that might seem a little more doable:

Pinstar’s Original Variation

As I said previously, Pinstar only designed this challenge for the first few Sims 4 expansion packs, after which he stopped updating the rules. This variation is simply Pinstar’s rules applied to the full game, simplifying the challenge by assigning restrictions to far fewer careers.

Two Birds Variation

Most Sims 4 career tracks branch after the 5^th promotion. For this variation, whatever branch you pick within a career lifts the restrictions for both tracks. For example, completing the Management or Investor tracks for the Business career will lift all Business restrictions.

It Takes A Village Variation

The challenge as originally written is meant to be completed by one family. This variation sees the apocalypse as a communal effort, spread across multiple families. Evict everyone from a world and begin the challenge with three founders instead of one, played concurrently, whose households all work toward lifting restrictions together (other family rules still apply—only spouses and children may lift restrictions).

1. Tech Guru – Startup

The world has pretty much given up on the city as a lost cause. A few humanitarian suppliers risk the journey in, but they only offer the most basic and meager of furnishings. The region used to be host to some high tech industry, but all of that is abandoned. The little luxuries in life are the last thing on everyone’s list.

• Only the worst version of any item class may be purchased or used. For the purposes of this restriction, single and double beds are two different item classes. If another restriction outright restricts an entire item class, that restriction takes priority until it is lifted, even if you lift this restriction. (Essentially, you can only use the item of each category with the worst stats. If more than one item shares the equally low stats you may choose between them. If an item class has no stats at all [like doors] you may use any item in that class.)

Completion

With a little legal maneuvering and some keen technical know-how, your Sim buys up and revives the previously abandoned high-tech factories in the area. Items made of better materials and constructed using advanced engineering techniques now become available in the region.

2. Tech Guru – eSport Gamer

The backbone servers and fiber optic cables that used to bring the internet to the region were fried during the meltdown. Now power is scarce, electronics are faulty and computers are crippled in their functionality.

• The computer may *only* be used for daily tasks required by a Sim’s job (if said daily task requires use of a computer) and nothing else.

Completion

Fed up with their jury-rigged connection to the outside world, your Sim takes their network connectivity know-how and leads a community effort to restore servers, cell towers, and reconnects the fiber optics. Suddenly, internet speeds are 10 times that of the rest of Sim Nation. Handy not having an ISP monopoly.

3. Business – Investor

Commerce and trade used to be a cornerstone of the Glassbolt region. All of that is in shambles now. While there are some companies importing some basic survival items into the region, nobody is bothering to try and export anything. The assumption that there is nothing of value to export and that whatever is exported might be tainted with the lingering radiation means that nothing of value is leaving the region, and very little money is flowing back in.

• You cannot sell Buy/Build mode items or collected/harvested items.
• Cannot do any interactions with the Geo Council for found items.
• Cannot publish books (You may self-publish) or songs. Cannot write and sell Jingles.

Completion

The region is ripe with opportunity and your Sim sees this. Flush with cash and strong with clout, your sim convinces a major shipping company to invest in the region, publishing the stories of the survivors, buying excess goods to re-sell as “Survivor Vintage,” and to labs for scientific study. While the new company makes a mint on this new opportunity, it also opens the door for some much needed cash to flow into the pockets of those living there. A true win/win for everyone involved.

4. Business – Management

It is amazing that some companies have remained in the region. But it soon becomes clear that most of them are taking advantage of the situation and labor standards are being ignored to the detriment of the workers. With unemployment so high, bosses feel free to use and abuse their workers and fire them on a whim knowing they can be easily replaced.

• You may not take any days off, either as vacation OR family leave. If your Sim misses work, is late for work or leaves work early they must quit the job and may not re-take the same career ever.
• If a Sim voluntarily quits their job, or switches to a new job, that Sim may never re-take their old job.
• Elder Sims may not retire.
• Sims cannot ‘play hooky’.
• These restrictions do not apply to the grade school or high school “careers” but DO apply to any after-school teenage careers taken.
• While at work, you must choose either work normally or “Work Hard” as your Sim’s work mode and may not choose any other work modes.

Note: Sims who have the “Professional Slacker” trait are exempt from this restriction

Completion

Haven risen through the ranks of the business world, your Sim declares that the practice of mistreating workers must end. Your sim’s company has enough business and legal connections to other businesses in the region and pressures other businesses in the region to do the same. Working conditions for everyone improve overnight.

5. Culinary – Chef

The destruction in the region has cut gas lines and made the electricity grid very unstable. As a result, gas and electrical appliances can’t be relied on to cook and preserve food. The citizens of the area are forced to resort to more primitive cooking methods and living off the land to stave off starvation.

• You may not purchase, place, or use any refrigerators, stoves, ovens, or microwave ovens or coolers.
• Non-fish items may not be cooked or grilled on fire pits.

Completion

After breaking the Simmish Book of World Records for hosting the largest soup kitchen for the region, your culinary master Sim attracts the attention of the world’s most famous chefs. Seeing the plight of the region they form the global food fund to ship truckloads of fresh food to the region as well as repair the gas lines and electrical infrastructure, allowing the people of the region to once again make and eat good food.

6. Culinary – Mixologist

There is something in the water. In fact, there is something in all liquids that are made in the region. The radiation in the air seems to easily trickle into liquids making drinking anything a risky and unhealthy affair. Only the juices and liquids locked in fresh food seem to be safe, which is just enough to stave off total dehydration.

• Sims may not drink any drinks made at a bar.
• Sims may not drink any Lifetime Happiness reward potions.
• SIms may not have drinks from a fridge or cooler and cannot brush their teeth at a sink.
• Newborns may not be bottle-fed. 
• Your Sim may make drinks to practice, but you must throw them out.

Completion

After ages spent mixing drinks, trying to make something drinkable, your master Mixologist sim stumbles on a genius drink mix that, when added to any liquid, neutralizes the radiation and renders the liquid safe to drink. Cheap and easy to make, your Sim distributes this miracle drink mix to the whole region, allowing Sims everywhere to raise a glass and drink to their health.

1. Astronaut – Space Ranger

The radiation cloud released by the meltdown has taken the form of a dark and grim cloud, blocking out much of the sky and sunlight. The presence of the cloud makes sleeping outdoors unsafe and the lack of sunlight sets the entire region on edge, unable to appreciate the beauty of many objects around them.

• All objects must be covered by four walls and a roof.
• Sims may not sleep outdoors.
• Sims may not travel to or vacation in Granite Falls (If you have the Outdoor Retreat Pack).
• Sims may not stargaze or cloud watch or use the telescope to watch the sky.
• You may not enable the mood auras on any mood aura objects.
• Tents may not be used.
• Mailboxes, outdoor trash cans and rocket ships are all exempt from the “Must be covered by 4 walls and a roof” rule.

Completion

With a heroic mission in low orbit, your brave space ranger sim is able to harness the power of the solar winds to pull the radioactive cloud out of the atmosphere and send it into space, clearing the sky and letting the region breathe a little easier and actually see the sun once in a while.

2. Astronaut – Interstellar Smuggler

The prototype designs for the next generation of objects was stolen from the region’s high tech industrial sector during the chaos and confusion of the meltdown. The knowledge of how to make those unique and special objects has been lost. Worse still, the blueprints for do-it-yourself improvements are missing, rendering the handysims of the region clueless on how to improve the functionality.

• Cannot place, sell, or use career reward objects.
• May not upgrade any objects other than rockets.

Completion

While your Interstellar Smuggler went on an epic quest to steal back the stolen plans, their efforts were ultimately in vain as the thieves were found dead and the laptop with the stolen plans broken beyond repair. Luckily all the gadgets, trinkets and high tech modifications your Sim developed while preparing for their mission were more than enough to replace the knowledge lost. Your Sim releases the plans to the region for all to use.

3. Painter – Master of the Real

Art has taken a back seat to survival. Who wants to look at drawings when one doesn’t know where their next meal will come from? Anyone who had artistic talent in the region has forgotten how to make emotionally powerful objects.

• Your Sims may not paint mood-aura paintings.
• Handysims may not create emotional aura items on the workbench. (Items with just a plain environment score are not considered emotional aura items)
• Authors may not write emotional books.

Completion

Your Master of the Real realizes how to break through the tragic haze in the region and once again master their emotions and put that mastery into their creations allowing the region’s art scene to be revived and develop a unique style of its own.

4. Painter – Patron of the Arts

The outside world is largely cut off from those in the region. Given that there is no market for works of art within the region itself as your fellow survivors care more about food and shelter than pretty pictures, even the greatest masterpiece will go unheeded and the greatest artists unrewarded for their work.

• You may not sell any Sim-produced objects.
• May not self-publish books.

Completion

Having attracted the attention of major international art gallery using their connections, your Sim establishes an art auction house where the artists of the region can go to get real money for their works of art. There is a robust market for creations from the region as suffering and struggle felt by the artists of the region make for very memorable and valuable creations.

5. Writer – Author

The libraries and the bookstores are gone. Only stray books can be found these days. If your Sim wants to read more than the handful of books that come with new bookshelves, they had better hope they know a local author or write one themselves.

• You may not order books from bookshelves or online, and may not visit library lots (even if visiting other lots is otherwise allowed).

Completion

The written word is indeed powerful and your prolific author has penned enough books to restock the entire region and setup an ordering service for sims to buy books from the outside world. The money earned from all this is used to rebuild the regional libraries.

6. Writer – Journalist

With everyone in the region focused on survival, information networks have become thin and behind the times. While there are jobs available, finding them has become a matter of luck and good timing.

• You may have noticed each career is assigned a number 1-6. Each day roll a die. You may pick your career from the choices associated with that number.

Completion

Your sim’s love of gossip, which everyone thought was so useless and annoying before, allows them to see the personal connections among those in the community that are lost on most sims. Their groundbreaking book, “Small Talk and Golf: From Intern to Surgeon in 5 Easy Weeks” restores public interest in the lives of others, reigniting the media industry and making all careers available again.

1. Secret Agent – Diamond Agent

The devastation of the region has resulted in the loss of any information of the outside world. While sims used to travel far and wide, paranoia and the fight for survival keeps everyone as close to home as possible. Why meet other people when your neighbor might be plotting to steal your hard-won guppy dinner? What’s culture in the face of yet another broken sink?

• May not travel to Selvadorada or Granite Falls.
• May not go to festivals.

Completion

The scraps of government that still exist remember a day when free travel and trade with other cultures enhanced the lives of millions. Your sim’s mission, should they choose to accept it, is to explore foreign regions, charting paths and dividing the real threats from the imagined. Well, never let it be said your sim has ever turned a challenge down. They leave with their night-vision goggles and rappel gear and return with valuable intel regarding useful plants, friendly locals, and really delicious snacks.

2. Secret Agent – Villain

Something must have snapped in the mind of Glassbolt’s mayor. When the meltdown took the life of his pet llama, the mayor went a little insane, enacting bizarre zoning laws and mobilizing the region’s fire and police forces to enforce them while ignoring the suffering and other problems that a police force might otherwise be able to help with.

• When you start the challenge, you must choose an 8X8 square on your lot. You may only build in this area (though you can build up or down). Nothing may be placed outside the 8X8 area.

Completion

Your villain, aggravated by this insane and clearly incompetent mayor’s rules, has decided to take down the figure of authority and seize power for his or herself. Through some careful manipulation from the shadows and some very good use of minions and henchmen, your Sim manages to stage a little ‘accident’ for the mayor mere minutes after being named deputy mayor themselves. While there isn’t exactly a lot of wealth and power to gained from ruling a devistated region, at least your Sim can do away with the previous mayor’s silly laws while they ponder ways to exploit their new-found authority.

3. Entertainer – Musician

The people of the region have difficulty relaxing. Living in a nuclear hell-hole has a way of keeping you focused on the here and now. Music is seen as a waste of time and the local radio stations have all been destroyed in the disaster. People seem more set in their ways and stubborn to try new things or give into their changing impulses.

• Sims may only only “Practice” instruments, and may not do any other interactions on them.
• Sims may not purchase or use any kinds of radios or stereos.
• You may not change a Sim’s aspiration, even if they have completed it (other than the forced change going from childhood to teenager).
• You may not cancel whims.
• Note: once completed, you may add one good lot trait (if Charity Organizer is unlocked).

Completion

With your Sim filling the air with beautiful music, the people of the region are inspired to rebuild the radio stations just so they can hear your Sim play. Hope is renewed and people feel more at ease and flexible in how they approach life.

4. Entertainer – Comedian

The people of the Glassbolt region are a depressed group, and rightfully so. But depression feeds more depression and people become more hesitant to gather together or even look at themselves in a mirror. Nobody laughs or feels they can make merry and everyone is on edge.

• Sims may not throw parties.
• Sims may not go on dates.
• Sims may not invite other Sims to their lot.
• Sims may only invite in one Sim per generation to join the household.
• Sims may only use mirrors to practice speech.

Completion

With a star comedian touring the region, the people of Glassbolt learn to laugh again, even at themselves. People may still look like hell, but at least they are more comfortable joking about it. With everyone being a lot less self-conscious, people once again gather for events and are more comfortable joining others.

5. Criminal – Boss

The one thing that wasn’t destroyed by the blast was the local mob. With law enforcement severely weakened and unable to maintain order, the mob has volunteered itself to ‘protect’ the residents. The upside is that burglaries are non-existent. The downside is that this ‘protection’ has a price – everything you made that week. Residents are in such bad shape that saying ‘no’ is not an option.

• Every Sunday, reduce your household funds to $0 using the money cheat. (Open cheat console with ctrl-c then enter ‘Testing Cheats on’ without the quotes and hit enter. Then ‘Money 0’ without the quotes and hit enter).
• You may not spend any money while you have outstanding bills or once the mail carrier appears on the lot until the bills are paid.
• You must use the money cheat to remove any money brought in by a spouse moving in (if they bring any money in).

Completion

Beating the mob is not an option, but if you can’t beat them, join them. As the big boss in charge, the mob plays by your Sim’s  rules. And their rules say ‘no protection payments are to be drawn from my family for life’. And when the boss speaks, the goons listen.

6. Criminal – Oracle

Things are bad, but they seem almost artificially bad. As if the universe was conspiring against the people of Glassbolt at the whim of some cruel otherworldly power. Sadly, the people of Glassbolt are powerless to act upon this paranoid feeling and must go about their lives.

• May not cancel autonomous actions unless they break the rules.
• May not issue commands or cancel autonomous actions of elders (unless they break a rule).

Completion

Your master hacker Sim manages to tap into the matrix. They almost go mad from the revelation. They are just a simulation, a computer program. And the state of the region is that way because of some ‘challenge’ being played. Unable to escape from the simulation, the oracle finds little ways to get ahead and manipulate their player’s computer to make things easier for their family.

1. Athlete – Professional Athlete

People feel hopeless in the region. The bare minimum is done and nobody thinks they can aspire to greatness. “Good Enough” is the attitude of the day and people think the days of role models and heroes is over.

• You may not purchase any reward traits for your Sims.
• Gym equipment may not be used by anyone outside the Athlete career track unless needed for the career (mentoring).

Completion

After your professional athlete Sim organizes a brand new sport, “Glassbolt Ultra Caber Toss” in the ruins of the old Glassbolt Stadium, people from around the region come to either play or cheer on their favorite local teams. Heroes and sports idols emerge once again and people feel encouraged to give 110% and make themselves even better.

2. Athlete – Bodybuilder

The wave of radiation produced by the power plant turned many people into zombies. Those not turned into zombies found themselves severely weakened. Muscles can barely lift what they used to and people struggle just to stand, let alone haul heavy loads or lift heavy objects.

• You may not move or sell any objects that have a footprint larger than 1×1 once they are placed and build/buy mode is exited.
• Cannot carry more than one stack of objects in personal inventory at a time.
• You may not remove any items out of family inventory, regardless of size. (You may place items into it, but they may not be brought back out until this restriction is lifted)

Completion

Your bodybuilder and personal trainer Sim devises a rigorous alternate-day body bulk-up routine designed to take make the meek and the weak into the MIGHTY! Organizing a regional gym, your Sim spends their day whipping everyone in the region back into shape.

3. Teen Career – Babysitter

Modern parenting techniques have fallen by the wayside. Simply feeding and protecting a Sim’s child is hard enough, so no effort is given to raising them and shaping them into a proper citizen of the future.

• You must use the random trait generator to pick personality traits whenever an infant/child/teen ages up in the household and gains a new personality trait.
• You must also follow the random generator’s result when choosing a childhood or adult aspiration.
• You may not use music or fruit to influence the gender of an unborn baby.
• You may only choose one toy for all toddlers and kids to share in your household. Choose well!

Completion

With your young Sim’s new and revolutionary post-apocalyptic childcare techniques, children can once again be encouraged and shaped into little angels….or devils depending on what the parents deem is good behavior.

4. Teen Career – Fast Food Employee

The modern convenience of fast food has all but vanished overnight. Being able to find enough normal food is now the order of the day. None of the major food chains has any plans to try and return to the region.

• May not use the “Quick Meal” option on a fridge or cooler.
• May not order snacks from a bar.
• May not order pizza.

Completion

After rebuilding a local pizzeria from the ashes of one that had collapsed, the global pizza chain “Little Napoleons” sees a viable market for their product. They make your teen Sim a new franchise owner and start shipping in pizza supplies and other snacks by the truckload, returning fast and yummy food to the region.

5. Teen Career – Manual Labor

With the region in shambles, the quality of life of all of Glassbolt’s residents has been leveled to the same abject squalor. The joys of a clean house, pristine yard, and good old class superiority have been forgotten in generations of fighting to survive.

• May not hire service sims.
• May not take odd jobs.

Completion

Trying to scrounge up a little extra cash, your teen sim makes themself available for any piddly household need their neighbors might have. Government-issue ham radio broken again? I can fix that. Toilet clogged with zombie offal? Don’t dirty your hands, let me take care of that for you. Little by little your teen seem reintroduces the region to that age-old rule of the free market: “don’t worry, someone else will do that for money.”

6. Teen Career – Retail Employee

The downtown shopping center has been picked clean and the local mall looted. You can still *get* things, you just need to know when the weekly swap meet is. While there is a local market that has sprung up from the ashes of the old one, it is only open once a week. If you need something any other time, you are out of luck.

• You may only purchase/build new objects in build/buy mode on Sundays. If the Criminal-Boss restriction is not lifted, you may buy whatever you need before you reduce your family funds to 0 (as long as your bills are paid).
• You may only “replace” broken objects on Sundays. (Brand new games should start on a Sunday, allowing you to get your initial house established).

Completion

With sharp organizational skills and lightning fast fingers at the checkout line, your teen Sim helps the local market keep itself open 7 days a week. Supplies might still be limited but convenience is back, and with a smile!

1. Teen Career – Barista

With the water supply tainted in the region, the last thing people want is a hot cup of coffee or tea. Even if they did, supplies of coffee and tea to the area have halted and aren’t showing any signs of returning.

• You may not purchase or use any coffee or tea related items.
• May not purchase or use the lump of clay object.

Completion

Between school and work, having no source of caffeine is NOT acceptable to your Barista sim. They engineer a clever little water filter that makes water potable, but sadly only when used for coffee or tea. A more potent purifying method will be needed to make other liquids safe to drink. With this problem solved, the natural order is restored and hundreds of coffee shops appear out of the blue overnight.

2. Actor/Actress

With paranoia and the general urgency of staying alive ransacking the region, the idea that any sim might want to express their experiences or find community in shared emotions is a distant memory. Those in the region are trapped in the loneliness of the individual mind, helpless to find solace in their fellow sim.

• Social Media, Style Influencer, and Entertainer restrictions may only be suppressed (a sim may reach the top of a career, but the accompanying restriction will only be lifted as long as the Actor/Actress sim is alive).

Completion

There’s no other way to say it—your sim has it. You know, it. That unspeakable force that draw other sims into their orbit and gives them the inexplicable impression that they know what they’re doing or talking about. A born performer, your sim’s revolutionary one-sim autobiographical show “Zombies, Meteor Showers, and Other Reasons My House Isn’t Clean” shows the region that life is about more than just surviving. Others begin to wonder what creative spirits are hidden under their own panicky, grime-covered exteriors.

3. Critic—Arts Critic

The scarcity of resources for needs as basic as shelter and defense has resulted in a complete die-out of the previously vibrant Glassbolt art scene. Across the region, sims lack the materials and skill to make their houses anything like a home, relegated to sitting among their four blank and peeling walls, plagued by a gnawing feeling of hopelessness in their bellies and an inarticulable wonder at what exactly is missing here.

• Cannot purchase wall hangings, sculptures, or rugs from Buy Mode, at fair, or from any other source.
• No participating in holidays.

Completion

Okay, fine, so your sim has never exactly had much of a talent for creation. However, they do have an almost preternatural ability to recognize talent in others, and Old Man Jansen down the street has caught their eye. The fishing baskets he weaves are nothing short of extraordinary, and your sim knows everyone in Glassbolt deserves to see them. Your sim braves Old Man Jansen’s shouts to get off his lawn and threats to release his attack cowplant long enough to gain his trust. Before anyone knows it, Glassbolt become famous for artisanal fishing baskets, and interest in the finer things of life is revitalized.

4. Critic—Food Critic

“Food critic?” Are you kidding me? The people of Glassbolt would eat their own hands if they didn’t need them to make radioactive grass-and-guppy sandwiches.

• Sims may not start a business of any kind, including restaurants.
• No purchasing pre-made food or selling crafted food.
• May not use birthday cakes.
• Sims may not bake.

Completion

No one in the recent memory of Glassbolt was as big a worry to their parents as your sim. Their baffling refusal of almost every hard-won meal put in front of them resulted in even more chronic panic for their family than normal, along with immense relief every time your sim considered a food up to their exacting standards. To most, your sim is what those in the survival business call “a huge pain in the keister.” Others, however, wonder what your sim is seeing that they are not, and begin to take a second look at what they’re holding before they shovel it into their mouths. For the first time in generations, the region begins to see experimentations with flavors and consistencies. The excess meals are sold, and overnight, small businesses are once again a reality.

5. Detective

Law is one thing and military power is another, but since Glassbolt’s societal meltdown, any finesse or subtlety in the law enforcement of the region has dissolved.  As they say: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and the primitive governmental authority in the region proves almost as barbaric as the crisis itself.

• Teens and Elders may not leave the lot for any reason without 10 body points.
• Sims may not accept job offers from other sims.

Completion

Thunder claps. Rain pelts the window of your sim’s bunker office, sliding down the glass in streams. The sodium lamp on the ceiling, the sole source of light in the room, gutters, and your sim tilts their fedora a little farther down against the glare as it finally goes dark. They stare out the moonlit window, the memory of the case that cracked the corruption in Glassbolt wide open fading a little more with every rainsoaked minute. The mysterious widow, the weeping statue, the cursed trashberry…all parts of a case that would change the region forever, and that your sim knows the community can never know about—for their own good. But your sim remembers. They will remember, and though Glassbolt might not know it, they will be watching.

6. Scientist

Without the electricity once provided by Glassbolt’s ruined power grid, the tech nerds of the region have nothing to fuel the research and innovation that once made Glassbolt the epicenter of all technological advancement. Sims are reduced to candles for light and musical spoons and jugs for entertainment.

• No electronic devices (including lights, robots, electric guitar, etc.) except the worst computer.
• Lot must be Off the Grid, even if Charity Organizer has been lifted

Completion

Spoons, spoons, SPOONS. Others might think them festive and resourceful fun, but your sim is sick of the clicking and clattering that has become the neighborhood’s only source of entertainment. Using the remnants of the unreliable power grid, they jury-rig some twine, jellied trout, spare circuitry and a fork to create the region’s first electric musical fork! The sweet tones of the fork’s expertly struck tines make the people of Glassbolt think maybe your sim is onto something. With the support of the community, your sim uses the electric fork as the basis for inventing a more stable power system, and with it, all the technological luxuries of the past. Science!

1. Doctor

Even if the water supply in the region hadn’t been contaminated beyond all use except for what people are willing to risk in the name of survival, any knowledge of basic hygiene or medical practices are now a thing of the past. Every encounter with a foreign bacteria or woohoo session is now a roll of the dice.

• Cannot use showers/bathtubs, any water-using objects except a sink.
• Must “Try For Baby” when woohooing if option is available.
• Cannot take pregnancy test
• Cannot buy or make medicine

Completion

Your sim has been the neighborhood herbalist for as along as they can remember, finding inventive ways to use the natural tools at hand in service of their fellow sim. One day, after feeling their radioactive dart frog his daily cowplant berry lunch, the excited frog hops out of his tank and into a nearly puddle. The puddle, to your sim’s surprise, is immediately purified. Through studying the chemical properties of the frog, your sim is able to produce a new line of medicines, contraceptives, and purifiers, revitalizing medical research and care in the region. 

2. Gardener—Botanist

Though the balance of the natural world is beginning to bounce back, all knowledge of how to harness its resources has vanished. Sims are now reduced to a hunting-and-gathering model of survival, and must rely on luck and good weather for their groceries.

• Sims not in the Botanist career cannot plant, grow, level up, graft, take samples of, or otherwise cultivate plants. (Wild plants may still be harvested)

Completion

While picking some radioactive pomegranate one rare fine day in Glassbolt, your sim discards a rotten fruit, only do discover a few days later that a new plant has sprouted where the fruit fell. This makes your sim wonder whether they might be able to make their own pomegranates! At home! And if they can, maybe they can make their own grapes! Or apples! Or even carrots! The mind reels. Your sim’s efforts spark a new agricultural revolution, and Glassbolt can expect regular fresh produce once again.

3. Gardener—Floral Designer

The fallout from the collapse of Glassbolt’s nuclear infrastructure has resulted in heretofore unheard-of climate swings. Northern environments have become wintry wastelands with snow made mostly of ash, while desert climes are now more hostile than ever, brutally hot and dry. Only the hardiest plants can survive, and even those are unreliable, with potential danger written into their very DNA.

• Keep track of seasons and change their settings to make the longest winter or summer possible, depending on the climate of your neighborhood (temperate worlds get a forever-winter, desert worlds get a forever-summer).
• Cannot place cow plant, decorative plants, wedding arch, wishing well.
• Cannot use terrain tool.
• Cannot order seeds.
• Botanist restrictions may only be suppressed.

Completion

With most Glassbolt residents are concerned primarily with day-to-day survival, your sim’s devotion to improving life for future generations is rare. Though they take some social fallout from their refusal to do the daily vampire-repellant chores and gather the few twigs appropriate for consumption, their research eventually pays off as they devise a clever fertilizer based on nuclear waste. With plants flourishing in the area again, the environment begins to stabilize, and with it sim life.

4. Politics—Politician

Politicians are a lot of things: self-aggrandizing, charismatic, devoted, sometimes mentally imbalanced, but one thing they are generally not is tough. The chaos of the apocalypse causes panic in Glassbolt’s government, resulting in a complete breakdown of any government resources. Without political infrastructure supporting public goods, the efforts of the people of Glassbolt to better society can only go so far.

• Active careers may not be taken. No, this does not mean you can send your sim to the rabbit hole version of a job that gives you the active option and pretend it’s not active that way.

Completion

Your sim knows that the people of Glassbolt are better than this. Whatever happened to the Glassbolt of old, where residents left their doors unlocked and brought each other casseroles in times of need? To streets you could walk down on a Spring day without fear of zombies or especially hungry neighbors? The people of the region have questions about this line of thought, mostly things like “how do you remember food” and “what’s Spring.” Your sim’s conviction is infectious, though, and soon they have everyone in the region acting on the impulses of their better nature, bringing some much-needed order to the region.

5. Politics—Charity Organizer

There is one pervasive attitude common across the population of Glassbolt: everyone out for themself. So concerned is everyone with the survival of them and theirs that the very concept of altruistic behavior seems laughable, even as citizens’ quality of life crumbles in its isolation.

• Your lot must be Off the Grid, and additionally have two of the following traits: Quake Zone, Volcanic Activity, Cursed, Grody, Gremlins, Filthy, Haunted, Needs TLC, Creepy Crawlies (Off the Grid may be lifted temporarily to get a career, but you better switch it back!)

Completion

Growing up, your sim noticed that everyone in the neighborhood, big or small, honest or crooked, human or vampire, had the same problem: broken sinks. Despite the long list of survival chores that comprised everyone’s day, it seemed a large chunk of valuable time was always being devoted to fixing broken sinks. Your sim’s answer to this problem is simple and ingenious: organize a coalition of sink-fixers to travel to each other’s homes once a week and address any sink-related issues. The mutual cooperation frees up time for better, more exciting uses, and before long everyone in the neighborhood is tripping over themselves in their haste to help one another.

6. Social Media—Internet Personality

Celebrity is a strange thing. The more comfortable a society becomes, the lower the bar seems to sink for what is considered worthy of fame. Suffice it to say that Glassbolt’s current heroes are zombie-vanquishers and society-builders. Without brands to peddle, cameras to film with, or social media to chatter through, the age of the influencer has ended. There remains only one lifestyle to sell: survival.

• Sims may not use any object that raises a fun or social need that does not also have some practical use. For example, chess sets are fine because they raise the logic skill. Video games (even if eSport Gamer and Comupter Engineer is lifted) are not fine because don’t you know they do nothing but rot your brain? Go outside, or talk to your family, jeez. Just…don’t read a book. Those don’t build skill either.

Completion

Ugh, the sims of Glassbolt just don’t know how to live. Your sim does, and everyone needs to know about it. With the most basic recording technology available, your sim stages a series of funny funny pranks. You know; sabotaging their neighbor’s water well so it only emits bubbles, putting on zombie masks and waiting behind walls for people to turn the corner—it’s just a prank, bro! The reaction in the community is both outrage and joy. Either way, the citizens are distracted from their daily trials, and people in the region once again see the myriad benefits of being a big fat lazybutt and minding other people’s business.

1. Social Media—Public Relations

With the constant sense of crisis and near-daily disasters in the region, it’s no wonder tensions are running high. Except for the basic cooperation necessary to run the primitive society to which Glassbolt has reverted, citizens can barely stand to look at one another, and conflict has become an expectation of daily interaction.

• Sims may not start or join clubs.
• No travelling to lots with sims that aren’t in the household.
• No inviting sims over unless in love or engaged (assuming Computer Engineer restriction is lifted)

Completion

Woe is your sim, for their family and that of their love hate each other! The generations-deep conflict between the two families (something about the disputed ownership of a prime fishing spot—no one can seem to remember the details) has ensured your sim’s permanent separation from the love of their life. Your sim and their beloved won’t let this stand. They elope, and the romance soon becomes legendary in the region, forcing the two families to make peace. With this newfound notoriety, your sim begins to wonder what other social cooperation they can broker, making it their life mission to help others in the community think before they open their stupid mouths.

2. Style Influencer—Stylist

With resources scarce, the only clothing worth wearing is purely protective. A burlap sack becomes as valuable a piece of apparel as an evening gown, as fashion has become a luxury no one can afford.

• Sims may not change clothes. If you grow up in the gnome suit, you die in the goddamn gnome suit.

Completion

It seems as though your sim’s family won’t stop growing. Nieces, nephews, and cousins are popping up left and right, and they need to be clothed. Your sim develops a weaving technique that allows them to process common weeds into cloth, and for the first time in generations new clothing is being produced. Soon your sim is adding variations is color, texture, and cut, allowing the people of Glassbolt a newfound pride in their personal appearance.

3. Style Influencer—Trendsetter

In the wake of the apocalypse, the point of decorating oneself has been forgotten. With everyone living at the same grimy depths of abject squalor, who after all is left to impress?

• Sims may not wear makeup or accessories.
• Sims may not change their hair.

Completion

Your sim is the first of Glassbolt’s new society to understand that style can sometimes equal survival. One day, they arrive to their daily toil sporting half a shaved head and nails studding their government-issue gasmask. The look provides tactical defense in the dangerous new world, but perhaps more importantly, looks really, really cool. Soon, the people of Glassbolt come up with their own looks, donning items that offer protection and intimidate or attract their neighbors, gradually making the apocalypse their own.

4. Military—Officer

The zombie hordes swarm the city, making it impossible to venture any farther than your own backyard. Without an organized counterforce to protect the people, travel of any kind just isn’t worth the risk.

• No travelling to community lots at all.
• Sims may not go to college (even if Education restrictions are lifted).
• Sims may not move out.

Completion

Your sim is a born leader, able to rally the confidence needed among Glassbolt’s residents to come together in an impressive militia. The ensuing battle, known to later generations as The Great Splat, becomes legendary, and the roads are once again cleared for travel.

5. Military—Covert Operator

The relationship between the sim world and the paranormal has always been tense, relying on the deft diplomacy conducted by a few select Sims in Black. The chaos of the apocalypse has scrambled the delicately balanced community that once operated just below daily sim conduct, and without advocates devoted to the interests of humanity, the paranormal realm can no longer be trusted. The alien-human exchange program has crumbled, vampires attack wantonly, mermaids are even more ill-tempered than ever, and your ghosts are here to stay.

• May not use or place supernatural abilities or objects. This includes any alien, spellcaster, vampire, mermaid, or plantsim interactions, strange fruit, wishing well, gnomes, Patchy, crystal crown, etc.
• May not move, sell, delete, or release to underworld urns or graves.
• Note: once completed, you may add one good lot trait (if Charity Organizer is unlocked).

Completion

How do you form a relationship with a community that is bigger than you, more powerful than you, and whose opinion of you ranges from indifferent to outwardly hostile? Your sim knows that the answer is not a show of force, but good old fashioned friendship. Their sharp wit, gregariousness, and empathetic skills wins friends hither and yon. After one especially productive meeting with the Most Honorable Birth Queen of Sixam, humans gain a reputation for being quaint and adorable, and the supernatural realm deigns to do them the occasional favor now and again.

6. Education—Professor

The rich intellectual history of Glassbolt yore has given way to barbarism. Civilization may be returning bit by bit, but the lack of higher education, or really any education, means the region is stuck in the days of superstition and general lack of curiosity. When the youth of Glassbolt ask their elders a question, they’re likely to get a shrug and a counter-inquiry about whether they plan to finish that trashberry stew.

• Sims may not go to college or get a degree (even if Military Officer restrictions are lifted).
• Engineering restrictions may only be suppressed.
• When this is unlocked you may place one focusing or inspiring mood object on the Apocalypse lot.

Completion

Your sim knows there is knowledge being created every day in Glassbolt, despite the population’s uncouth behavior. They set up the first public school in decades, meant to pass down the scant information that survived the apocalypse and the new lessons humanity has learned down to the next generation. Soon, your sim is preparing those students to instruct the new generation—Glassbolt’s first professor of professorship!

1. Education—Administrator

With survival on the mind, the value of a good education has been left in the dust. It’s easy enough to convince the citizens of Glassbolt to let kids learn their ABCs, but once they grow up enough to help with resource-finding and zombie-repelling the education of the average citizen of Glassbolt is considered effectively over.

• Teen sims may not go to school.
• No sim may help with homework or tutor another sim in any way, unless required by career.
• If Professor track is unlocked, sims may not live in dorms, or get a degree from home. They must live in off-campus housing, which must follow all apocalypse rules that apply to the home lot.

Completion

Your sim knows society has no hope of rebuilding itself without a population that knows a little more than what color of nuclear gooseberry will make you sprout extra ears. With a modest fundraiser, they gather the necessary capital to publish Glassbolt’s first textbook in generations. With it they teach the smaller members of the region the basics of physics, resulting in the invention of an automatic vampire-repellant machine (it spews vaporized garlic) that becomes a staple item at everyone’s front door. Faith in the use of a good education is revitalized, and Glassbolt’s children are sent back to school en masse.

2. Law—Judge

Look: it’s not that the residents of Glassbolt are bad people. Many in the region have a heroic streak in them—they want to do good for their fellow sim. But the lack of any justice system in the region makes any of their more altruistic efforts useless. Even the criminals steal and maim with all the joy and enthusiasm of a deflated balloon. For what is crime without anyone there to berate you for it?

• Criminal, Politics, and Detective careers may only be suppressed.

Completion

Your sim always led a standard life. But when their neighbor’s pet zombie loses one too many rotting fingers to their other neighbor’s prize guard cowplant, making it sick, the neighborhood reels from the ensuing drama. Tired of the tension, your sim comes up with a genius solution: the owner of the zombie will pay to build a corral for the cowplant in return for 10% of the plant’s future milk. Seeing the peace newly brought to your sim’s neighborhood, other sims begin to approach them with similar grievances. Before your sim knows it, they are the region’s first true arbiter of morality in generations.

Law—Private Attorney

Wild how a crisis makes you fling all your standards out the window, isn’t it? The family unit has become crucial to survival, and as such, the beggars of Glassbolt feel they can’t be choosers. Marriage is based on convenience and resource-sharing. Families are functional, but happy? Not so much.

• You may not perform any “Get to Know” social interactions on any potential candidates for marriage. The career, traits, and any other personal information of romantic partners must be a mystery until that sim joins the household.
• No divorce or breakups. You must marry the first sim you are romantically involved with.

Completion

Your sim dreams of something better for the families of the region. They brush up on the archaic laws of their pre-apocalypse ancestors, introducing the now-revolutionary idea of partnerships based on compatibility, not convenience. They are immediately laughed out of society. But one day, local socialite Cara Livingston finally decides she’s had enough of her husband’s philandering, never mind how many anglerfish he can miraculously pull out of the local pond. Your sim arranges as amicable and fair a split as possible, and Cara’s new ability to date those hot young pizza delivery guys your teen manual labor sim sends over makes others in the region think having someone to advocate for their needs might not be so bad…

3. Engineering—Mechanical

Without the expertise of Glassbolt’s erstwhile architects, the residents of the town are at a loss for how to build the most basic shack, letalone a proper home. Physics might as well be magic, and buildings might as well be made of playing cards. Glassbolt’s quaint cottages and lavish mansions have given way to shantytowns, built with whatever materials can be scraped together. 

• May not build fountains
• May not place fish tanks or bowls.
• May not place more than two items from each build mode category per day. The only exception is day 1, to allow you to establish your house.
• Must use cheapest Build Mode materials, even if Tech Guru—Startup restrictions are unlocked.
• Note: once completed, you may add one good lot trait (if Charity Organizer is unlocked).

Completion

Since they were a child, your sim has been visiting the same fish at the bank of the nearest river. They neighbors talk: is your sim crazy? Is the fish magic? What whispers do these two unlikely friends exchange of a day by the river? No one knows, but one day your sim arrives on the scene with a forge, sand, and a complicated series of pipes. It takes them a year or two, but eventually your sim produces the region’s first new glass fish tank. The community is stunned, but your sim is as serene as ever as they gently place their friend into his new home and retreats to the basement to produce ever more architectural marvels. The fish whispers. Your sim builds.

4. Engineering—Computer

Though the technological marvels that once put Glassbolt on the map are a thing of the past, the motivation for faster information processing never left. Unfortunately, the materials needed for such devices are vanishingly scarce due to travel restrictions. Even if they weren’t, the skills of the citizenry combined could barely come up with a mousetrap, letalone the old and legendary machines that could do your thinking for you.

• May not build robots.
• May only buy the worst computer even if Tech Guru – Startup and Scientist are unlocked.
• May not use or place microscope, chemical analyzer, or any other high-tech device unless needed for a daily task.
• The cell phone may only be used to take or quit a job and cannot be used to play games, chat, text, prank, or invite other sims. TVs and electronic notebooks may not be purchased or used either.
• Phone restrictions are lifted on Saturdays from 12 to 6

Completion

Make no mistake, Glassbolt is still a daily horrorshow. But the trajectory of human experience marches reliably toward progress, and little by little, Glassbolt is beginning to look more civilized. With the increasing health of intellectual marketplace, your mechanically gifted sim is able to find the time and resources necessary to kickstart a new renaissance of convenience through computing. Say hello to smarthouses and cell phones!