The Evil Twin Challenge

[kuronue]

Without satisfying fears, the lowest an aspiration bar will go via natural decay is one bar into red (out of two IIRC) - it won't hit rock bottom until you satisfy a fear.

I really don't see why you can't buy toys while skilling a toddler...? Pescado said train their toddler skills first. You said, you needed to buy toys first. I don't see why you can't buy toys AND skill at the same time? The toddlers aren't physically involved in the buying of toys for the lot?

You have to understand that Pescado considers anything less than a perfect score a failure. Perfect scores, in challenges with positive or bonus points, is 100% of the possible points. Therefore, failing to get a bonus means a less than perfect score, which is a PHAIL.

Why do both your twins have to eat the same food all the time? Have the parent make a variety of foods, store them as leftovers in the fridge, let the kids help themselves to whichever food they want/don't want as you see fit.

[talysman]

Without satisfying fears, the lowest an aspiration bar will go via natural decay is one bar into red (out of two IIRC) - it won't hit rock bottom until you satisfy a fear.

Pescado just said that. I said I would take his word for it. What exactly are you contributing, here?

I really don't see why you can't buy toys while skilling a toddler...? Pescado said train their toddler skills first. You said, you needed to buy toys first. I don't see why you can't buy toys AND skill at the same time? The toddlers aren't physically involved in the buying of toys for the lot?

First off, Pescado said both things, I only said I would try them. Second, the toddlers are pixels. YOU are the player. There's only one cursor, and it can only be used to do one thing at a time. If you buy the toys first, you haven't skilled the toddlers first. If you skill the toddlers first, you haven't bought the toys first. It's simple logic. You can *start* skilling and then buy the toys, but it's clear which comes first, isn't it?

You have to understand that Pescado considers anything less than a perfect score a failure. Perfect scores, in challenges with positive or bonus points, is 100% of the possible points. Therefore, failing to get a bonus means a less than perfect score, which is a PHAIL.

I'm pretty sure Pescado likes to harass, tease, insult, and poke people, and likes people who can take it and dish it out. It's not a big deal. I'm tormenting him because he's saying silly things, but the real issue is making the challenge better. I don't care if he prefers to believe fanciful things.

Why do both your twins have to eat the same food all the time? Have the parent make a variety of foods, store them as leftovers in the fridge, let the kids help themselves to whichever food they want/don't want as you see fit.

Wasn't that added with Seasons or later?

Right now, it's a matter of efficiency. Frequently, the parent can't serve a meal and fulfill the good twin's want without also fulfilling the evil twin's want. That might not matter much as far as aspiration points -- those are minor wants. But you might have a decent string of easily avoidable wants that you want to keep. The only way to prepare two different kinds of foods is to prepare a single meal, cancel the eat, and prepare a different meal and cancel. Either that, or make the evil twin eat nothing but chips and cookies.

It's a minor thing, but it's actually painfully easy for the evil twin to get up into gold when you least expect it, so you *have* to pay attention to stuff like this. I just got the evil twin from the second challenge family to grow up badly as a child, but the evil twin from the first challenge grew up well again. I haven't created families to test Gus's strategy (the Dopple family) or Pescado's "shuttered room" strategy (the Whately family) yet. We'll see if those work better, and if it's too easy, toughen it up.

[talysman]

Here's a tentative second draft of the rules. I didn't provide full details on the restrictions, because they're pretty much identical to the first version; just check for changes. This time, almost everything is a penalty.

The Setup: Create a family of three sims in CAS:

• Parent: adult sim with Family aspiration, any mix of personality or turn-ons/turn-offs.
• Good Twin: toddler with 10 Nice, 10 Neat, other points distributed any way desired.
• Evil Twin: toddler with 0 Nice, 0 Neat, other points distributed any way desired.

Twins can be identical or fraternal, as desired.

Create a house for the family on any size lot, but the family only starts with the standard $20,000.

Restrictions: no hacks that change gameplay, no cheats except to fix broken lots/objects, no money except through a career, no leaving lot under your control except via school bus/carpool, no inviting sims over with another playable family, no off-lot skilling except through chance cards/school. Rewards, if earned through normal play, are allowed, but penalized per use. No other sims may move onto lot. No turning into supernaturals (vampires, zombies, plant sims, werewolves.) Twins must grow up together (age transition on the same day between 6pm and midnight.) When they age to teens, they must choose the same aspiration.

Game Ends: when one of the twins dies, moves out, runs away and doesn't return, or is taken by social worker, or when both twins age to adult or young adult. If a twin dies, or the parent dies before the twins are teens (summoning social worker,) YOU FAIL. Otherwise, calculate your score.

The Scoring:

The family life should not be too extreme:

• -10 parent or twin suffers aspiration failure (per instance)
• -5  house is filthy, as determined by roach infestation, one time penalty
• -5  Family has no friends
• -5  per zero-level skill (parent or teen)
• -1  Anyone pees or passes out on lot (family or visitor)
• -1  For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object.

The parent must provide a decent home environment for both twins.

• -10 parent never earns any money
• -5 parent is fired or demoted (per event)
• -5 parent ages to elder and grows up badly, or dies before twins are teens
• -5 parent isn't friends with both children
• -5 parent doesn't get kids into private school
• -1 each time headmaster rejects private school application

The twins should have equal opportunities:

• -5 per twin that doesn't learn all three toddler skills, learn to study, have a best friend outside the family, have a first kiss (cumulative)
• -5 per twin that doesn't get an A+ in grade school
• -5 per twin that doesn't get an A+ in high school
• -5 per failing grade (D or F)
• -5 per twin that doesn't earn a scholarship
• -5 if evil twin has fewer friends, skill points, talent badges, or scholarships than good twin (cumulative, per category)
• -5 if evil twin has more enemies than the good twin

The good twin must be good, the evil twin must be evil:

• -5 good twin grows up badly from toddler to child, from child to teen, or from teen to (young) adult (cumulative)
• -5 evil twin grows up well from toddler to child, from child to teen, or from teen to (young) adult (cumulative)
• -5 good twin has no best friends outside family
• -1 good twin does not make friends with each person met (cumulative, per person)
• -1 evil twin does not pull a prank, irritate, or fight each person met (cumulative, only needs to be done once per person)

There is only one bonus:

• +1 For each LTW fulfilled.

[J. M. Pescado]

I may suck (at least, at sucking,) but where do you get this crazy idea that "no bonus" is the same as a penalty?

Any gamer implicitly understands this. If there is something that gives "50% bonus damage", the de-facto STANDARD for damage immediately includes this. If you DON'T have it, you are therefore SUBSTANDARD. The maximum defines the standard. Any gamer understands this. You are just as nerfed if everyone else but you is increased as you are if you alone are decreased. Achievement is always relative, not absolute. An unavoidable penalty represents the same as a zero score because everyone has it. It is the baseline null score.

If there were two short, stupid, nearly identical challenges, something like "play a single adult sim for three days", and the only difference was that one said "-1 every time anyone on the lot makes or serves a meal" and the other had no bonus or penalty for that at all, you'd play them both the same way?

No, no score means no score. If there's no score for ANYTHING, then you cannot succeed or fail.

PENALTY means AVOID, if possible. And, for the record, BONUS means CONSIDER TRYING, unless it's risky.

Penalty means AVOID. Bonus means that it is MANDATORY and you MUST do it, or you will fail because you did not achieve the standard score. If there are +50 points worth of possible bonii and -50 points of penalties, the standard score is 50: You must avoid all penalties, and get all the possible bonii. Otherwise you have failed to beat it A bonus is just a penalty framed in a different way: Instead of "you are penalized for doing this action", it instead says "you are penalized for not doing it". If there is a +50% damage item and you do not have this item, when you could, then you are operating below spec, and this is a penalty. That which is not forbidden is mandatory.

But as far as children's wants, the ones that pop up a lot are the social ones, usually when they need it, wants to eat specific food items, Learn to Study, earn a skill point, Do Homework, Get A+.

And social wants are entirely avoidable, since there is no reason you ever have to do any of them. The social meter can be filled by passive actions, and this is actually my PREFERRED method anyway, so it represents no deviation from the standard. To actually fill a social want requires a deliberate and directed effort, as you have to disrupt the entire family to do it.

Plus a couple easy-to-avoid stuff, like buying things. If you translate your toddler tactic of doing the high-payoff wants to the childhood stage and fulfill Learn to Study/Get A+ first, the aspiration bleed may work. The only real problem is the occasional matching wants for both twins on common stuff, like "eat [specific food item]", or when they get one of the really broad generic wants, like "Play With" and no specific person listed, or "Talk to Relative".

Since, as I mentioned earlier, children cannot cook, there is no way they can actually fill the "eat specific item" want. Besides, why would I give it to them? Sims eat the standard-issue meal. To specifically fill such a want requires a deviation from the standard-issue ration. Therefore, this want is basically never filled in my game anyway, and making NOT doing so part of the challenge strategy does not require ANY deviation from my standard play. Same story with Play With, Talk To, etc: Doing them requires that you deviate from the standard activity and disrupt household functioning by interrupting the other sims. Obviously, such an unnecessary disruption must represent a DELIBERATE effort to fill those wants. Otherwise they'd never fill!

Gotta watch'em more carefully then, or keep them busy.

Watch them carefully for WHAT? Sims are always busy anyway. I somehow think you're doing this entirely wrong. Do you even understand how to play this?

I'm not talking about sleep torture. Notice I said "gets enough sleep". In childhood, you don't want the kid to pass out, you just want to keep the mood hovering in the green so they keep doing what you want, but won't get a good grade.

That's even easier than you imagine. I hate food. Therefore, kids only receive free school food. Therefore, they always wake up hungry anyway. And because I'm a cheap-ass bastard, I refuse to feed them. If I have intentionally refused them platinum mood, they are never happy anyway. Too easy. No deviation from standard play at all.

That's pretty easy, so in theory it should be restricted... but it's too in-keeping with the theme of the challenge, so I'd probably want a different penalty/restriction that's merely at cross-purposes to this.

So first you argue this is hard, then you admit it's easy? Make up your mind.

Calm your ass down, I'm not saying you're lying. I'm just slightly unconvinced. I'll test it myself and see if you can get all three toddler skills for the evil twin on the first day without aspiration rewards. I'll try Gus' method, too, and see which wins. If it turns out to be possible, I'll harded things up.

My method works and leaves nothing to chance. I rule over technology with a 42-pound, allegedly portable fist. Show no mercy.

Actually, I've rethought the enemies thing and think the friends thing is MUCH more important to the concept. Evil twins do not get enemies. Normal people get enemies: everyone has at least one. But what makes evil twins so evil is that they get away with it. So the evil twin should have at least one friend in each lifestage and no enemies, but should be required to prank, annoy, and irritate people. There should be a penalty for every negative relationship an evil twin ends with; they have to trick people into thinking they are sweetness and light.

Children cannot prank and annoy people, and it is, in fact, practically impossible to get children to negrel without SERIOUS work, ESPECIALLY if you're reliant on "bring home from school" as your only source of contact (there are other ways, but they pretty much require a lot of chicanery and manipulation). Therefore, this description involves no deviation from even naive core gameplay. Making enemies with children is *HARD AS HELL*. It is literally one of the hardest single exercises in the game.

Is it recorded in the Awesomehood chronicles? I've started going through those from the beginning. Funny!

Some of it is.

Given that want/fear mongering is kind of boring and makes Pescados whine

No it doesn't. I'm just saying *I* say it's TRIVIAL, but you refuse to believe me and imagine this to be a dificult exercise. Why, I don't know. Most sim wants are not incidental and can only be fulfilled with immense effort. For instance, to fulfill those child social wants you worry about requires that I either find a way to meet and invite someone over for the task, which is no easy feat for a sim that is incapable of leaving the lot, or that I disrupt the functioning of the rest of the family. This is not something that happens by accident. You have to deliberately take extreme action to fulfill them, and honestly, for 250-500 lousy points, it's not worth it even in normal play!

• -5 if evil twin has fewer scholarships than good twin
• -5 if evil twin has fewer skill points than good twin
• -5 if evil twin has fewer friends than good twin

If you reduce it to a comparison, then 0 == 0, so this becomes a non-challenge. Otherwise, you define a standard and that becomes the de-facto rule. If a penalty exists for failure to get all the relevant scholarships, then getting them all for both again becomes the de facto standard. The perfect score *IS* the standard score. You may as well just say you fail the challenge anytime you fail to achieve the perfect score. Unless your objective is to crash the challenge for lulz, the perfect score is the ONLY score that matters.

[Gus Smedstad]

I don't play the way Pescado does, since I see the Wants as a set of goals to acheive.  I need a set of demands to fulfill to make the Sims 2 into a game rather than an elaborate fishbowl, so I'll pursue them regardless of how difficult they are.  Actually, the more difficult they are to fulfill, the better.  The actual reward (+250 or +500 points) is unimportant, since I never spend them anyway, and I'd just as soon Platinum mood didn't exist.

That said, Pescado is spot on with all his points.  Not that he needs me to tell him that, but I think it's good that you hear it from another source.

If you define winning as "acheiving the maximum score," then there's no real difference between a positive score for performing an action, or a negative score for not doing it.  The effect is the same, you miss that many points.  You only see them as different because you've defined winning as "having a score of zero or more."  If the possible score is finite, many players - including myself - see acheiving less than the maximum score as a failure of sorts.

I don't agree with your definition of "evil."  It isn't whether they get away with it.  It's whether they intentionally try and harm other Sims in the first place.  If the Evil twin is caught every single time he steals, or starts a fight, or makes another Sim cry (and that is common enough), that doesn't make him less evil.  It makes him inept.  By the same token, if the Good twin does any of those things, it's still a bad thing for him to do whether he's caught or not.

Measuring "evil" objectively in the Sims is difficult, and one of the few ways I can think of to do so is negative relationship scores.  Even that's iffy, since you can get a negative relationship by doing good or harmless things that turn out badly, like trying to hug a stranger.

As for "grow up badly," I think that's reversing cause and effect.  The Evil twin doesn't grow up badly because he's evil; he's evil because he grew up badly.  It's in character, but the nature of Wants and Fears make negative aspiration makes it a poor model for Evilness.

Leaving the theme aside for a moment, the main thing that makes something interesting is if it's difficult and requires decision making.  Avoiding Wants isn't difficult, and requires few decisions.  Fulfilling Wants and Fears is more interesting because it requires intervention on the player's part.  Avoiding Wants in the Toddler phase is only interesting because you're requiring actions which are almost certain to fulfill Wants.  Children and Teenagers have complex enough Want trees that it's unlikely that they'll roll specific Wants that you'll fulfill incidentally.

To make this genuinely interesting, you need goals that require real effort.  Like getting X enemies, or acheiving negative X total aspiration points.  Though I don't know if the game tracks negative total scores in the Rewards window, where you can see your total so far.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

That said, Pescado is spot on with all his points.  Not that he needs me to tell him that, but I think it's good that you hear it from another source.

Naturally. I don't think there's anyone in the entire sims community anywhere that has a better understanding of the game. While some people may know of esoteric features that I do not, I know pretty much everything of any value or anti-value in the game.

If you define winning as "acheiving the maximum score," then there's no real difference between a positive score for performing an action, or a negative score for not doing it.  The effect is the same, you miss that many points.  You only see them as different because you've defined winning as "having a score of zero or more."  If the possible score is finite, many players - including myself - see acheiving less than the maximum score as a failure of sorts.

You know the drill: Accept no Kewian-based substitutes!

To make this genuinely interesting, you need goals that require real effort.  Like getting X enemies, or acheiving negative X total aspiration points.

Heh, getting enemies is like the gameplay goal of Ugly Butt in Awesomeland. But it is not enough for the Butt to have enemies. Her goal is also to make them cry. I am pondering the creation of a custom LTW, like "Make X Sims Cry".

Though I don't know if the game tracks negative total scores in the Rewards window, where you can see your total so far.

It does not.

[Gus Smedstad]

Though I don't know if the game tracks negative total scores in the Rewards window, where you can see your total so far.

It does not.

Crap.  One of the possible goals would have been "score -100,000 Aspiration Points."  Keeping track of that by hand is too much beancounting.

Edit: I just thought of a workaround, though a very painful one.  Open the Evil Twin's character file with simPE.  Give him a ton of total aspiration points - it appears to be field 150 ("Aspiration Score, Raw.")  Say, 150,000.  Now require that to win the challenge, the Evil Twin must have 50,000 or less points showing in the Reward window, and must have never spent any on actual rewards.

 - Gus

[kuronue]

Without satisfying fears, the lowest an aspiration bar will go via natural decay is one bar into red (out of two IIRC) - it won't hit rock bottom until you satisfy a fear.

Pescado just said that. I said I would take his word for it. What exactly are you contributing, here?

Well, fuck you too 

I really don't see why you can't buy toys while skilling a toddler...? Pescado said train their toddler skills first. You said, you needed to buy toys first. I don't see why you can't buy toys AND skill at the same time? The toddlers aren't physically involved in the buying of toys for the lot?

First off, Pescado said both things, I only said I would try them. Second, the toddlers are pixels. YOU are the player. There's only one cursor, and it can only be used to do one thing at a time. If you buy the toys first, you haven't skilled the toddlers first. If you skill the toddlers first, you haven't bought the toys first. It's simple logic. You can *start* skilling and then buy the toys, but it's clear which comes first, isn't it?

Oh, I see, so we're quibbling about a difference of 0 seconds game-time, because you can both buy the toys and que up the skill interactions while on pause. And you can't seem to figure that out. So you're inept, as well as rude.

You have to understand that Pescado considers anything less than a perfect score a failure. Perfect scores, in challenges with positive or bonus points, is 100% of the possible points. Therefore, failing to get a bonus means a less than perfect score, which is a PHAIL.

I'm pretty sure Pescado likes to harass, tease, insult, and poke people, and likes people who can take it and dish it out. It's not a big deal. I'm tormenting him because he's saying silly things, but the real issue is making the challenge better. I don't care if he prefers to believe fanciful things.

If you don't care, stop bitching about it. Every time I click this thread you're failing to get anything Pescado says, I figured there must be some underlying miscommunication here.

Why do both your twins have to eat the same food all the time? Have the parent make a variety of foods, store them as leftovers in the fridge, let the kids help themselves to whichever food they want/don't want as you see fit.

Wasn't that added with Seasons or later?

Right now, it's a matter of efficiency. Frequently, the parent can't serve a meal and fulfill the good twin's want without also fulfilling the evil twin's want. That might not matter much as far as aspiration points -- those are minor wants. But you might have a decent string of easily avoidable wants that you want to keep. The only way to prepare two different kinds of foods is to prepare a single meal, cancel the eat, and prepare a different meal and cancel. Either that, or make the evil twin eat nothing but chips and cookies.

It's a minor thing, but it's actually painfully easy for the evil twin to get up into gold when you least expect it, so you *have* to pay attention to stuff like this. I just got the evil twin from the second challenge family to grow up badly as a child, but the evil twin from the first challenge grew up well again. I haven't created families to test Gus's strategy (the Dopple family) or Pescado's "shuttered room" strategy (the Whately family) yet. We'll see if those work better, and if it's too easy, toughen it up.

Yes, it was Seasons or later to store leftovers, but I think you're overestimating the amount of time it takes to pour cereal. Heck, have them make one using OFB, or even in base game you can have breakfast and then cancel it, leaving the food for the chillun's. What is your adult doing that's so important to the challenge that they can't make food for their kids? You've already got very contrived circumstances via the rules set you're introducing - did you not expect to have contrived gameplay?

I think you're trying to do this and still maintain some level of "realistic" or "normal" gameplay - if you optimize your efficiency you can easily beat the challenge. I don't usually play that way, hence, I don't usually do challenges like this.

[talysman]

Oh, I see, so we're quibbling about a difference of 0 seconds game-time, because you can both buy the toys and que up the skill interactions while on pause. And you can't seem to figure that out. So you're inept, as well as rude.

Eh, you can believe in such things as actions that take zero time if you want. If you don't understand the concept of "first", that's your problem.

I think you're trying to do this and still maintain some level of "realistic" or "normal" gameplay - if you optimize your efficiency you can easily beat the challenge. I don't usually play that way, hence, I don't usually do challenges like this.

Well, DUH. Did you read the first page? The point of the challenge is to recreate a fictional archetype; something similar to sitcom evil twins. The scoring is meant to prevent you from taking the most efficient route towards having one twin grow up well while the other grows up badly.

Pescado obviously doesn't play that way; he runs a tight barracks. My challenge, then, is to make this challenge seem hard for him while still making the outcome resemble a somewhat realistic (in a sitcom sense) life. If Pescado says "you suck, this is too easy", that means I have to try harder. If you barge in and say, "you're trying to be too realistic," I just look at you like you're nuts.

I don't agree with your definition of "evil."  It isn't whether they get away with it.  It's whether they intentionally try and harm other Sims in the first place.  If the Evil twin is caught every single time he steals, or starts a fight, or makes another Sim cry (and that is common enough), that doesn't make him less evil.  It makes him inept.  By the same token, if the Good twin does any of those things, it's still a bad thing for him to do whether he's caught or not.

Measuring "evil" objectively in the Sims is difficult, and one of the few ways I can think of to do so is negative relationship scores.  Even that's iffy, since you can get a negative relationship by doing good or harmless things that turn out badly, like trying to hug a stranger.

"Evil" here means in the sense of the evil twin trope from sitcoms (well, actually, the evil counterpart.) Science fiction and fantasy, of course, are blunter about good and evil, but in sitcoms or soap operas, the evil twin/evil counterpart is usually not recognized as evil until late in the plot. Thus, the evil twin in the challenge needs to get away with negative actions.

You're right when you say "The Evil twin doesn't grow up badly because he's evil; he's evil because he grew up badly." Growing up badly is a goal because it influences the sim's behavior later in life. It's not meant to be a consequence of the evil actions; the evil actions are just to reinforce the concept and give an additional requirement to fulfill. The only problem I see is finding an objective way to indicate that the evil twin is acting in character throughout life.

I'll take your suggestion about focusing more on real goals, although negative aspiration points, even if it were possible, isn't quite right, either. I'm sure children don't roll the "See the Ghost of X" or similar wants, but do teens? That might be something to shoot for.

As for the discussion of whether a bonus is actually a penalty, I'm skipping this, because it's giving me some ideas, but not for this challenge. I'm going to think of a challenge where you *can't* get all the bonus points. That'll larn Pescado!

But as far as children's wants, the ones that pop up a lot are the social ones, usually when they need it, wants to eat specific food items, Learn to Study, earn a skill point, Do Homework, Get A+.

And social wants are entirely avoidable, since there is no reason you ever have to do any of them. The social meter can be filled by passive actions, and this is actually my PREFERRED method anyway, so it represents no deviation from the standard. To actually fill a social want requires a deliberate and directed effort, as you have to disrupt the entire family to do it.

Ah, then, I need to write that into the rules. I've already got some in the v2 rules, requiring the evil twin to have at least as many friends as the good twin, but I'll need some more rules that prevent you from having the evil twin daydream.

I could force you to have the evil twin make friends with every child they bring home from school. You'd like that, wouldn't you?

Gotta watch'em more carefully then, or keep them busy.

Watch them carefully for WHAT? Sims are always busy anyway. I somehow think you're doing this entirely wrong. Do you even understand how to play this?

Sims are *not* always busy. Sometimes, they have nothing that needs doing, or only one or two things to do that you want another sim to do instead, or they only need to do one thing but are unable to do it yet, so you have to find something for them to do. You're not playing with freewill off, are you? I better write that into the restrictions.

I should also add "must eat one home-cooked meal a day" into the "normal home life" section, to make you deal with the food.

Children cannot prank and annoy people, and it is, in fact, practically impossible to get children to negrel without SERIOUS work, ESPECIALLY if you're reliant on "bring home from school" as your only source of contact (there are other ways, but they pretty much require a lot of chicanery and manipulation). Therefore, this description involves no deviation from even naive core gameplay. Making enemies with children is *HARD AS HELL*. It is literally one of the hardest single exercises in the game.

Children *can* prank, or at least prank call, and I'm sure I've seen "Gross out" as an option, too, although I'll have to confirm that, and irritate and annoy as well, which I'm sure I've seen. But I just had an evil twin prank call someone, and posted the pics of the result above, so I know *that* is possible. They can definitely fight, I've seen it happen spontaneously. And don't forget, you have to play the teen stage, too. Teens can prank, irritate, and annoy.

Given that want/fear mongering is kind of boring and makes Pescados whine

No it doesn't. I'm just saying *I* say it's TRIVIAL, but you refuse to believe me and imagine this to be a dificult exercise. Why, I don't know. Most sim wants are not incidental and can only be fulfilled with immense effort. For instance, to fulfill those child social wants you worry about requires that I either find a way to meet and invite someone over for the task, which is no easy feat for a sim that is incapable of leaving the lot, or that I disrupt the functioning of the rest of the family. This is not something that happens by accident. You have to deliberately take extreme action to fulfill them, and honestly, for 250-500 lousy points, it's not worth it even in normal play!

There's now a requirement for the parent to be friends with both children, so at the very least, you're going to have to socialize the parent and the evil twin without fulfilling any major social wants for the evil twin.

• -5 if evil twin has fewer scholarships than good twin
• -5 if evil twin has fewer skill points than good twin
• -5 if evil twin has fewer friends than good twin

If you reduce it to a comparison, then 0 == 0, so this becomes a non-challenge. Otherwise, you define a standard and that becomes the de-facto rule. If a penalty exists for failure to get all the relevant scholarships, then getting them all for both again becomes the de facto standard. The perfect score *IS* the standard score. You may as well just say you fail the challenge anytime you fail to achieve the perfect score. Unless your objective is to crash the challenge for lulz, the perfect score is the ONLY score that matters.

It's not *solely* a comparison, but there's a section based on comparison. The good twin must succeed in life, the evil twin must do as well as the good twin, but grow up badly and perform evil actions. The real problem is finding evil actions to require. Prank/irritate is a good start; I wish we could go "bad seed" and have the evil twin kill a friend. Hmmm, I was about to say I can't see a way for a sim to do that, since the cow plant is the only non-hacked way for a *sim* to kill a sim, but I just thought of a couple ways. I'll have to see how easy they are to accomplish, though. I'm guessing one is possible with repetition, the other requires some random events, but becomes easier with a later expansion pack I haven't installed yet.

Any other suggestions?

[Gus Smedstad]

I'm going to think of a challenge where you *can't* get all the bonus points. That'll larn Pescado!

That sort of thing is inherently more interesting anyway, because there's a choice involved in which points you pursue.  To be really sure it's impossible, though, two things have to be mutually exclusive in some way, rather than just requiring too much Sim time.  I can't think of many examples in the Sims 2, since almost all Sims choices can be repeated.  I.e. reaching the top of the Law Enforcement career does not prevent  you from quitting and getting a job as a criminal.

 - Gus

[Quinctia]

I'll take your suggestion about focusing more on real goals, although negative aspiration points, even if it were possible, isn't quite right, either. I'm sure children don't roll the "See the Ghost of X" or similar wants, but do teens? That might be something to shoot for.

?



Ironically appropriate, that's her twin that she wanted to see dead.

[Kyna]

Well, DUH. Did you read the first page? The point of the challenge is to recreate a fictional archetype; something similar to sitcom evil twins. The scoring is meant to prevent you from taking the most efficient route towards having one twin grow up well while the other grows up badly.

Pescado obviously doesn't play that way; he runs a tight barracks. My challenge, then, is to make this challenge seem hard for him while still making the outcome resemble a somewhat realistic (in a sitcom sense) life. If Pescado says "you suck, this is too easy", that means I have to try harder. If you barge in and say, "you're trying to be too realistic," I just look at you like you're nuts.

The problem is that there's a basic conflict in your challenge between storyline, scoring, and efficient gameplay.  You are trying to use the storyline to force players away from maximum efficiency to maintain your sitcom feel, but that's not going to work.  When faced with a choice between efficient gameplay, storyline & scoring, many challenge players are going to choose to go for efficient gameplay & scoring, with the storyline coming way behind in 3rd place.

Personally, I tend to think of a challenge as being the rules, restrictions and scoring, and I tend to ignore the storyline unless it is sufficiently interesting to me to play in it's own right.  When I'm playing a challenge my perfectionist gamer side takes over, and I tend to ignore anything that gets in the way of finishing the challenge with a decent score, even if that means ignoring potential storylines I might have followed if it wasn't a challenge.

[J. M. Pescado]

There's now a requirement for the parent to be friends with both children, so at the very least, you're going to have to socialize the parent and the evil twin without fulfilling any major social wants for the evil twin.

Trivial again. This is again within the parameters of my standard gameplay behavior.

It's not *solely* a comparison, but there's a section based on comparison. The good twin must succeed in life, the evil twin must do as well as the good twin, but grow up badly and perform evil actions.

Then this is basically irrelevant and is the same as a penalty for lack of achievement. The comparative factor is irrelevant, there is only The Bar.

I can't see a way for a sim to do that, since the cow plant is the only non-hacked way for a *sim* to kill a sim, but I just thought of a couple ways.

Deliberate acts of homicide are simply not in the game. You can do the ladderless pool, the cowplant, the Cask of Amontillado, etc., but none of those have an "actor". You perform these actions as the player, no SIM performs them. About the only way a sim can kill another sim is to fuck him to death.

Well, DUH. Did you read the first page? The point of the challenge is to recreate a fictional archetype; something similar to sitcom evil twins. The scoring is meant to prevent you from taking the most efficient route towards having one twin grow up well while the other grows up badly.

You can't. That's like saying you can deter drivers from taking the most efficient route by building the road network as a maze of one-way streets and no-left-turns. There's STILL a most-efficient route, and the more ridiculous you make finding *ANY* route, the more likely that someone, having committed to finding any route at all, will necessarily discover the most efficient one, up to the point where it becomes unreasonable to find a route at all, which nobody plays your challenge because it has become a nightmare of bean-counting and obscure rules no one can keep track of. If you build a road network consisting of a bizarre set of arcane traffic laws and one-ways, pretty soon everyone simply ignores your rules.

[talysman]

I can't see a way for a sim to do that, since the cow plant is the only non-hacked way for a *sim* to kill a sim, but I just thought of a couple ways.

Deliberate acts of homicide are simply not in the game. You can do the ladderless pool, the cowplant, the Cask of Amontillado, etc., but none of those have an "actor". You perform these actions as the player, no SIM performs them. About the only way a sim can kill another sim is to fuck him to death.

Well, fucking them to death would be only possible with the elevator, from my understanding. But yeah, I've thought of four ways where a sim can take an action that leads to the death of another sim, without cheats like changing the house layout or moving items with the hand cursor. The only real question is: did EAxis put in any code to prevent you from doing this to visitors?

[J. M. Pescado]

Well, fucking them to death would be only possible with the elevator, from my understanding.

In rare cases it is possible for the hunger hit from woohoo to kill a sim, thus resulting in death by woohoo.

But yeah, I've thought of four ways where a sim can take an action that leads to the death of another sim, without cheats like changing the house layout or moving items with the hand cursor. The only real question is: did EAxis put in any code to prevent you from doing this to visitors?

Which 4 ways? I can't think of any real ways a sim can DIRECTLY cause the death of another sim, although it's possible to create situations where sims are likely to die, like causing them to be attracted to a cowplant, dive into a ladderless pool, get in a hot tub during a rainstorm, etc. Otherwise, without hacks that specifically restrict the ability to leave before motive death, or outright kill, I can't think of any direct way a sim specifically kills another sim that is directly attributable to an individual sim and not due to the lame-brainedness of sims in general or Acts of God.

[Zazazu]

Nah, you can keep a sim woohooing pretty close to motive failure. It takes some balancing, as there's a point where they recognize that it will kill them, but you can basically screw them to the point where they are so low on multiple motives that they'll go into a constant motive failure that keeps them from satisfying hunger.

[J. M. Pescado]

Nah, you can keep a sim woohooing pretty close to motive failure. It takes some balancing, as there's a point where they recognize that it will kill them, but you can basically screw them to the point where they are so low on multiple motives that they'll go into a constant motive failure that keeps them from satisfying hunger.

Doesn't work with visitors. when visitors go into multi-motive, or even single-motive failure, they just bug out and leave the lot. You have to insta-kill them using the woohoo, hunger hit, before their abort routine can fire. Residents, of course, are trivial to kill simply by neglect, as they cannot bug out.

[talysman]

Nah, you can keep a sim woohooing pretty close to motive failure. It takes some balancing, as there's a point where they recognize that it will kill them, but you can basically screw them to the point where they are so low on multiple motives that they'll go into a constant motive failure that keeps them from satisfying hunger.

Doesn't work with visitors. when visitors go into multi-motive, or even single-motive failure, they just bug out and leave the lot. You have to insta-kill them using the woohoo, hunger hit, before their abort routine can fire. Residents, of course, are trivial to kill simply by neglect, as they cannot bug out.

I haven't tested ways #1 and #2 with visitors yet, but it *might* work. They're both versions of the Cask of Amontillado, but without any "removing a door in build mode" chicanery. Include a room in your house with the dormie door in it, pointing *inwards*. Claim the door, call over another sim, then lock the door. The door owner can leave, but not the other sim. This makes deliberate murder by starvation possible. #2 was the idea of doing the same thing, but putting the Maxis scissors in the room and hoping they get so bored that they kill themselves before starving to death. However, after testing, unless there's something I'm missing, sims won't spontaneously run with the scissors, so that looks like it's out.

Now, as I said, I haven't tested the shuttered room technique on visitors; maybe they gain the mysterious ability to walk through walls when starving to death. Maxis has been known to do worse. Also, the dormie doors have an actual sim animation for claiming and locking a door. I don't know if the other lockable doors have this or not. If not, you specifically need the dormie door.; otherwise, it's user chicanery.

I'll reveal the secrets to #3 and #4 when I've tested them, different modes of death, and one of them may or may not need the dormie door, but it's a similar idea: the murderous sim does something that the victim is unable to escape from.

[cenoura]

I've been following the discussion on this challenge, and it motivated me enough to try it. I succeded within about 4 hours playing time.

Create a house for the family on any size lot, but the family only starts with the standard $20,000.

I moved the family to a 2x2 lot, leaving them with $18,400 to play with. This was used on building a tiny house, with two seperate bedrooms for the twins of 2x3 squares to keep them from waking each other up, a 2x3 bathroom with expensive toilet and cheap shower, and a 2x3 bedroom for the mother. The central room was a square of about 7-8 squares on one side, which served as kitchen, living room and training room. I carpeted the place in cheap carpet, but left walls bare. This left plenty of money for the few pieces of furniture and for the mother to not need to get a job until the twins were half way through child stage. Food was also grown, which meant paying for a delivery once.

no money except through a career, no leaving lot under your control except via school bus/carpool, no inviting sims over with another playable family, no off-lot skilling except through chance cards/school.

Ran into a couple of problems with these restrictions, but they were due to my stupidity. Eg, twins became friends with Sharla Ottomas but couldn't phone her because she hadn't moved into a house yet. The "no money except through a career" ensured that the mother got a job in the end, and meant that the evil twin had plenty of chances to ruin the good twin's artwork before selling it off for $0.

No turning into supernaturals (vampires, zombies, plant sims, werewolves.)

I actually had my first in-game born plantsim during this challenge, due to the mother using too much bug spray. Was very surprised, but called up the garden club and got her fixed. Now the challenge is over she's happily a plantsim again!

Twins must grow up together (age transition on the same day between 6pm and midnight.) When they age to teens, they must choose the same aspiration.

I let the first and second age transitions happen naturally, but the third (teen to adult) I chose to do ASAP due to the way the aspiration levels were looking. I chose knowledge for the aspiration, which was a mistake due to the skill matching between the twins. This meant very early on in the teen stage I clicked that I could skill the evil twin beyond the good twin without consequence - however if I skilled the good twin beyond the evil twin, the evil twin was usually satisfying skill wants when I skilled her up to her sister's level. In this challenge, most skilling was done through normal gameplay, not by my direction to read books. The exception to this was skilling the evil twin in charisma for the headmaster mini-game.

-10 parent or twin suffers aspiration failure (per instance)

No aspiration failure through-out the challenge, but was interested to see the good twin fall into aspiration failure straight after aging to adult due to the 10,000 asp hit for growing up uneducated. However, that was outside the challenge time-frame and she grew up well.

-1  Anyone pees or passes out on lot (family or visitor)

I had one passing out, by the mother near the end of the toddler stage. My own stupidity. I was wondering, though, about whether toddlers "pass out"? Or is it just sleep when they do it? Otherwise how would the "keep in a room with a radio on" strategy work?

-1  For each use of an Aspiration or Career Reward object.

Not needed. I rarely use these in normal game play anyway.

-5 parent is fired or demoted (per event)

She was demoted once, due to my taking a chance card. I guess pressing "ignore" would solve that, but I prefer not to. I didn't see anything about ignoring chance cards in the rules?

-5 parent ages to elder and grows up badly, or dies before twins are teens

I was wondering if you knew that if played without aspiration rewards, the parent still has three days left before turning to elder when the challenge finishes? I guess this is just an extra penulty for anyone who (mis)uses aspiration rewards?

-5 parent isn't friends with both children

It was very trivial for the parent to reach BBF status with her two children.

-5 parent doesn't get kids into private school

There was no penalty for days of not being in private school, so I didn't do this until half way through the teen stage. By this time, there was more than $20,000 saved, which allowed me to buy expensive wallpaper and an expensive statue. I trained the evil twin in charisma to schmooze, while the mother was around a level 8 in cooking skill. Evil twin did the house tour (moving the statue from room to room - nothing against that exploit in the rules), while mother made the dinner. Easily passed first time. Managed to time it so that the want triggered for the good twin, while the evil twin did not receive any benefit.

-5 per twin that doesn't learn all three toddler skills, learn to study, have a best friend outside the family, have a first kiss (cumulative)

This was indeed the hardest part of the challenge. The evil twin rolled wants to learn to walk and talk on the first day, and so I trained her in the potty first. Trained her in the other two skills most of the way, but didn't complete them until 4pm of the last day of being toddler, when the wants finally went away. Training both toddlers in all three skills took some doing, but three of the four days were Autumn and so the seasonal boost was very helpful (Nothing in the rules about setting all four seasons to the same. In this case, autumn autumn spring spring is probably optimal - first two for skilling when younger, then romancing when teens)

Learn to study was done in no time, with little want benefit for the evil twin - the aspiration drainage of children is surprisingly high, as JMP suggested above. It really took me by surprise. Have first kiss was a funny one, and I managed to hit the evil twin with two rejected first kisses before giving it to her when she didn't have a want for it any more.

• -5 per twin that doesn't get an A+ in grade school
• -5 per twin that doesn't get an A+ in high school
• -5 per failing grade (D or F)
• -5 per twin that doesn't earn a scholarship

The wording of the first two of these confused me, until I realised you meant get an A+ both as a child and as a teen. This was achieved, however I was cheated by this as the game threw three (!!) snow days my way - stopping the evil twin from getting this requirement until the day of age transition to teen. This also trigged the want she had for an A+, throwing her into marginal green aspiration. The aspirational decay just wasn't fast enough to counteract this and she aged to teen automatically in green aspiration. No failing grades - in fact the one scholarship both twins got was the "A- or better grade" scholarship.

-5 if evil twin has fewer friends, skill points, talent badges, or scholarships than good twin (cumulative, per category)

This was no problem. In fact my stragtegy to this was to make sure it was the evil twin who got the skill points, badges and scholarships. She ended the challenge with almost twice as many skill points than the good twin. Does this rule mean the same total number of skill points or the same pattern of skill points? (Ie would the penulty be given if the good twin had 10 cooking points, but the evil twin had 5 logic and 5 cleaning points?)  With regards to friends, because the good twin has to befriend everyone she meets and the evil twin has to have the same friends I made sure the good twin met as least Sims as possible. In fact, the only people she met were the nanny and people she brought home from school. It was simple to keep her from meeting the mother's boyfriend, for example. She didn't have the "met X" memory or his picture in her friend panel, yet the evil twin knew him quite well in the end. The evil twin knew more people, and I think had one more friend than the good twin.

-5 good twin grows up badly from toddler to child, from child to teen, or from teen to (young) adult (cumulative)
5 evil twin grows up well from toddler to child, from child to teen, or from teen to (young) adult (cumulative)

Only one problem with this, the evil twin grew up good once due to the snow day thing referred to above.

-5 good twin has no best friends outside family
-1 good twin does not make friends with each person met (cumulative, per person)
-1 evil twin does not pull a prank, irritate, or fight each person met (cumulative, only needs to be done once per person)

Not too much of a problem, given the long time-frame for this challenge. It was hard to remember which people the evil twin had irritated, but by the time her relationship was up with them she could do it and "get away with it".

+1 For each LTW fulfilled.

Sadly not gotten, due to the mother's LTW being "graduate 3 children". Silly mother.

So my overall score was -11, mostly due to my own stupidity. I don't think that's too bad, however far below what I was expecting.

I hope this is helpful to you. This was my first play through, and I may do it again. I found it quite fun and refreshing from my normal game play. Is there any point I've missed that you want feed back on?

[kuronue]

Oh, I see, so we're quibbling about a difference of 0 seconds game-time, because you can both buy the toys and que up the skill interactions while on pause. And you can't seem to figure that out. So you're inept, as well as rude.

Eh, you can believe in such things as actions that take zero time if you want. If you don't understand the concept of "first", that's your problem.

Eh, you can believe that the game clock keeps ticking while on pause if you want, and keep on pursuing that endless red herring of "first" all you like. If you don't understand the concept of "irrelevant", that's your problem.

[J. M. Pescado]

I haven't tested ways #1 and #2 with visitors yet, but it *might* work. They're both versions of the Cask of Amontillado, but without any "removing a door in build mode" chicanery. Include a room in your house with the dormie door in it, pointing *inwards*. Claim the door, call over another sim, then lock the door. The door owner can leave, but not the other sim. This makes deliberate murder by starvation possible.

I believe sims which have decided to go home and leave are able to pass through locked doors on their way out, so no.

I'll reveal the secrets to #3 and #4 when I've tested them, different modes of death, and one of them may or may not need the dormie door, but it's a similar idea: the murderous sim does something that the victim is unable to escape from.

Tricks which depend on the target sim subsequently doing something on its own don't count: the death has to be directly caused by the sim.

[Quinctia]

So...what would cause a toddler not to ever roll any toddler skill wants?

I had a kid in one of my legacy houses that was cared for as an infant pretty much exclusively by her great-grandfather, and she aged up wanting nothing more than simple social interactions from her parents.  She stayed that way, without any post-sleep rerolls, until 6pm on the third day--transition day--where she rolled a grow up well want, a generic interact want, and some skill wants.

Her fears were also a little different from the normal toddler fears--one was to have someone kick the tombstone of the previously mentioned great-grandfather, who died when she was still an infant.

If you could work it so you could afford it, I suppose if you were able to have things arranged so the evil twin's primary caretaker was the nanny (the only other person besides the one parent that would be allowed), then the evil twin might never roll those initial skill wants.  My toddler got all her toddler skills, and about 8-9 various skill points and hadn't gained a drop of aspiration.

[cenoura]

It's to do with the want trees, isn't it? If you're always fulfilling social wants, the toddler will roll more and will never roll the skill wants. Also, wants that don't get fulfilled will eventually go away.

[Zazazu]

Usually, my toddlers will roll a specific skill want after getting one skill point in the area, ala adults & teens. You can use that to switch up which skilling toy you are using, so that they are never skilling towards a skill they want. I almost never see the general "Gain a Skill Point" want on a toddler. I've just been through three toddlers last night, and none of them rolled that want.

[J. M. Pescado]

So...what would cause a toddler not to ever roll any toddler skill wants?

In FT, or pre-FT? In FT, it's very unusual for them not to roll up skilling wants if you're seeding things right. In pre-FT, this was pretty common (and extremely annoying).