Witch Way to The Sims?

Witch Way to The Sims?

Once upon a time, I had a Macintosh computer. Back then, there were almost no games for the Mac (okay, so not much has changed), and the few that were available, you had to wait months for them to be ported from the PC platform (still referred to as specifically IBM at that point) to the Mac. Then, an amazing thing happened...an unbelievably cool game called SimCity came out...for the Mac! The IBM users had to wait a couple months for an IBM version to come out...it was nice that they had a tiny taste of what we Mac users had been suffering! That was the beginning of Maxis' great series of Sim games.

Since then, there's been several different incredibly cool titles released: SimFarm (I think I'm one of about 4 people who actually likes it), SimIsle, SimTower, SimEarth (which was great on the Mac, but somehow sucks on the PC), SimTown (for kids), SimPark (also for kids, but I love it), SimCity 2000...and finally, The Sims! There's others, of course, but those are the ones I have. What's made the Sim games great, in my opinion, is that there's no way to "win" the game. You start out, you build, and then you watch the simulated activity take place. Then you fiddle with it endlessly, until you're either bored with that city/park/home and start over, or you get it just...perfect. I get bored with games that I can win. One of the Sim titles not previously mentioned comes to mind here — SimAnt. You controlled a colony of ants, either red or black, and tried to take over the backyard, forcing out the other color and ultimately forcing the Sim family out of their home. Once you did that, you won. So I got bored with that particular Sim title.

At any rate, I'm thoroughly in thrall to The Sims now, and the folks at Maxis have been kind enough to release a couple of tools that will allow you to create your own wallpapers and floors to put in your Sims' homes, as well as incorporating graphics of your own into the game as paintings. I've made a few things; some wallpapers, floors and paintings. I've uploaded a couple of my Sim homes to The Sims Exchange, where my username is Mullein. If you'd rather just grab house .iff files, I've got a whole starter neighborhood and some downtown lots you can grab.

• • • •