rical gameplay and being a historical Sim, because I’m always really curious when I follow these posts. (Of course, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to!)
1 - How do you decide each character’s personality and goals?
2 - Is there any specific historical event you’re excited to portray?
3 - Do you plan to explore deeper themes about marriages from that era? Not that I’m especially interested in the whole dark side of marriages in the last century, but sometimes in these challenges everything can seem a bit too perfect. Even in love marriages, the weight of prejudice and gender expectations could be really exhausting — and that doesn’t necessarily make the male characters awful; they’re just men of their time doing what they think is right.
4 - Do you plan to have a larger number of children in any generation? That was very common in the early decades of the challenge, but I rarely see creators having more than four kids.
5 - Do you feel like you’re managing to make your characters unique and deep?
6 - Do you have a favorite character? If so, who?
7 - Were you inspired by other creators to write your story or at least to motivate yourself?
8 - Which historical simmers would you recommend for a Decades Challenge fan like me to follow?
9 - Is there any DLC you think is essential for this challenge? Like, you REALLY couldn’t play without it.
10 - Which mods have you been using the most lately?
Tag other creators to answer too 😉
Wow, such awesome questions!! Thanks so much for asking!!
1 - How do you decide each character’s personality and goals?
So the way I’m doing this is I look at basically a breakdown of each character’s lifespan and through what years will they be a child, a teenager, etc and then comparing that with a list of things happening in each period, things that were popular, etc. Then it becomes a decision of what aspects of each era I want to embrace, and think about how much that character would go with or against the grain. Hopefully that all made sense- basically it’s a lot of lists lol.
2 - Is there any specific historical event you’re excited to portray?
This is a tricky one- part of me wants to say ww1 because I already have chunks of that written, but the thing is, I’m really excited for all of it. Mostly I’m just so hyped to be able to reference and portray some of the unique elements of Canadian culture and history, showing that we’re more than just American/British-lite.
3 - Do you plan to explore deeper themes about marriages from that era?
To be honest, probably not much, if at all. It’s just not something I’m super comfortable with writing or thinking about, even though I know it’s certainly historically accurate. That said, I may include some of the struggles faced by more unconventional couples, and don’t worry, I will certainly be injecting drama in other places.
4 - Do you plan to have a larger number of children in any generation?
Yes! Spoiler here, but in gameplay Caroline and Thomas already have quite a few kids- and I’m thinking at least one other generation later may have lots of kids too. I don’t want to do it for every gen though- I do find that in gameplay I get very overwhelmed by super full households.
5 - Do you feel like you’re managing to make your characters unique and deep?
God I kind of hope so, but I also don’t know that I’m fully there yet. I do have more ideas for our characters so far that haven’t come into play just yet though, so eventually I’m hoping they become the rounded characters they are in my head.
6 - Do you have a favorite character? If so, who?
So the actual answer to this is a character who hasn’t even appeared on the blog yet, but she’s recently been born in game, and will one day arrive to wreak havoc. But really I do love them all. To pick a character who has appeared already- probably Tommy. I’m just obsessed with watching my little guy grow up.
7 - Were you inspired by other creators to write your story or at least to motivate yourself?
Oh my lord yes!!! This story would absolutely not exist if not for the support of @aheathen-conceivably, @antiquatedplumbobs, @surely-sims, @historybunnny, @applesaucesims, and god, probably many more lovely souls I’m forgetting at the moment. Love all of you amazing cheerleaders.
8 - Which historical simmers would you recommend for a Decades Challenge fan like me to follow?
Oh man, well all of the people above to start, but also @antiquatedsimmer, @alainas-sims, @twentiethcenturysims, and also @thebramblewood sometimes has some very cool historical moments in her largely modern story. Also of course must always give a shout out to the great @pixelnrd.
9 - Is there any DLC you think is essential for this challenge? Like, you REALLY couldn’t play without it.
For my particular challenge it’s High School Years, because where would I be without Copperdale lol. Realistically though I think Cottage Living is probably the most useful especially for those early generations.
10 - Which mods have you been using the most lately?
Haven’t really been using many mods lately other than the usual MCCC and pose player and those sorts of things, so sadly no fun answer for this one.
