Sims 4 Gameplay Challenges: Ultimate Guide to Legacy Starters
You wanted to create your own dynasty, but often didn't know where to start? You had no clear idea of what world to develop your story in and which characters to do it with? In such situations, various challenges come to the rescue. They can become an excellent starting point for your family (or just gameplay), allowing you to dive into the process of creating a unique story in an engaging and original way.
1. Inherited House
Picture this: your sim receives an unexpected letter with news that a distant relative has left them an old house as an inheritance. At first, the character is thrilled with such a generous gift, as it opens up incredible prospects and opportunities before them. However, when they finally arrive at the location, they're met with a depressing sight: the once-magnificent structure is now in complete disrepair. Your sim faces a challenging task – to transform this abandoned house into a cozy and comfortable home.
This is where a small but very interesting challenge begins. You gradually restore the house, completing various repair and renovation tasks. The difficulty can be adjusted by choosing houses with different degrees of deterioration. The main stages include cleaning, connecting utilities, and repairing essential rooms.
For example, to get into the house and open the door, whose lock has rusted over so many years of disuse and needs replacing, your sim will need to level up mechanics and logic to level 5, and to open the kitchen, level up cooking and invite two friends over for a home-cooked dinner after the renovation. An additional challenge will be paying for the installation of all utilities (water supply, electricity, sewage), as well as opening all the rooms.
This challenge will help you start your legacy in an interesting way, and also create a family home that your founder will restore! The challenge is completed after fulfilling all the conditions for renovating the house.
2. Good Day – Bad Day
Every sim's life has both good and bad days: usually this is decided by the player themselves or random algorithms. The "Good Day – Bad Day" challenge offers players to experience random days determined by dice roll. Each day can be either good or bad with various variations. Good days include positive events, such as relaxation and travel, while bad days include negative ones, for example, getting fired from work or falling ill. The main goal is to diversify the gameplay through random trials.
Here, everything is decided by a randomizer, thanks to which every night from 00:00 to 03:00 you'll roll the dice and determine what kind of day your sim will have to live through today.
Even numbers on the dice are responsible for good days, each of which has 6 variants for spending the day. For instance: a selfish day, when the sim skips work and devotes the entire day to relaxation; a travel day, or a sudden lottery win.
And odd numbers are responsible for bad days, each of which also has 6 variants for spending the day: a day of problems with the utilities company; a sudden move without belongings to a new dwelling, or a wild urge to pick a fight with a random passerby.
The challenge is completed after fulfilling the conditions and going through all the random events. The player controls one sim and their family, facing unexpected days. The goal is to adapt to changing conditions and successfully complete all stages, earning happiness points and improving the sim's life.
3. Boarding School
In this challenge, you immerse yourself in the atmosphere of a private boarding school, where the upbringing and development of sims takes center stage. Your sim is a child whose parents (or distant relatives) have sent them to boarding school. Perhaps this decision was connected to concerns about their future or life circumstances, and now a new chapter of life awaits them. The backstory can be different, but the essence is the same: throughout childhood and/or teenage years, the sim will live in the boarding school with 1-2 caretakers and 2-5 other children just like themselves.
The goal of the challenge is to guide the character through the stages of growing up, develop their skills, improve their academic performance, and lay a solid foundation for a successful adult life.
The school must have a clear and structured schedule, where no less than 6 sim-hours per day are devoted to skill development. Each student must have one primary skill and two secondary ones: you can choose them yourself or determine them randomly to add difficulty and unpredictability to the game.
Also, according to the study schedule, no less than twice a week the students together with the teachers must go on outings to town – for recreation, socialization, and broadening their horizons.
This challenge will become an excellent prologue to your legacy: the characters will not only master useful skills and make friends, but will also approach adult life with an already-formed character, knowledge, and experience that will form the foundation of their future stories!
4. Big Sister
This touching challenge resembles the popular "Runaway Teen", but adds a more emotional and complex twist: now your teenager is not alone, but with a younger brother or sister. After the death of their parents, the children are left with only each other.
The main goal of this challenge is to survive, keep the family together, raise the child with love and care, and prevent child services from taking away the younger one. The teenager becomes the sole guardian and does everything to provide for their brother or sister.
Due to the circumstances, the children have certain restrictions, namely:
— Both cannot talk to adults;
— The child must get straight A's, as well as complete all school projects;
— The teenager must not go to school, as they are responsible for household duties, earning money, and raising the younger one;
— The teenager can help with homework, projects, and caregiving.
The story is already built into the plot of the future legacy: family ties, real challenges, and emotional involvement. This is an excellent starting point – over time, you'll decide for yourself which of the siblings will become its founder. Perhaps both will go different paths, and you'll follow parallel branches?
5. Success at Someone Else's Expense
We've all heard the phrase "make yourself at home!" at least once while visiting – in this challenge, it becomes your life motto. You start the game as a sim who has just moved to a new town. They have no money, no housing, no job, but they have the main thing – an unstoppable desire to socialize and... survive at someone else's expense!
Until they get their own place, the sim can earn money through skills: play music for tips, write books and paintings, cook and sell food, or complete freelance tasks. But to get out of poverty, you'll have to act cunningly and charmingly, developing a plan of action:
1) Make friends with the neighbors – get better acquainted with those who can temporarily take you in.
2) Live at their place – spend some time living in their house and throw a party to get at least a silver medal (for example, a farewell party or a housewarming).
3) Take something with you when you leave. Your future home won't furnish itself, and your sim isn't the type to pass up such an opportunity.
If you enjoy unconventional survival, light fraud, and close interaction with other sims, this challenge will become an excellent starting point for your legacy. It's up to you to decide whether your sim will become a respected member of society or will hear "stay as long as you want, of course..." directed at them their whole life.
6. Bonus – My Bakery
Sims are different, and so are their dreams. Some want fame, some want love, and your character dreams of a peaceful, comfortable retirement. For this, they decide to dedicate their entire youth to business by opening their own bakery. It will smell of fresh croissants, and every pie sold brings the sim closer to their dream home, travels, and well-deserved rest.
So where to begin? Create a new young character, without supernatural abilities. Move them onto any empty lot, except Magnolia Promenade (it will become your business lot). Build a small bakery in this town worth less than §5,000. Throughout the entire challenge, the character lives only on the bakery premises.
The original rules prohibit help with running the bakery, but how can you stop your sim from falling in love at first sight with a random customer? Perhaps a morning trip for a cup of coffee and a croissant will be fateful?
The challenge itself ends when the sim transitions to elder age. After that, sell the shop, move to a residential lot, and calculate your total capital. And then reap the fruits of your efforts and... relax in style, because you've earned it! Or create a family bakery chain that will spread throughout the sim world and become a true baked goods tycoon!
