SE2 The Agoraphobia Experiment
Let’s try this again! I am starting a brand new experiment in the Sims 4 both to see how a Sim with mental illnesses similar to mine can survive and thrive and to test out the two mental illness traits that I’ve created. The traits? First and foremost is my Agoraphobia Trait available now here at Simularity. The Bipolar 1 Trait is something I’m still working on and am testing as I do this Sims 4 Experiment Story. Once I do enough testing, I’ll release the trait here on Simularity as well. (Oh, if you want to see my first Sims 4 Experiment, check out the Stories page or click here.)
Before we start, if you are unfamiliar with the Sims 4 and don’t know what a “trait” is, this is from the Sims 4 Wiki:
Trait is a personality system in The Sims 4. All traits affect a Sim’s behavior and emotions, for example, a creative Sim may randomly become inspired, while a Sim that loves outdoors will sink into a low mood if they stay inside too long.
So these mental illness traits will affect the personality, mood, and behavior of my Sim similar to how they do in real life.
In addition to the trait mods, I have countless other mods in my game which alter the gameplay drastically from the original, default game; too many mods to list here. If a particular mod takes point in the story, I’ll mention it along with a source link in the course of the story. Also, I filled the city of San Myshuno (where my Sim will be living) with custom townies in addition to the Maxis townies for added variety. These custom townies have randomized traits that I don’t know so I will get to know them at the same time that my Sim does and that’s how it should be. (“Townies” is the Sims players’ term for the game’s NPCs that populate the game’s various neighborhoods. NPC means “Non-Playable Character”.) I think that’s all that I need to let you know. Now, let’s meet our Sim!
This is Mia Simm (get it?) version 2.0. Unlike the Mia from the first experiment, this time Mia will strive to be a geeky programmer who starts out as a freelancer but if that works out she may try to get a regular 9-5 job in the tech field and see how that goes with her agoraphobia and changing moods. Her traits are Agoraphobia, Bipolar 1, and Geek. She will once again live in the city of San Myshuno but won’t have a little dog to start the story with as she wants to go to college first and may adopt a little dog later. Her first aspiration will be Computer Whiz. She will have no autonomy meaning I control most of her actions. Still, I will be paying close attention to her moods and whims. There are of course things the game won’t let me do when she’s feeling certain moods such as she can’t flirt or make jokes when feeling sad. (Whims are small actions that a Sim wants to do for a reason relating to their personality or mood but you don’t have to do. If you fulfill a whim, you get aspiration points that you can use to purchase rewards so it’s best not to ignore them completely.)
I will post the first “day” of the experiment starting tomorrow July 16, 2020. I’ll be posting a new entry to the experiment each day for about 10 to 15 days at most. Please join me for this experiment to see how Mia survives, if she can, and thrives, if she does. You can follow the story here on Simularity via the Stories page. You can also follow Simularity on Twitter and Tumblr for notifications when new entries to the story are posted. Each post for this experiment will begin with the prefix “SE2” for ease of finding them.
If you ever have any questions about this experiment, the mods or custom content I use in the story, living with mental illness, or anything really, feel free to leave a comment on any post or send me a message and I will respond as soon as I can. Feedback is always appreciated as well!
Thank you for viewing and I hope you will join me and Mia Simm on this hopefully therapeutic and informative experiment.
