Hey all, things have been quiet on the blogfront, but I’ve been plotting and planning behind the scenes, figuring out what kind of Sims 3 town I want to build and how I’m going to build it.

Two things currently stand in my way. One is the Create-A-World tool itself. It’s still incredibly frustrating to use and still makes me want to kick a hole through my computer screen most of the time. But…it’s getting better. I’m learning more about it every day, and I’m finally to the point where I think I can muddle through making a basic world. It’s going to be a long and sometimes painful process, but I’m determined to figure it out.

Last night I was able to place a couple of roads and lots without going into some kind of Hulk-rage, so that’s a start. I’m doing it somewhat backwards — placing my roads and lots before doing the terrain sculpting — but I needed to get an idea for just how big the town can be before it hits the boundaries of the camera-non-routable area. I’m going to attempt something like Riverview, that is, a landlocked area that doesn’t use the distant terrain objects. We’ll see how that goes. Maybe next time I’ll be able to post some actual pictures!

The second thing with which I struggle, as always, is the theme of my town. There are bazillions of options — how can I pin it down? I love so many things. Victorian, midcentury modern, Tudor, rural, suburban…and that’s just the architecture. What about plants and trees? Should it be tropical? Or something like the Pacific Northwest? How about an autumnal New England feel? Should it be a river town? Lake town? Hilly? Flat? Gah. Seriously, I’ve had this churning around in my brain for a month. I eventually settled for: whatever is easiest to build. Sounds like the slacker route, but this is my first world, and I want to play it at some point, not spend a year agonizing over lot placement.

So it’s going to be flat, surrounded by hills to block the ocean (because trying to use the distant terrain is maddening, and I don’t want to make an island). It’s going to have the kind of flora I might find in my own backyard. It’ll essentially be a small midwestern town, the kind that looks like it might be stuck in the 1950s. A bridge going over a river, a main street, a range of homes from trailers to ranches to Victorians, the town surrounded by fields and farmland. I know, sounds a lot like Riverview. Again. But it’ll be MY Riverview. And I’m going to use Jynx’s rabbithole rugs, so I can build completely different schools, police stations, etc. Hopefully in the end it’ll look nothing like EA’s version of Smalltown, USA.

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