Meet Talia Godfrey, an independently wealthy woman with a generous heart and a lot of money to burn. She’s Brave, Excitable, Good, Family-oriented, and Friendly. Basically, she’s a saint. But she’ll kick your hiney if you tick her off. She didn’t go to Fort Starch Military School for nothin’.
This is her husband, Gareth. He’s a Friendly, Neurotic, Artistic Bookworm who can also make a mean Goopy Carbonara. His alma mater is the LaFromage Art School, which I didn’t make up, but is what he told his wife when she asked him what school he went to. (Same with Talia and Fort Starch. It must be based on their traits.)
Gareth writes science fiction novels, dabbles in painting, and has a fondness for gray cardigans.
Talia and Gareth have moved into a boxy but colorful contemporary house in Sunset Valley, and Talia’s latest dream is to run a daycare out of her home. She has always liked children, but never got around to having one herself. This is her chance to play mommy a bit.
She’s going to call it Happy Campers Daycare (thanks to Toots and her mom for the suggestion!). It has just the right amount of sunshiny bounciness to it. Like well-conditioned hair.
But first, Talia yearns to try out the new spiral staircase. (OK, so she’s just on her way upstairs to use the computer, but I snapped a shot of the stairs just for fun. Yay, spiral staircases!)
But boo, no railings on the top. Looks kind of weird, if you ask me. And perhaps slightly dangerous. I added a half-wall around it, but it still looks stupid. Next time I’ll try a fence.
Talia logs onto the computer in the office and signs up for the Daycare profession. (A dull pic, I know, but I wanted to remind myself to tell you guys how she got the job.)
She’ll work Monday through Thursday from 9 AM to 7 PM, and make…§100 a week. Is it just me, or does that sound pretty meager? For the sake of comparison, a Playground Monitor, which is the entry-level job in the Teacher career, works fewer hours and makes §600 a week. It’s a good thing Talia doesn’t need any moolah, but is doing this out of love.
(Yeah, she’s wondering just what on earth she’s gotten herself into.)
Note the diploma on the wall behind her – both she and Gareth had them in their inventories. Nice.
I took the pic below just to show some of the new Generations stuff: bookcase on the left, video camera on the coffee table, futuristic hot beverage machine in the kitchen, and cool new beanbag chair complete with “don’t wear this chair as a hat†warning tag. Actually, I have no clue what the warning tag says, but I think that’s a really nifty detail. The chair has some fantasic recolors (watermelon, shark, etc.) but mine is a boring white because that’s how I roll. Well, that and shark jaws just wouldn’t fit with the Godfreys’ décor.
The kiddies aren’t scheduled to arrive until the next day, so Talia has time to relax and work on her skills, while Gareth takes a writing class and starts a painting. Yawn. (Note to self: make a more interesting family next time!)
After Talia showers the next morning, she’s in her daycare uniform and all ready to go.
The picture on her shirt is either totally hideous or my graphics card is in worse shape than I thought.
Here they come! At 9 AM, Leighton Sekemoto and Molly French show up and surrender their precious toddlers to Talia.
They have officially become Happy Campers!
(continued on Page 2)
This is the first game session I’ve seen about Generations, and so far so good. Hope you post soon.
By the way, the random anti-spam word, is it really random, or have you selected a set of words to use? because the last three have been very Sim related, Goth, Curious and the first one that I can’t remember what it was but I remember thinking how creepily Sims related that one was as well.
I’m hoping I get a chance to post soon, too! I played the Bunch family in Sunset Valley for a bit and got to see a lot more of the Generations interactions. Very fun.
The plug-in I use for my anti-spam words allows me to edit the list of words it uses, so I made them all Sim-related words. :)
Oooh my word today was simlish. How appropriate!
Love this new instalment Jen, like ani I haven’t seen a massive amount of Gen gameplay photos just random ones all clipped together. I like the look of the daycare profession but it looks like I will have to wait another day to test it out. Stupid Amazon!
Well shoot, I hope you have your game by now!! :)
Yay for woohoo being my word of the day. If my computer would work I’d be playing, but thanks to you and your stories I’m in good condition til it does get fixed. I saw that there was a nuturing trait for those who were going to head toward day care profession that is supposedly used to make taking care of lots of kids easier so maybe when she has the baby it won’t be too boring taking care of kids anymore.
Btw love his face after she yells at him totally hilarious.
Hiya Hannah! I’m sorry to hear your computer’s not working — ugh. I hope you can get it fixed soon!
Ahh, pod people. How I hate thee.
Again, the daycare looks great! I find it kind of weird that you got Sandi and Sam on the first day, because I did as well. I wonder if it’s because they’re the only ones in Sunset Valley who have toddlers? That doesn’t sound right though, I could have sworn that there were other toddlers too..
Julianne is adorable, and I love her hairstyle!
Yeah, I’m wondering about only two toddlers in SV, too. Now that I have Twallan’s Master Controller re-installed, I’m going to check the Demographics and see just how many toddlers are currently in town. BTW, I think Julianne’s hairstyle is from the store — just in case you thought it might be in Generations. I have too much store crap. ;-p
I’ve, sadly, not been able to really play sims for over year. Life has just gotten in the way. Yours is the only blog I still follow. I didn’t even know, until a few weeks ago, that Generations was even coming out. Sad, huh? You make me want to schedule time in to play again! Looks like a lot of fun stuff in Generations. Thanks for sharing & hope you’ll let us know how the rest of the day care profession ends up.
I certainly plan to! Although it’s slowgoing at the moment — Talia had her baby but has 9 more days of maternity leave until the daycare starts up again! D’oh. So I’m playing another family in the meantime. I hear ya on life getting in the way of Sims — I hate it when that happens! ;) I’m touched that you have continued to check on my blog nonetheless — thank you for that. I hope life isn’t too crazy for you and that you can maybe fire up your Sims game sometime in the near future!
I installed the game, but have not played yet as trying to tidy up my cc, plan I have had for ages…it needs a big clean up first.
Your family is adorable, your story telling as usual hilarious and shower woohoo just pure insane. Can’t wait to see what next update will bring.
Ah, the neverending task of CC management! :) I’m always trimming mine but still it grows…hah. I need to stop downloading so much stuff…but there’s so much GOOD stuff!
Haha, Gareth and his hopscotch fail. Julianne is really adorable! Although, yeah, the game generating pod people to pick her up would worry me about eventual bloat. I had been excited about the memory system, but a lot of reviews I’ve seen have said that they do get a bit annoying/are for the weirdest things. The daycare profession looks interesting, although a bit disappointing that they added it and there aren’t many new interactions with or for toddlers or lots of new toys for them. I hear they can’t even play in the sand (that only children can). I’ve also heard that some of the parents end up leaving their kids at the daycare overnight, so will be interesting to see if you have to deal with any of that with the Happy Campers!
And I gotta say, I just saw the preview for Pets and I am so excited. That one I may have to break my “wait for the price drop” and just get it right away!
Yeah, Pets looks really cool! And the fact that they announced it so early makes me wonder if it was originally going to be part of Generations, and that’s why Generations feels a bit sparse. Either that or they knew people would complain about Generations being sparse and decided to throw us a bone with the Pets announcement, so we’d get excited about THAT and forgot to gripe about lack of stuff in Generations. Heh. Who knows. But yeah, I love seeing the Grim Reaper riding on a horse! That is too cool.
Interesting about the possible overnight daycare…I look forward to seeing if that happens!
How did Talia and Gareth “tell” each other about their schools? Did it come up as a pop-up with the info for you to see? And I never understood why EA -never- put railings around the opening hole at the top of the stairs. They didn’t in TS2 either. *grumbles* Ooo, I like the fancy new small computer! Geeze, 4 10-hour days for only $100?!? Yikes! Yay, the first Happy Campers! *claps*
I like that you can see what the toddlers need, even if you can’t click on/control them. *snickers at Gareth’s hopscotch attempt* So if Talia had a bit of downtime where she didn’t need to interact with the kids, can you put a skilling somethingorother in the room so she can skill a little, then play/feed/change the kids, skill, rinse, repeat? Julianne is very cute! Okay, nevermind the skilling machine, if she can teach them to walk and stuff on her work time. *nod* I wonder if the report cards will mean bigger raises or more “experience” towards the next level or something. Aww, Gareth is a sweetie. *melts*
Yikes! I, um, I don’t think I’d want to experience that sort of woohoo’ing, thankyouverymuch. *shudders* I guess you’re right about Julianne being raised by a cabal of generic pod people. Congrats on the baby bump and on the promotion! *cheers* Yay for new maternity clothes!!! *boogies*
There’s actually a new Friendly social called “Ask About Alma Mater”, and then the Sim who is asked will talk about their school, and a pop-up tells you which school it was. After that, there are socials for them to talk about their alma mater (which seems to bore the other Sim, far as I can tell!). It was one of the first things Talia and Gareth did when I unpaused them, but I was in the middle of building still, so I didn’t take a picture of it.
That fancy new computer is a store object, I think…or it might be HELS? I forget. :p I don’t think I saw any new computers with Generations.
Good idea to put a skilling something-or-other in the playroom for Talia to work on when the kids aren’t in need of anything. There’s a chair and bookcase in there, so she could at least read skillbooks if she gets bored. :)
*LOL* at the shower woohoo.
You know … Gareth is kinda hot. That picture where he\’s holding the todler … with that facial expression on his face … it\’s kinda sexy! :O)
I look forward to reading more of your Generations experiences.
LOL…whenever I make a married man/dad in the Sims, I seem to always make him this nerdyhot guy in a cardigan. :D
Jen this is great – entertaining and informative. I love how you always come up with something different to keep us coming back for more.
I did finally get my Generations EP and today is really the first chance I’m going to get to play it. I’ve had a good look through the catalogues already (of course!) and normally I’d just carry on with whatever game I’m already playing – but you’ve made me want to try something different myself – just to see all these new game play features in action.
Will we be seeing more of the Godfreys, or are they just for testing the new gameplay?
Yay, you got your Generations! I hope you have fun with it (and maybe decide to share some pics? Hint hint ;).
The Godfreys are just a test family for now, but if I ever get around to building/developing my own town, I’ll probably move them in. I do want to see if I can at least get Talia to the max level of the Daycare profession. But it’ll take forever if she keeps getting pregnant!
Hi Jen,
I love your story. It’s laugh out loud funny, especially the pillow fight. Your daycare centre is gorgeous as is the rest of the house. I just wish I had half as much talent as you when it comes to decorating. Did you use a particular house in Sunset Vally or build one? Like a few others, I’ve been checking out your site on a regular basis and I’m glad you’ve updated. Very entertaining.
Hi Debbie! I’m glad you enjoyed my post, and thank you for your kind words about my site. For the Godfreys, I built a new house on an empty lot. I was going for a contemporary style, but it turned out to be horribly boxy. The inside was fun to decorate, though!
I haven’t been back to your blog in a long time, ever since that post from way back when the Sims 3 first came out, and it sounded like you were not too impressed with the game. However, I’m so, so happy to see that you are still blogging! I have so many posts to catch up on! =)
Heh, it’s hard to stay away from the Sims, even when I’m annoyed with it! ;) I see that you are blogging about TS3 as well…I’ll have to check it out! Thanks so much for stopping in again after all this time.
*posted with almost closed eyes* Hi Jen, I haven’t looked at your entry yet, as I haven’t installed Generations and want to keep a little bit of surprise about the daycare, but I just wanted to say: it’s nice to see you back! I missed reading you! :)
(will be back right after Generations installation!)
Hey Jenba I think there’s something in the daycare water – my test daycare owner keeps getting pregnant too! Perhaps it’s the nurturing trait? Idk – but I love your take on Generations. You do have a way of making the everyday game-play entertaining.
I’m thinkin’ the random sims dropping off and picking up the poor babies must come from a gypsy clan or some such family. Maybe hold overs from the 70s style commune living? Whatever the case, it is reeally strange to see all those strangers w/one kid. Poor dears.
I had no idea you could earn athletic skill by playing hop-scotch. It has a weird kind of logic to it I suppose. Anywho, thanks for the stories/by-play/game-play lol. Til next time ‘wright’ on! That was my spam word this time around.
Aww, Gareth is so totally adorable! I love your Sims’ faces! Talia’s expression after the pillows fight is priceless!
*lol* at the “I’m still in my jammies” picture!