Welcome! First, a little bit about the 'hood and the blog

Welcome to Tales from Challengeville! This is where I intend to document the happenings in my Challengeville Sims 2 neighborhood. Updates may not always be very frequent as I don't get much time to play The Sims 2 lately, but I'll do my best. But first, a few words about what this neighborhood is about.

Challengeville is the unimaginatively named neighborhood that I created to run small challenges and tests in. Most of the playable lots in the 'hood at the moment are downloaded lots for some of the TSR Challenges that I've decided to try. The neighborhood isn't exclusively for those challenges, though, and will contain other lots for other small challenges, or ones that I create families for on a whim.

I've been playing this 'hood off and on for awhile now, and much has already happened in it. I've completed several of the challenges already, though others are still untouched. Some lots have been played for over 40 sim days, others for only a few sim days or not at all. Eventually I hope to start playing it Prosperity-style with equal length rounds played on each lot to keep everyone aging the same. This is something for the future, however, and for now I'll likely work on completing the challenges for the lots that are already in while the rest of the 'hood remains in a sort of frozen time limbo.

To get the blog going, I'll try to catch things up with the lots that have already been played, telling their backstory, and throwing in a few pictures of the sims that live there so you can get to know them. Most posts will likely be rather lean on pictures compared to other blogs, because I'm not really much one for taking pictures while I'm playing. I get wrapped up in what's going on in the game and just don't think to hit the snapshot key. But I'll do my best to include enough to at least put faces to the characters I'm talking about.

Oh, and a few words about the CC and hacks I have installed. I've been trying to cut down on the amount of CC I have since I hate having to wait forever for the game to load. I've cut it down a lot from what I used to have, though still have quite a bit...though often I end up not using a lot of it. If you see anything in pictures that you like and want to know where it came from, feel free to ask, and I'll try to remember where I got it. Aside from ordinary CC, I do have a few hacks still in the game, mostly some of TwoJeff's hacks which are available at Simbology. Of his, I have ACR installed, to add an element of randomness to Sims' romantic relations and pregnancies. I also have his Triplets & Quads mod in, though I use the version that gives me the option to go with the original number of babies, pick how many babies, or just get a random number of babies. Mostly I've been choosing the random option, though at times I'll just select the original number if I really don't want to have to deal with multiples just then on that lot. Aside from those, I'll be using the LotSync Timer from MATY to help keep track of how long lots have been played. I haven't had it installed on any of the lots so far, but I intend to start using it on the played lots. Unplayed lots I'll likely wait and play through their challenge "off the clock", then install it for the lot once finished. Then everyone will start from Day 0 at whatever point they're at then. I reserve the right to change my mind on this though and start the clock running for everyone when next I play ;)

So, enough of my babble for now. On to writing about the families and stories going on in Challengeville.