The Sims of Torrential Valley

Welcome to Torrential Valley!

Torrential Valley is an hybrid Prosperity/Uglacy/Legacy challenge. Since creating the Prosperity Challenge along with Kivrin, I have played nothing but Prosperity 'hoods. To be honest, I've never finished one either. I love playing Prosperity style, but I find myself wanting to only play pretty sims. Whenever I get an unattractive sim born in the game (I NEVER marry any of my playables to an ugly sim) I ALWAYS use the makeover machine and make them pretty. Even if the genetics don't change, I change them so I don't have to look at any uglies.

Well, that's where this challenge comes in. It's a challenge for me to not only play ugly sims, but to aspire to create the ugliest sims I can. The goal is to have created the ugliest sim possible after 5 generations.

I've started with the Uglacy rule of randomizing the sim in CAS (I hit the randomize button 3 times). I chose to have a male to start with so the name wouldn't change before the first heir was born. Carter Uglacy was so created. He isn't a terrible looking guy, but has a very strong jaw and prominent cheek bones.

After generating Carter's looks, I used Prosperity rules to roll his Aspiration, Personality, Turn Ons and Turn Offs. Then, I bought him a starter house with his $20K and set to work. The only real Legacy part of the challenge is that I started with only 1 sim, instead of a whole neighborhood like is custom in Prosperity. However, from that point on, Carter is living a Prosperity life.

After graduating his first son, Eddie, from college (and the heir to the household) Carter's modest starter home is starting to really become a nice house. (This picture was taken shortly after Eddie's wedding).

Throughout the rest of the challenge, I will continue to play Prosperity style. Carter's other son, Marcel will be allowed to start his own household after college. I am going to play his line in an effort to create the prettiest sims possible, whereas Eddie's heirs will all be played to create the ugliest sims I can make. Once new households are established, they will be played in order for 1 season per round (5 sim days). I am also going to attempt to get every sim in perma plat before death; something I've never aimed for before now.

At the end of the challenge, I will post pictures of all the 5th generation heirs on both the pretty and ugly sides of the family and let the audience choose who should 'win' the title as the Ugliest and Prettiest Sim of Torrential Valley.

Status of Torrential Valley

Uglacy,Carter $331,556

Sims:

Carter Elder, Perma Plat, Gold badge Robotics, Sewing

Eddie Adult, Perma Plat, max skills, Gold badge Gardening, fulilled LTW Head of SCIA, owns Bluewater Baths & Salon,

Jade Adult, Perma Plat, max skills, fulfilled LTW Hand of Poseidon, also Head of SCIA, abducted

Elijah Adult, Perma Plat, max skills

Lisa Adult, Perma Plat

Deceased:

Contessa Sharlene Uglacy Died of old age, Perma Plat, fulfilled LTW Mad Scientist

Pets:

Alegra

Friends: 23

Uglacy, Marcel $107,723

Sims:	Marcel Adult, Perma Plat, max skills, Gold badge Gardening
	Margaret Adult, Perma Plat, max skills, fulfilled LTW Max all skills,
	Keane Adult
	Brody Teen
	Kennedy Teen

Friends: 14

Barthelet, Nicholas $49,359

Sims:	Nicholas Adult
	Rosie (Servo)
	Caprice Child
	Marisa Shahan Adult

Friends: 1

McCarthy, Gabe$ 57,693

Sims:	Prof. Gabe Adult
	Alessa Adult, Perma Plat, max skills
	Agaue Infant
	Aoide Infant

Pets:	Angel
	Claude
	Bridget
	Lefty

Friends: 3

Uglacy, Melody & Kelan $17,018

Sims:	Melody Adult
	Kelan Adult
	Mooncloud Toddler

Friends: 8

Hsu, Oliver $23,228

Sims:	Oliver Adult
	Harmony Adult
	Slobodan Toddler

Friends: 2

Carter Uglacy's Family tree

Spring comes to an End

Alessa moved into her first home - a modest one bedroom. She immediately invited over her favorite college professor, Gabe McCarthy, and asked him to marry her. I know he is much to good looking for the Uglacy tradition, but technically Elijah is the one responsible for carrying on the ugly, and Alessa and Gabe had THREE BOLTS!

Soon they were married on the front lawn with all her family present. Below are her wedding guests (from left): Eddie - dad, Elijah - brother, Kelan - cousin, Carter - grandpa, Jade - mom, Brody - cousin, Harmony - cousin, and Keane - cousin. I'm not 100% who the guy in the back is with the blue sweater, but I think it is the guy with the bakery (I can never remember his name!).

Alessa went the day after her wedding and bought two cats at the local pet shelter. She wanted to start working right away on her LTW of raising 20 puppies or kittens. Angel and Claude made quick friends and Angel was pregnant shortly before bedtime that day. Coincidentally, Alessa got herself pregnant the same day - she and Angel both had twins within a few hours of each other.

Twin girls - Agaue & Aoide were born the last day of spring.

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In the home of Melody, Harmony & Kelan Uglacy, things are cramped at best. The three pooled their funds and still only had approximately $7000 to buy a lot. They got the smallest lot available and built a 2 room shack (and that's being generous). Their 3 twin beds, kitchen a living area are all in one room. When Mr Humble delivered their computer, they each got a job and quickly sold the computer for cash.

Melody, the Romance Sim, soon invited over her previous loves and managed to have her first woo hoo in a hamock, which incidentally resulted in an unplanned pregnancy. Mooncloud Uglacy was born on the 3rd day of spring. (Her mom has a little Hippy in her, hence the name).

Harmony invited her high school sweetie, Oliver Hsu over and they became engaged. If Kelan and Melody are self sufficient by the end of Spring, Harm plans to move in with Oliver at his place. (Note: I moved Oliver in with the siblings, but moved him out again. I removed what money he brought with him ($17,000) using the familyfunds cheat. I'm hoping by doing this I will have his name on the house lot instead of another Uglacy house.)

Oliver and Harmony (both Pleasure Sims) want nothing more than to jump on the couch and juggle bottles from the fridge. However, somewhere in there they managed to woohoo and as a result, Slobodan was born. Within his first day as a toddler he learned to walk and talk, thanks in large part to Smart Milk. We're still working on the potty thing.

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I'm letting myself down in the perma plat department. I'm struggling to keep Harmony & Oliver in gold and Melody & Kelan are a lost cause. If they stay green it's a miracle. Hopefully I'll be able to turn that all around next round.

Death visits Torrential Valley

Sharlene died at the ripe old age of 69 at 9:30 in the evening. Grim was nice enough to bring her a fruity umbrella drink and some hula girls and even helped her pack her bag. Carter had her transported to the Torrential Valley community resting place, the Garden of Eternal Slumber.

Elijah and Alessa left for college with all scholarships for skills and the Sim Scholar award. The house seems very empty now that the population is reduced to half.

Carter finally managed to fill his influence meter.

Elijah chose Fashion as a major & Alessa chose Computing (real major hack from MTS2). I played University all the way through from Freshman year to graduation in one round. It was very uneventful since both kids had most of their skills already (Elijah was missing 2 cleaning points if I remember right). I would have them write a term paper and then turn on speed 3 and let them go until 5 hours before finals when I got their needs up. They both graduated with a 4.0 GPA and moved back to Torrential Valley. Elijah moved back home with his parents since he will eventually inherit the home and Alessa moved into a new house of her own.

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I completely forgot to write down what happened in Marcel's family so I'm writing from memory. I do know that all the children have grown to teens and the girls, Melody and Harmony, grew up. I set a limit on which Sims I send to university - they have to have at least 5 skill-related scholarships and an A+ average at school to attend. Needless to say, with 6 kids to wrangle, the girls were far from that goal. They both aged up to adult and brought their respective loves up with them (for Melody there were 3, Harmony only 1). Harmony immediately moved out, but Melody has stayed home - it's easier to work on finding multiple lovers when you don't have pesky bills to worry about.

Keane & Kelan both grew to adults that last day of the round. Since Keane is the oldest male heir, he will inherit the family home, so he won't be moving out. Kelan finally talked Melody into a life where her many dates wouldn't be scowled on by her family-loving father. Unfortunately for the siblings, their parents aren't as well off as Eddie's family is - they moved out will barely enough money to purchase the tiniest lot they could find. Harmony agreed to live with them briefly to help add to their desperately needed funds, but as soon as she can, she's going to get married and move out into her own home.

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Rosie and Nicholas looked to the world to be a happy, if not unorthodox, couple. On the inside, however, Nicholas was hurting. He knew the hole in his heart would never be filled with adopted children. He unconsciously was on constant lookout for a potential mother to his future children. When his friend from Takemizu Village, Marisa Shahan, called him unexpectedly one day, he invited her to come spend some time with his family. Once she arrived, they hit it off immediately and right under Rosie's nose, he fell in love with a real woman.

When Rosie left for work the next day, Nich and Marisa consummated their love. He explained to Rosie that since she had a dream to be a Game Designer and would need to work very hard to reach that level, he had asked Marisa to move in with them to take care of their daughter, Caprice (now a child). Rosie was completely trusting and suspected nothing, even when Marisa started showing a very obvious baby-bump. Nich just explained that she was already expecting when she moved in. That's the thing about robots. They trust because they are programmed that way.

Winter, a time for Families

Jade finally made it to the top of her career and became the Hand of Poiseidon. Sharlene got her last promotion to Mad Scientist and immediately started cashing in her vacation days. Both kids grew to teens.

Alessa: Family, 2nd Popularity. Turn ons: great cook, creative Turn off: full face makeup LTW

Elijah: Fortune, 2nd Family. Turn ons: makeup, logical turn off: unemployed. LTW world class ballet dancer
Eddie bought Bluewater Baths & Spa. At level 4 at the end of the round. Since Eddie wasn't much of a stylist (he botched a few attempts at makeovers before throwing in the hair brush) he decided it would be a better investment to sell the makeover chairs and buy a bubble blower and a pool table. In the back he sold one of the hot tubs and bought a massage table. He also set up a buffet line and bought two hot air balloons (from parsimonius.com) for his clientele to use. He decided it would be best to use the lot as a venue with a charge-by-service for the massage table. So far it's working nicely. Now he just needs to find a suitable hire whom he can promote to manager to keep the story when he's spending time at home.

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Marcel's family all worked on skills. All kids are teens, none perma plat yet. Harmony & Melody have 2 days left before college. Harmony has fallen in love and is spending time with her beau. Melody on the other hand is already working on her 5th love. This is very much attributed to the wishing well that they earned for the garden at their previous home.

Nothing exciting is going on in that household right now - just skilling and trying to keep everybody above green aspiration.

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To the next household - Rosie the Servo and Nicholas Barthelet. They were married at Carter & Sharlene's anniversary party and moved out soon after. Nicholas being a family sim (and wanting to marry off 6 kids) was very distraught to learn that Servos can't procreate. So, his first action once in their new house was to fill the walls of their bedroom with dream catchers which he promptly sold first thing in the morning and called the social worker to adopt a baby.

When the baby grew to a toddler, he realized that wouldn't be a enough for him. He wanted his own children from his own flesh & blood and although he loved Rosie, he knew she would never be able to give them to him. He started a search for a woman who could birth his gaggle of babies for him. In the meantime, he was neglecting to spend time with Rosie and she ran amuck on him. She finally wore herself out and broke in the middle of the living room. He though about leaving her broken so he wouldn't have to worry about sneaking behind her back to have children, but in the end his love for her won out and he called a repairman to come over (after he tried fixing her and ended up electrocuting himself).

Fall continues, Winter begins

The first day of Fall was bittersweet for Marcel's family. The boys (Keane & Kelan pictured below) grew up from infants to toddlers and both learned to potty shortly after aging up. Also, the girls have been spending time working on their skills and are staying in a pretty good platinum mood for the most part. However, with the good comes the bad, I'm afraid. Both Marcel and Margaret lost their jobs due to bad choices on chance cards. Luckily they have about $10,000 in the bank to pay the bills until they can both find suitable jobs.

It seems that I have lost the ability to keep everybody platinum. Of course it could be b/c I have 6 kids!

The twins Melody and Harmony grew up in platinum (barely) to teens right before Fall ended and their round was over. Harmony chose Pleasure and Melody Romance. My least two enjoyable aspirations in my previous experience. Maybe I'll be able to turn it around this time and actually like playing them - since I seem to be reaching new heights in my simming, anything is possible!

The next set of twins, Keane & Kelan are children now and the last set of twins, Brody & Kennedy just grew up from toddlers to children. This family is definitely going to be more difficult to keep in platinum!

I had to move them out of their house b/c there simply was not enough room for all of them. I really liked the house they had, but it was a custom house from Parsimonious (I think) and was built over the road. Adding on to that house was a PAIN b/c I had to use moveObjects to build and then I'd forget and my objects would be in unusable places. All and all it was too much to deal with.

Marcel's family, although busy, didn't have much to update. Maybe b/c I forgot to take pictures while trying to raise 6 kids!

On to Carter's house. The Fall is over and Winter is beginning.

Rosie the Servo wanted love. She desperately tried to woo every man she met (including Goopy!) but in the end, she wished for Romance from the Wishing Well. Ta Da! Introducing Nicholas Barthelet. They fell immediately in mad love with each other (gotta love that Well!) and were married smack dab in the middle of Carter & Sharlene's anniversary party (which was a Roof Raiser by the way). As soon as they were married, they moved out to start a life together. I guess they will have to adopt.

Eddie quit his job after reaching top of career in Intelligence. Head of the SCIA was just too much responsibility when he can make $3000 writing a novel in just a few hours. He has hobby plaques in Nature & Film/Literature.

Carter has plaques in Tinkering and Arts/Crafts. He is currently working on sewing skill now is at Silver level. Has gold robot badge and bronze fishing & gardening.

Sharlene is now a Theorist. She has a Silver fishing badge and bronze sewing badge. She is now working at the pottery wheel in her spare time. She hasn't maxed all skills, but the ones needed for promotion are all taken care of. As a side note, I don't think Sharlene will be with us much longer. Her age bar has just a little bit of space left on the end. She's actually 3 days younger than Carter, but I think he's going to outlive her by a week at least. I really doubt she'll see another Winter come. She will be the first Sim buried in Torrential Valley's community graveyard.

Jade is perma plat now that her aspiration meter is full. She is still working on climbing the oceanography ladder. For some reason I don't enjoy playing her. I tend to set her to work on something and then forget about her until I see her wandering around aimlessly at a later time. I'm not sure why I don't like her, but I don't.

Alessa has two skills points left in Logic to be maxed in all skills; Elijah need 3 cleaning, 2 charisma and 1 body skill to be maxed. They have 2 days before aging to teen. Both are perma plat already thanks to that aspiration meter thingy. Man, I love that thing!

Well, that's it for now. Not exactly riveting reading this time, but lots of skills were learned!