Lost Temple of Atoyacoatl - NO CC

SCREENSHOTS
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Created by Zarathustra
Uploaded: 26th Feb 2024 at 3:42 AM
Here’s another lot that I’ve had in the works for quite a while! With the BV pyramid pieces available, a jungle temple seemed inevitable… I’d figured out how to do dense jungle a long time ago, but kept wanting something else to make a lost temple like this stand out, and it was figuring out the rope bridges and deep ravines that really did it! The lot as uploaded is zoned as Residential just to allow more flexibility in how you use it, but I can easily see rezoning this as a Community or Lodging lot in a tropical vacation destination too!

Obviously the incredibly dense jungle and sheer ravines are going to make many parts of this lot inaccessible by design, but anyplace that it seems like your Sims would be able to reach, they should be able to route to successfully (though crowding and traffic jams may be an issue in some areas). I’ve playtested a clone fairly extensively, and even things like the cowplant and most of the wall carvings can be successfully interacted with, without any foot-stomping. The one exception seems to be having Sims sit on the large fountain- only one ‘seat’ works right, the rest are blocked by overgrown vegetation.

With a 5x6 lot and $592,011 worth of decoration, this is definitely a large lot, and the high poly counts of so many plants can make it run slowly. On the flip side though, there aren’t any objects to generate NPCs, and only a few animated objects, so hopefully it won’t be too taxing for your graphics processors to run successfully!

I don’t think there’s any more technical information that should be necessary here, so please let me know if you run into any trouble with this and I’ll do my best to fix it! And of course if you want to keep reading, you’ll find a cheesy pulp adventure story to set the scene for this particular location!



The jungle was never quiet, even at night. Henry Walker had been on enough expeditions to know that, and so far this jungle had been no different, even if he had found no record of it having been explored before. The dense foliage hid countless whirring and buzzing insects that kept up a ceaseless drone that faded into the background along with the turbulent water flowing at the distant bottom of the ravine, during the day the chattering of monkeys and countless songs and shrieks and squawks of colorful birds added to the din, and at night the distant snarl of a jaguar would scare the youngest expedition members out of their sleep every time. Walker just slept right through it at this point.

It had been five days of hacking through the jungle since they left the last mountain trail wide enough for the expedition’s trucks, and even with more than a dozen grad students and interns from the museum working with the local guides who had led them to this remote part of the mountains, they’d only just managed to reach the ravine that morning. The afternoon had been spent setting up the tents and showers and resources for a basecamp near the ravine, but Walker’s attention was already elsewhere. Even without being able to reach it yet, he could already see the overgrown ruins of the temple clearly on the far bank, vine-choked pyramids and a massive stone tower rising above even the tallest of the jungle palms.



The following morning dawned hot and humid, just like every other day on this last leg of the expedition. Walker had to laugh at the irony- after Whitmore had started him on this path in his estate’s cool, dark library, his journey had led from the stale controlled atmosphere of the museum archives, to the thin and frigid gales of towering mountain peaks, to the scorching dust-choked air of a desert bazaar, and now the tropical air that was so thick every breath felt like trying to draw soup into his lungs.

That didn’t seem to faze the workers just upstream though- looking across the ravine Walker was pleased to see a rope bridge already spanning the gorge, and lines being launched across a tributary for another that would give them access to what seemed to be the main temple complex. Walker grabbed his pack as he rolled away his sleeping bag and paused in the mess tent just long enough to grab a handful of energy bars before heading up the path and across the first bridge to see what there was to find.



The jungle terrain on the far bank was just as steep and treacherous as anywhere they'd been in the last five days, but a narrow path was already cut into the hillside by the bridge workers, and Walker followed it to the anchor points of the nearly-completed second bridge. Eager though he was to get into the main complex, he’d been on enough expeditions to know that there was doubtless something worth studying on this side as well, and clearing only a few vines and thick bushes from the undergrowth next to him revealed a smaller stone structure, nearly overgrown by the jungle yet still clearly part of the same temple complex. Smiling, he stepped forward to take some preliminary notes while the bridge crews finished their work.

He'd hardly had time to make a decent outline of the structure in his notes before one of the grad students rushed up to him, saying the second bridge was completed and they had access to the main temple now. Walker quickly closed his notebook and directed a few of the workers to widen the path back to the small structure he’d found, wanting to be sure it received further analysis too, as it seemed like it might be a sort of temple in its own right. Still, he couldn’t help but be more excited by the main complex, and rushed across the swaying rope bridge without even a glance down at the churning jungle river deep below.



Other members of the expedition were clearly just as excited. Walker wasn’t the first one across the bridge, and the other students and workers were already getting a secondary camp site established on the temple grounds, so that some work could be done without having to cross and re-cross the treacherous bridges each time. He was the first one to climb the steps that led to the temple entrance though. Walker knew he should wait, that as an archaeologist he should document the exterior of the structure and the ruined bridge and overgrown plaza areas first, but the thrill of adventure and a new discovery briefly overrode his care for proper archaeological documentation as he cut through the hanging vines that blocked the temple entry.

The jungle had started pushing its way into the temple over the centuries, and while it wasn’t as thick as it had been outside, vines still clung to every wall and hung in mats from the ceiling, and ferns and palms had started to sprout in corners where fallen rocks had gathered. Walker stopped to look at one of the carved panels that hadn’t been completely covered over by plants… it seemed to show sacrifices being offered to some sort of jungle spirit. Hearing other members of the expedition behind him, he pointed out the carving and told them to be sure it was recorded- probably just a retelling of the legend of this temple, but still worthy of being documented. As the rest of the expedition started to photography the masonry and the still-intact pottery that lay scattered about, Walker continued down the moss-covered staircase, heading for what he hoped would be the main sanctum of the temple. Ahead he could hear the splashing sounds of water falling within the temple itself, and despite it being undisturbed for centuries, he swore he could see a gleaming golden light from somewhere within the temple itself, reflecting off the ancient stones.
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