Believe it or not giving gifts has been around since the base game, that mock up snapshot is not a "clique bait" --- albeit its script was way more simplified. A Sim gives B Sim a green gift box, to a positive or negative (box stomping!) outcome! The game will not tell you the contents of the box, however, nor will the gift be added to the receiver's inventory, as inventories were only featured much later. It was just a very symbolic relationship score booster available to Sims who were Nice enough

EDIT: 200th post. Thanks for putting up with us! We are always happy to figure out how The Sims was made (as well as its inevitable cultural impact) with you!

How does the gift giving interaction play out in the base game, in-game? Where does the sim get the gift from? 🤔 Was it actually used in any way in the base game, or was it just there, sitting in the code and assets, but not active?

It was used. Plays in the exact same fashion as giving gifts bought Downtown, for example, except the green box literally comes out of the giver's ass without any logic explanation as to where they got the prop from. And the interaction per se would cost you 20 simoleons !

Coincidentally, the og simlish voice actors mocked that nonsensical dynamic by improvising a dialogue associated with in-game scenes they were seeing in time. Good laugh for the day:

What really fascinates me is these houses I have seen in these pictures on these 1999 pre release pictures. I have spend lots of time trying to create them. We already had three houses someone shared here, I think Lucpix himself was who shared them. I only managed to make two houses. House 02 and House 08. The ones in these pictures

What tool did you use? or how did you manage to extract the sprites of the objects yourself from the demo? I would be more than happy to obtain them myself!

The thing about the artistic direction of the game, whether it is good or not, is that it in extention remained the same since it was first ported to Windows (the infamous "Jefferson" era, starring
Edith and all the good old folks), then the art of replicating saves from the older dev. builds is generally easy as pie, as long as you have the necessary sources!

Maybe the snapshots below serve as complementary sauces

That's sweet! Thanks for taking your time in making this forum account and posting here. We'll be happy to hear your takes or discoveries on the making of that wacky sims game if you want to!

As far as I am concerned none of the existing simtools can handle 1.0 iff files, so none of them were used for the extracting process. I had a long conversation with my hacking partner and friend Dan on skype and we are committed to extracting the entire body of sprites for public awareness and creative utilization. I think all the objects in the proto have an inherent appeal (albeit its lack of visual continuity) that deserves to be brought back to the final product

And hey. welcome to ModTheSims

Along the lines of the proto's graphics, it is interesting that it has a file - Terrain.iff - containing unique floral sprites as randomized terrain effects, more or less in the same way as the spiky grass blades in the release version. The sprites do not appear anywhere throughout the whole demo - it takes the player's input on Edith to make them visible -, then I suppose that, even way back then, they had aged like milk!

















Terrain.iff predates the compilation date of the demo build by 3 or so months! Then maybe the flowers were last used in a previous pitching proto yet to be experienced by the fans!

a terrible shame nobody would bother to make anymore tools for further support future issues with this game but thankfully our current versions of Windows can still run the original game thankfully!

I would like to reach out and email Dan since I don't use chatting apps like Discord and the like. I need those object sprites asap. I do not wish to wait until winter as I have other priorities Im currently dealing with right now at the moment as Im trying to sort out my files and cleaning up since my pc is badly clogged from so much downloads Im trying to rescue from being "lost media" forever if I don't find a proper way where to save these anytime soon. Saving to usb or backups is not a good option and does not help preserve what Im trying to save from being gone forever on the web. Im just hoping I could get as much content from older games extracted as much as I can until near the end of fall when I should prepare to leave the country Im currently in soon for US.

I hope that clear things up. Thanks for letting me know so I don't have to keep wasting time with the rather useless tools we currently have but least Im able to get a hold of the other graphics from the demo such as the menu, skins, and button icons. Im currently trying to get some graphics from the defunct Sims Online where this version of Sims have a different looking UI (I wonder why they didn't use this instead for the later expansion packs?). Theres unique objects and skins not included in the complete collection and the only way to get them is from Online and Deluxe. I got the deluxe objects already but not the ones from Online yet along with the skins. I could easily get those from the archive site.

The only things left I need are the walls and floors but they are not a big priority for now as Im trying to concentrate on getting the sprites for the menus and objects in the meantime. I would be very glad to talk to Dan about it so hopefully I can get a hold of the objects soon.

Sorry for the double post, there something worth mentioning here! When you first post these images I wasn't sure if they are screenshots taken outside of the software or clear quality extracts, I tried out one of your flowers posted here on ms paint and it turns out when I open it to see if this was properly extracted or not, I was able to change its color and theres no blur! so that means they must be ripped from the game's files somehow and not from out of software screenshots. So what you posted here works! I would like to request if you can bring all the object sprites here but if thats too much can you try putting them all in one Imgur post if that works for you? I would be very happy to save these if you can bring them all here asap!

We have a backup solution now, too, for the future, if the game ever stops working on Windows (the original game, without all the expansion packs pre-installed, already has on Windows 10 and 11):

PCem can run the game with the exact speed that it ran back in the day. It fully supports Windows 98, and all its software -- so it is a time capsule for The Sims to live in:

https://www.pcem-emulator.co.uk/

I was able to get my Sims with only House Party, Hot Date, and Vacation installed and running on Windows 11 using this setup. Setup instructions (and files) here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx2H3IV9SG4

This means that you can run all the creative tools that were created for The Sims back in the day, too, without any issue.

The only downside is that it is a speed-accurate emulation -- meaning that the game will run a lot slower than it does on today's computers. It will run exactly how it ran back then (in 2000) on new computers. So if you're looking for a 1:1 authentic and accurate experience of the game, this is it.

I was planning to find a way how to convert this game to work with current Windows versions without the need to adjust the properties to run on older versions, I forgot if setting the bit to 8 or 16 was required but instead of going through that trouble I think it would be a better idea to format this game for future Windows versions so we don't have to make too much adjustments and fixes just to play a outdated classic that Maxis or EA doesn't seem to care anymore.

The only thing stopping the game from working on Windows 10 and 11 at the moment is the DRM that Maxis/EA used on the game (the CD copy protection). If that can be successfully removed from the game's EXE without compromising the stability of the game, then The Sims will run on newer versions of Windows as well.

Someone has already done this successfully for the "Complete Edition" EXE for the game. But in order to support all the different possible expansion pack configurations for the game, you really need to do this for every single EXE the game has -- for every single expansion pack installation, effectively.

Can't say the same for all the creative tools, however. They were really designed to run on Windows 98/XP.

Thanks thanks, yeah I did made that house, Houses 02 and I think house 08? Are the ones I made, they were the only ones that we had pictures of their interior.
I am even trying with the small pics trying to figure what house is what.

Computer Gaming World Issue 190
Publication date 2000-05

https://archive.org/details/Compute...ue_190/mode/1up

WOW the mag gave a perfect score?? To The Sims? No way! Exquisite page layout, design & info sir

I've been meaning to repost this! Same mag, but in a previewing bias:

Computer Gaming World - Issue 184 (November 1999)

Computer Games Strategy Plus - September 1999

https://archive.org/details/compute...ge/n63/mode/1up

Wonder where the rest of the other demos might be? Someone from Reddit told me there was a 1999 demo downloaded by his father on his PC long time ago. He tried looking for it and last replied that he was feeling sick to continue looking further. This made me felt skeptical if he was telling the truth about the demo as I have not heard from him again and he never showed us anything after he first posted on the reddit which made me think he was lying to the community there as nobody else knew such a demo existed.

There was a playable late demo of Sims just before the year it was released! only shown off at E3 1999. It was said to be the very first time the public could try out the game after it was first showcased on screenshots from the web and on magazines shortly before E3.

This demo was exactly the same one from that opening video when you start up the base game without expansion packs. Perhaps the makers themselves didn't have enough time to record video of the last build for the opening and instead they leave us various clips of the same 1999 E3 version with objects and skins that should have stayed instead of pulling them out by the last minute.

We need to find all the other demos of this game if we want a complete collection of the missing objects and skins removed as the 1998 demo still doesn't have everything from the 1999 E3 demo and a lot of things from older versions like the Jefferson demo, possibly from earlier 1998 or late 1997? There was also a 1995? or 1996? demo with only sprites instead of 3d models back in the day when Sims was going to look like Sim City 2000! lmao. Thankfully, the screenshots I found were somehow taken directly from the program itself and not magazine or video, allowing me to pull at least some of the assets from the oldest known Sims prototype not available to play yet. Its still a mystery where those screenshots come from but I could try to contact the original poster there for some clues maybe!

There was a newer screenshot of a late Sims prototype demo of the blue tropical shirt guy with orange Marge Simpson hair Im sure that was already been posted here. He was walking in the bathroom and there is a puddle near the shower, a painting of Elvis likely replaced by the clown, a couple of brown chairs that never made it to any expansion pack, the small white tv from the 1998 demo, and a very early pink flamingo from the 1998 demo. What wasn't mentioned here, this screenshot was found from someone's old PC purchased at a yardsale, the seller could be someone from Maxis or EA who might have tested that version of Sims and used the hidden screen capture that was still left in the base game until they removed it from expansion packs according to Cutting Room Floor. That screenshot was likely taken to showcase on magazines or the web at the time when it was coming soon or to be sent to Maxis or EA for some kind of approval? Guess we'll never know, I did contact the original poster before and never got a reply ever since, not even sure if the original poster is still active there anymore right after he or she posted it on Reddit where it was first discovered.

Again, we need more demos of Sims 1 in order to recover and preserve the rest of the missing content from the released game! Whether the older file types can be converted or not, least having those other demos would better than nothing.

If any of you could find the 1999 E3 version of Sims let us know here! We need it!

Guys!

The keyboard problem is SOLVED!

I added a little section at the early-98 subpage about the game's making, inputting what's objectively known upon objects in the steeering committee demo that are so old that not even the proto itself uses it! As a collaborative wiki environment, it's always open to being edited and enhanced by anyone!

Can't be arsed repeating the wiki formatting to forumish, then let's conform ourselves with a lazy, static snapshot by now, followed by attached gifs:

Recap from earlier studies


NEXT GENERATION - August 1999

You didn't answer my question: Where can I reach out to message your friend Dan? Does he accept emails or only chat? Otherwise please rip all the objects yourself to help save my time but don't make us wait until Winter! I just want those sprites recovered ASAP from being considered "lost media" because they are still not taken out from the game files yet.

Speaking of lost media, I already taken out all the sound effects and a few songs. I know 2 of them are actual music but the other music are just short loops from the radio object, including what might be a unused one found as duplicate sound files between the other sounds we normally hear from the radio object.

https://dl.sndup.net/rsjkm/unknown.wav

let me know if you guys can hear it and confirm to me if this was heard somewhere in the demo unless its really unused? because I did not hear this when I was fooling around with the radio object when I was trying out the demo.

Other lost stuff I saved are graphics from the menu including the unused UI as leftovers from a earlier demo we don't have yet! I also already recovered all the textures of the skins from this demo including 2 unused ones for Crazy Larry and a earlier Mercedes!

What I couldn't find are the unused objects that Lucpix here discovered but they might be mixed up with the IFF files in the IFF folder.

Anyway, I want to leave this here for now until hopefully other people besides Lucpix can check these IFFs Im sure they are the objects as their file names point out exactly the names of those objects. So that more people can get involved with figuring out the IFF format as Im sure the demo is not well known enough yet and still lacking exposure to the world to research digging around further in the game's data and extracting more content such as sprites and 3d models.

https://www.mediafire.com/file/x8if...8+demo.zip/file

Let me know if you can figure out how to get the sprites from those IFF files and put them on a zip folder and I'll be more than happy to archive them as png!

I also found files for the walls and floors if anybody is interested?

https://www.mediafire.com/file/gvi5.../walls.iff/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/ptpp...floors.iff/file

and heres more IFFS I found that Im not sure what they might contain but Im guessing the rest of the thought bubbles are in one of these?

https://www.mediafire.com/file/jqwx...prites.iff/file

https://www.mediafire.com/file/3k41...lobals.iff/file

I hope this helps make more people here start searching through these files and maybe come up with a better new tool or solution to extract sprites and models from Sims prototypes in the future when theres more like this one found. So that way we are prepared if more demos are found in the future and we can easily get more lost objects, skins, and other stuff we might be able to put them back in the released game soon!

Im keeping my fingers crossed here in the meantime for others to get involved but I only wish I know your friend Dan's email or any other way to contact him through chat since Im unable to use Discord. He could be a much bigger help with the community!

@LUCPIX I reported this member, please just ignore and don't respond. Also, let's get on with talking about Sims 1!

I appreciate it simsample.

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Our duty of extracting the SPR2 resources from the objects in the prototype is more than halfway finished, okay? Expect a new thread where you'll be cordially invited to help us transform and script these into solid, functional objects. Piece of cake, although it could be a potentially dragged-out process. Those darn IFF 1.0's!

PC ZERO - JUN 1999 ISSUE

One surprisingly interesting detail caught my eye in this article -> It referenced a peculiar event that took place on April 1st, 1999. On that day, the official SimCity website was briefly "hijacked" by the Sims themselves lol. A manifesto titled "Free The Sims" took over the website's standard layout. This was obviously a marketing prank; a unique way for them to announce the upcoming launch of The Sims project to the world. Pretty cool! I'm assuming the SimCity website, in its "hijacked" form, wasn't captured by the wayback machine's eyes. =)