Well... Things were going great until day 50 on the countdown... On day 50, my dog, mother, and toddler all got infected. Then the mother died. Sounds like a GREAT day huh? Right...

I keep thinking I should lock the bathroom door, except that there isn't one. I suppose I could fix that for them. I have relieved the issue by selling off produce etc to get them the water pump from the barter cart. I also got a battery TV, but then decided to get the small generator as well. Can I run the TV from the generator once the 'battery' dies? I am thinking they can use it as much as they like until then, but only the two hours daily after its first repair.

I didn't think about watering plants out of pumping hours. Hmm. My sims are doing all their gardening in the hours just after sunrise, before plumbing time.

Simlover, I intended to let mine bring the small stereo, assuming it could be battery-operated. In the end I chose other things as they didn't need the workout option. My choices, apart from foodstuffs, were: one pregnancy book (just in case they haven't finished breeding), a rubber duckie, a small wall shelf, a bicycle and a small tent (two single beds in the shack - were we allowed to make one of them a double? Anyway, the tent gives them the four sleeping spaces they need.), Originally I thought they would bring a number of books, but really they have no reason to learn general skills.

Apart from keeping them out of the bathroom at odd hours, the biggest problem they have is boredom. I might dig them a fishing hole just to give them something more to do. Can fish still be used as fertilizer, or are they completely toxic?

I sure hope so; I bought a double bed as well, and made sure one of them packed a tent. The only other item that wasn't food that I took was a guitar; the mother had the skill at 8, so I figured the high moodlet from the music would be helpful (it was). And watching her play and dancing was something for the others to do until barter day.

Boredom will no longer be an issue for my sims - they have now managed to steal a guitar, a chess board and an easel.
Dumpster diving is also proving useful for decorating the shack. Several rugs and deco items, assorted bugs and one or two useful things such as a soccer ball and a park bench.

I am going to have to start all over again for the 3rd time. Hubby bought a new computer and though I successfully transferred my family, I can't transfer my notes about this challenge. I have to get open office because this thing doesn't even have a word pad. <sighs> I will get this done! One way or another It will happen!

Thank you aelflaed I may not be there yet but I just wanted to know so I could figure out what to bring. I also think you shouldn't use fish as fertilizer because they are toxic and they would probably ruin the plant if they are toxic.

Hopefully I wont have any more questions because I was wondering if we have Pets could we have a dog, cat, horse, or small animals?

Sorry about all my questions, but what kind of things are 'battery powered'? I know the small stereo is but are there any other objects?

I uninstalled Pets quite a while ago, so correct me if I'm wrong, but won't feeding cats and dogs cost money? You won't have any in the second part of the challenge. As I remember with horses, you can feed them with produce, but you'd want to be careful with that. There might be a time or two when you're in real danger of not having enough food for your family; a horse is a pretty big extra mouth to feed when everyone's living on lettuce and tomatoes.

As for battery-operated stuff, I think that's just a matter of logic. Anything you've ever seen operated by batteries in reality would be plausible, but remember you're playing a survival scenario, and also that batteries are consumed resources. That is, they run out eventually. You wouldn't want to waste your precious batteries on stuff that you really don't need. Other than small stereos, I'd say maybe something like small wall lamps.

I'd also barter a little something extra when the old man shows up for a new supply of batteries, but that's just a suggestion.

Thanks othiym and I was looking at it and saw that dogs can eat fish or fruits/vegetables if they are hungry. But, it takes 3-4 to make them full... And thanks about the battery-operated stuff advice.

Hey guys. As I said in my other post I'm just coming back from being very sick (in the hospital) and I'm still a little (or lot) loopy on meds but I am going to do my UTMOST to answer all questions just because I'm super dedicated to my challenge players like that and well...have no life (lol)



There are no restrictions but you must do the appropriate virus checks as you said. Keep in mind there are some mean streets out there and the virus is running rampant. Dumpster diving is also a fine substitution for klepto. Thumbs up!



Haha I didn't plan it that way but there it is. I do have other challenges rolling around in my noggin. Specifically one involving a new spin on the teen mom and maybe even one involving royalty (still working the kinks out). I m also up to writing a POST doomsday colony challenge (one that can be played after save the children should you choose to go that route). What would you guys like to see?



There's an excellent question and one I hadn't even thought out. Well you could always just delete the mail box if you wanted. Technically you are a squatter on strange land. As I personally never liked doing that, I'd just use my dumpster diving/klepto ways to pay the bills. I'd think of it as my little contribution to keeping my secrets secret or whatnot. (lol).




Lol you guys come up with some great questions. Maybe I need to get some volunteers to help me test out my challenges before I launch them (you know kick the tires, lol). Anyway brutal logic dictates that they probably should. The whole mental logic behind my challenges is to make you wonder whether you really will survive this mess. Still, I am easy going and don't mind folks dialing back the difficulty if they feel the need. to everyone who plays them hardcore though!



OMG that is so sad! If you rolled a 12 you could say you have the challenge writer's divine blessing to resurrect her as a young adult for the colony?! Still, cheers to you for following through with the challenge. I :lovestruc you for it!


It sounds like you're fine. You probably picked up on a few basic clues (that I left out on purpose) like getting your athletic skill up immediately and once someone gets sick, keep them as far away from well sims as possible, etc. Cheers!

What you did seems fine. My only possible suggestion is if the challenge seemed too easy, don't use lifetime rewards. But yes, absolutely take things into consideration before doing them (does it really make sense that my sim could do this under these circumstances). Anything I didn't want my sims to have access to (at off hours, etc) would be locked as well.




OMG that is horrible. Yeah that day 50 thing is a real killer. It was kind of my last ditch effort to take out a sim or two but I never really wanted it to wipe out large groups!



I have to say I LOVE hearing you guys talk about your individual games. That's the whole reason I wanted to do challenges. It's a joy to see others get enjoyment from them. I love the guitar idea!



You go! And make sure you give us the blow-by-blow once you get going again.

Absolutely agree with your reply. It sounds like you've really got the idea. I'll do some additional testing and see if there is any way to work the dogs/cats in logically.

Misty, I would be interested in after the challenge for after save the children. If you need a challenge tester... I'm your girl.

I finally figured out that it does have word pad. I can open the file, I just cant' make a new one because I have no idea where the program is located. <sighs> Never in my life have I had to depend on a child to tell me how to do something that involved technology. I get windows 8 and suddenly, I am clueless. I refuse to become my mother!

I did end up starting all over again though because the couple I moved over kept locking up at the same point on the same day. The third try is the charm though right? So far I'm at day 54 and nothing has gone wrong other than a mascot that just keeps showing up and leaving the college kit. I guess the game really wants me to send them to college. LOL

I have to admit, I am not interested in playing the Doomsday Colony challenge. This is because I find it tedious to make everything perfect - my issue, not anything wrong with the challenge for those who like to try it.

This particular challenge caught my eye, largely because it is the opposite of a lot of challenges. Instead of starting with nothing and building a family or even a whole world, this challenge starts with everything and makes things gradually harder.

I would be interested in running a follow-on from this, but possibly on different lines than your doomsday colony.

One thing about this challenge that I find odd - not necessarily bad! - is that there is no point in skilling anything other than athletic and gardening, maybe also handiness. Without a school record, there is also no way you can choose traits for anyone after toddler age. Doesn't really matter, just a point.
I find it disappointing not to be able to cook anything. Maybe the barter cart should include a gas-powered fridge and a counter. Neither of those can be stolen, nor have I seen them come out of a dumpster. I have acquired several BBQs, but they are useless without a fridge.

My sims are eking out their vegies over the winter. Lots of marshmallows being consumed. No point replanting the garden until spring anyway, but it was hard to destroy all those plants waiting to be harvested. (Thanks to the new TV, they are able to watch the gardening channel at least.)

Well, that isn't completely true. The school thing that is. Its only true if you don't download a mod that lets you home school. I actually do home school my kids so that was one of the first mods I went for when I started using them.

There is another option besides gas powered fridges. If you buy one that looks antique enough you could call it an Ice Box because it uses Ice. Of course Ice will be hard to get your hands on except during the winter. With all the gardening stuff the main website has added, I would love to see the ability to can what you grow. That would be awesome.

If you buy the right fire pit you can roast anything that is in your inventory. I usually have to feed them twice a day instead of once this way but it is possible to do it. I have done it with other challenges. I usually use the rock pit that came with the downloadable content for Island Paradise. It looks like something you could build yourself and it lets you roast pretty much anything that is edible.

One other option to help with the power grid thing would be to work on your inventing skills. Though she doesn't include it in the rules here. I was thinking along the lines of solar panels. If you have maxed out your inventing and logic skills you could buy panels from the trader and get rid of all most all of your power problems. I think how you handle the power issue should be part of your own personal game play and story line. As long as you understand that resources are limited and play it that way, whatever way you decide to go about powering you electronic equipment should be up to you. I personally would use the solar panels to keep a fridge and radio or small tv going. Then I would use the brick oven that came with Monta Vista. You can fire it up with wood but you would have to delete a tree off the lot at least once a week to make it realistic.

This challenge was really fun but wow really hard! I played it through without looking ahead and It was all going reasonably well. both husband and wife caught the virus on the first wave and became immune which gave them time to up their athletic and have a couple kids. Second son died in childhood which was sad but they had 3 kids by then and i figured hey, its a pandemic.

Then we moved to the shack and that night everybody got it and the mum and dad both died within a few hours of each other leaving a teenager, toddler and newborn. then winter threatened and i hadn't had a single harvest from the plants I had brought with me and it was looking deadly! I had to send the teen out with the toddler (really should have a mod for no social worker but i don't) to go out and look for wild mushrooms. They barely survive doing this and miraculously don't see anyone while they are out.

Then the third son ages into a teen - great! i can sent him out mushroom hunting! On the first day he runs past someone close enough to need a roll and bam! dead. So now i have a teen (nearly YA) and a toddler - one less mouth to feed. Spring comes and I can finally harvest my plants but as soon as the toddler turns into a child he gets sick and dies too!

So my last surviving sim - having lost both parents and 3 brothers to the virus is holed up on his lot eating roasted apples and exercising like mad hoping it will soon be over when disaster! a random woman comes and knocks on the door while he's exercising on the front lawn. I have him run inside but he gets infected! Luckily i get immune (thank you battery operated boombox) and finally I finish.

So yeah, unlucky? possibly but wow was that fun to play. I'm going to have another go now!

I love you guys!

Aelflaed: Thank you for your feedback. Doomsday Colony was my first challenge and I am working on an idea to re-write the end of it and lead into a new, part 3. Possibly something I might keep going with additional parts. Or perhaps say Countown was Part 1 of my Doomsday Series, Colony Part II, (optional part III if you want to play Save the Children), and just continue on. One thing I have learned since writing Colony is that I don't want my challenges to be EXTREMELY long and rigid. I find the shorter ones (like Countdown) to be more interesting and less daunting for players. I tried to put more into Colony (I originally had a VERY different ending planned) but I was already at 14 pages by that point and figured I'd be killing my readers if I didn't stop LOL.

ladykelien I love your ideas! I write the challenges but there are SO many alternative ways to run with them and you do that. If it makes good, logical sense and doesn't take the challenge away, then you are perfect and your ideas for this challenge are spot on. At some point (once I am feeling a little better) I plan to go through and add everyone's ideas to the bottom of the challenge post (I'll give out appropriate credit for ideas).

Lucysaur you poor thing, but I loved reading your post! I'm so glad you succeeded at the challenge.

TO ALL: If you would like to see me write a continuation of countdown (something in a similar style) that replaces colony, please respond and let me know. Thanks!

I had both parents max their logic in the first half of the challenge, with the idea of being able to teach the children skills. Since I'd never used that particular interaction before, I didn't know that your sim can't pass on the athletic skill that way. Still, I was glad to have done it, since it made their daughters more efficient gardeners, for one.

Also, as you know, there are points in the challenge when you'll have a lot of time on your hands and not necessarily a lot to do with it. Tutoring the other family members in skills is a good, purposeful social activity, and it makes sense to me that good parents would want to pass on their knowledge in such a situation, when there is no school and no certainty about the future.


You're not wrong, though. Athletic and gardening are the only skills of real consequence in the challenge; everything else is just a matter of your own strategy. I was playing this as a prequel story for a character in my main game; a plague that wiped out most of his family fits his backstory very well, and also gave me a couple of long-lost daughters who can show up in search of their dad sometime soon.



Germaine and Dusty will enter my main game with a really good set of skills thanks to their mom and dad's time and effort.

Love your pictures (and story) othiym. I just realized I didn't respond to the skill question.
I left this challenge purposefully a little vague because I wanted folks to use their own imaginations and ingenuity as to how other skills might help them (i.e. someone had a strong guitar skill and it helped keep a positive mood when the family was forced into the shack). I'm not going to say that nothing else matters but athletics and gardening. Certainly they are the two key to basic survival, but there is so much more your sims could be doing,. I can write up some ideas later if you like

I meant to say this before and just got all caught up in sharing ideas. I hope your hospital stay wasn't too serious and that your doing better very soon. I hesitate to offer because I don't know how you feel about such things, but I am a Certified Reiki Master. If you would like, I could light a candle for you and do a healing meditation to send energy your way. I have been informed I am better long distance than I am in person. I'm not legally allowed to practice in the state of Arkansas without a massage therapist license so I don't do it as a career, but I do use it to help heal my friends and family.

As to replacing Colony, I don't think it needs replacing However, I do believe that a different challenge in this same style would work very well. Two alternatives that give everyone a chance to play regardless of personal style... Well that is the ideal isn't it. I think giving people a choice on which to move on to or to not move on at all would be great.

Seriously though, get some rest, take care of you first then worry about the challenges. We will be here when you get better, I promise!

Well... My family is falling apart... First the mom dies, then the dog, then the toddler, then the dad... Now it is only the teen and her child sister Sounds like GREAT days huh?

That's rough. I hope someone gets out alive.

Oh dear. I do seem to be having an easy run compared to some of you. Fingers crossed for you all!

I wouldn't 'replace' the colony challenge. I have played long and very rigid challenge rules in the past, and enjoyed them. I have written challenges, too. I have finished some long challenges and not others, and some people have enjoyed my own creations, but I think I got past wanting to play that way. The flexibility of the countdown suits me better at present. Thanks for sharing your creativity!

The other challenge style I follow lately is the Random Legacy, which gives some guidelines for the way each generation is played, but is not too rigid. It randomizes for each new generation, so you are encouraged to try aspects of the game you may not have sought out. If, as a result, you discover that you hate a particular aspect of the game, the next gen will be different anyway.

I'm trying to think of other directions for a follow-on from the countdown. Maybe an emphasis on the black market, or the depleted human population gradually being supplemented by supernaturals. Maybe a medical theme as scientists discover a cure or preventative. Maybe all of those!

I chose not to use mods for home schooling, partly to see how that worked. Possibly one could give the kids a false school record which would allow them to choose traits. Likewise, I chose not to let the sims have a pantry or icebox (fridge), in the spirit of experimentation. I think such an item would be pretty expensive from the trader, as well. My sims do have a good firepit, but real cooking would be nice to have again one day. I'm tempted to send them all out for a BBQ in the park so they can cook the hotdogs from their inventory. But other people might turn up!