Create 1 male adult and 2 young adult sims, 1 male and one female. The Adult MUST have the insane trait. This is the madman. He must have a long beard, but every other aspect of his appearance is your choice. He is the ONLY sim to get a job. The two other sims must be THIN to the smallest they can go, but any other part of their appearance is up to you.

Build a house with a small, ordinary looking house on the top and a basement below. Fill the top house with fairly cheap-ish furniture, but fill the basement with the cheapest furniture you can and ONLY get the bare essentials. The stairs to the basement must be in a hidden back room of the house.
The 2 other sims are NOT allowed to leave the basement no matter what. The object of the game is to survive until the madman dies. Once the madman dies, either of old age or of any other cause, your sims can finally leave the basement and either take control of the house or move out.
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Rules that must NEVER be broken:
*Never play as the madman no matter what except for getting him a job and shooing away NPCs and Townies.
*If you have children, they are only allowed to go to school, no where else.
*Sims are not allowed to have jobs, only the madman can.
*NPCs and Townies are NOT allowed into the basement or to even go into the back room.
*Basement sims are not allowed a computer or tv.
*Basement sims must never leave except for the children going to school.
*Madman has to die on his OWN. You cannot kill him.

If rules are broken, the game ends immediately.

I like it And I just started it. One question, can I use the madman to pay the bills? i just had the repo man come...

What age span should we use? Default?

And any restrictions on the type of job?

I forgot about that. Yeah, you use him on very necessary things.

Default and he can have any job you want him to have.

Sounds really cool. Might try it soon.

I like this. I may try it some day. I'd also love to read anyone's blog if they're doing this challenge and blogging about it.

I might try this right now, maybe I'll even blog about it .-.

I thought of a privilege the prisoners could get:

The madman buys one of each fruit/vegetable and gives them to the prisoners. The prisoners must grow produce in an underground/fenced in garden. Every time 1,000 simoleons are added from sale of produce, the prisoners get 12 hours to go out on the town.

If they can make best friends with another sim in those 12 hours, they tell them their situation and are believed, and they get out.

They shouldn't be allowed to learn the charisma skill to make this harder.

Just a suggestion! I will be playtesting soon, and I will edit this accordingly.

Edit: My madman died of hunger before I could do any of this... but I did have my prisoners living off of lettuce and apples.

I am going to do something similar to this challenge, and you can read my blog about it here:
http://plumcrystalyn.blogspot.com/

I can't wait to try this challenge. :D