So I've finally buckled up and encouraged myself to publish this neighbourhood I had sitting on a shelf!

SULLEN HOLLOW

EDIT: Now there's a version 0.2! I've cleaned all the lots and added details, and updated the cleaned version. The changelog is at the end of this post.



Sullen Hollow is a little and old northern village, nested between the mountains and the Deep Lake. Don't let its quaintness fool you, though; this is quite an interesting place!



The nhood comes with a total of 87 character files: 15 moved-in playables, 6 sims in the family bin, 2 townies (the Katsaris siblings), and 1 NPC: Jake Wheeler, the newspaper boy (who's also involved in the plot), as you can see. The remaining 63 sims are ancestors, of which every playable has and should all be complete and safely resurrectable. Some of them also have personal bios. There should be no more NPCs or/and Townies.

There are 26 lots in the nhood: 4 commercial, 6 occupied, 15* (I missed one) unoccupied and 1 vacant ─plus the special hobby and magic lots.



The neighbourhood (version 0.2), wheighs now 87'9 MB (seems like photos take up a lot of space!), and you need all Expansion Packs up to and including Mansion & Garden stuff pack ─or the Complete Collection. I tried, however, to keep a base game ambiance, so you shouldn't worry about Stuff Packs. All sims and lots should be completely clean and have been minimally played. The ID of the nhood is SLHW.

I consider this 'hood "mostly finished"; I've playtested a little and it works pretty well on my game (only the Casato lot bugged out, for some reason); however, feel free to suggest ANYTHING, from technical aspects to storyline ones ─firstly, I need a better way to take photos, as you see!! This is my very first upload, so I'm testing the waters!!! If people get interested and is up to the standards, I would glady send it for download on the main site

As you can see if you peeked on the story, this all sounds familiar; let me know what you think of my idea. And just... enjoy it, if you find enjoyable!!

You can download the nhood and the terrain from Drive on the following links:

Nhood download (v. 0.2)

Terrain download

For the nhood, simply plop the folder on your EA Games/TheSims 2/Neighbourhoods folder of My Documents. For the terrain, put all the contents of my folder on SC4Terrains.

New: It is recommended, but not in any way enforced, to download Alex's "No More Sims Memories Clear" in order for the Townies and NPC to keep their memories.

Thanks!!!

It looks very nice, I'm downloading it ^^

Edit:The landscaping and houses look amazing and I love the Golden and Killjoy family. I really like the bottom part of the map, maybe I would add a special lot in that area or some beach. But overall it looks amazing and I haven't even played it.

Maybe I would work on some good photos for each family album.

Oooh thanks a lot @Sokisims!! In my playthrough, tha Killjoys are the family I had the most fun with❤️ they're such a mess!!

Thanks for your feedback, I really was insecure about the houses. I would really want to make complete family albums taking photos on a backup version of the nhood, but I'm not sure about how to accomplish that.

I was thinking of making more lots on the, well, sullen area of the map. I also want to elaborate more the story, but just a little bit in order to make it ambigous.

Again, thanks a lot!!

when the story is finished, if you need a hand to translate it in Italian for foreign players like me to play it, I am willing to help you!

In my opinion, the best thing is to take screenshots with a program or windows and then take random photos in the game and with a photo edition program copy each screenshot into each snapshot and thumbnail file. This way you can choose each photo better. The quality is also better.

Thanks for all your feedback!!

@sokisims, I experimented and what you said helped a lot!!! Btw, I'm really honored by you taking an interest on my nhood given the quality of the ones you've made here!!

@DinaMarBoobs, thanks for your help! I'm actually Spanish, so I can give you the text in the languaje you're more comfortable with for translation and make different versions of Sullen Hollow!!

I spent some time yesterday thinking about the story and I have it all clear now. I may write a couple of lines on the texts I already have, but I intend to tell it all through the photo albums, with higher quality screenshots. If I learn how to use it, I may also make some custom scripted events (flavor text) for each family.

As of now, I've updated the first post with photos of each built lot and more information on each family of the nhood. Thanks again for your interest!

I entered this lot and had super dug hug, you should download the mod to avoid it and enter each lot to eliminate it just in case. My game already removed it.

edit: all lots have it

Awww how embarassing. My game is sadly very bloated from years of downloads (and some older ones, I believe).

I'll use Chris Hatch's Lot Cleaner and upload a clean version. I'm working on a better version of the nhood anyways.

Thanks a lot, @Sokisims! By the way, which mod do you use in order to know if a lot is infected?

SuperDuperHugTest If I'm not mistaken, this mod detects it and eliminates it once you enter each lot.

By the way, @ed95 the above SuperDuperHugTest can be found on post #3 of this thread.

Also, I wanted to say that this a nice neighborhood. Once you get rid of the bad things like Super Duper hug, I've no problem testing it for you. I may even help with the stories a little bit and maybe even make you a custom theme song. Because I do honestly like what I see. From the pictures, there's a very nice charm to this neighborhood I can tell, and it'd be a shame if it wasn't expanded upon. Keep at it! :D

Aww thanks a lot for your help, @Sokisims and @HarVee!! I've also been keeping tabs on your nhood, HarVee, and I want to test it and Sokisim's as soon as I find the time. I really love the story of Bustin' Out, too!

I heard your theme song too! Lemme say, it's very good!! I love all the detail you're putting on your creations!

Sokisims neighborhood(s) are great, and they're mostly complete and ready to play. For mine, I'd wait until I get Beta 2 out later this week. There's a lot of changes and improvements/fixes coming with beta 2, as well as a drastically reduced CC requirements (over 1.5GB gone).

Hi again!!

As said on the first post, I've cleaned every lot of the awful Super Duper Hug and made improvements to the Photo Albums. The nhood should be now completely clean and safe, plus a bit more profound too!!

Next step is learning how to make custom story prompts to add flavour to the nhood. If I come around that, I'll upload it here and start looking for publishing it on the main page, given the great reception from you. I'm also itching to hear you impressions or suggestions, @HarVee!!

This is really great to know, I do look forward to giving this a try! I'll give it a download later today and get back to you with my impressions and suggestions within the upcoming week.

Whenever you can!!! Thanks!!!