I have all four of the Sims games, and I play different ones depending on which mood I'm in. I used to mostly switch back and forth between TS2 and TS4 (I love TS3, but it takes SO long to load!), but shortly after the pandemic started, I had a hankering to play The Sims 1 and reinstalled it.

Oh, my! No sim ever dies in TS1 unless you take terrible care of them (or deliberately kill them, which I never do). They never grow old. During the times when three thousand people A DAY were dying in my country, I found it soothing to play a sims game where I never had to worry about a sim dying or even worry about their running out of time to finish this or that goal before aging up.

Now that the pandemic has reminded me of how much I loved The Sims 1, I think I'll be playing it as much as I play 2 and 4. I've even started learning to make my own mods for the game, which seems silly for a 20-year-old game, but there it is. :-)

I had thought I might be the only one still playing TS1, and I was thrilled to find this section of ModTheSims and see that other people play it, too.

Anyone else finding The Sims 1 especially compelling or especially heartening during this pandemic?

And should I share the mods I'm making, or is there really not much interest in new mods for such an old game? (ModTheSims doesn't have a Sims 1 section, but I have a website of my own that I got to share my mods for The Witcher, so I do have a place where I could put them.)

Oh yes, Sims 1 was the first one I installed when I updated my computer! Sims 2 next closely followed by Sims 3, and I only installed Sims 4 to see if I liked it any better now than when it came out (I didn't ). Sims 1 is very whimsical, it has a quaint charm and dark humour that the other games can only aspire to. I love baking, making magic gnomes and having the genie set things on fire! Once I turned one of my sims into a toad and the pet dragon ate it.

Yes! I think the charm of the game was definitely the highest with TS1. I love the way the sims whistle while they work and the way they say, "Whew" when they pay bills. A lot of the simmlish vocalizations seem way better to me in TS1.

I was surprised to find that a lot of the animations are way better in TS1 than in TS4, which I find totally bizarre. When my TS1 sims plant and harvest vegetables, they look like they're PLANTING and HARVESTING. But in TS4, they harvest the whole plant with a single grab, which doesn't even really look like anything. Wait, so we've had twenty years of progress in computer hardware and software, but the TS1 animations were better?!

Unless you have hacked objects -- which I have a lot of, I confess, and I've made more -- TS1 is a lot harder than subsequent games. You actually have to know what you're doing and plan your time to keep your sims happy in TS1, whereas the other games are way easier. It feels as if the newer games have been dumbed down in a way, and I guess that does make it easier for new players to get into the game. But there's nothing like the Eight-Sim Challenge (with no hacked objects) in the other games. :-)

I do like the ability to freely rotate the camera and to zoom in and out that the subsequent games gave us, and I like TS3's ability to apply any color or pattern to any wall, object, or clothing. I think maybe usability (except for those loading times!) was highest in TS3, and charm was highest in TS1, which may mean that the sweet spot is TS2. :-)

I'm happy to talk about how wonderful the first sims game is, but I was really thinking about ageless and undying sims and the emotional force of that during the pandemic. It's also true that my parents are 87 and 88 years old, so I guess it's not just the pandemic for me personally that has me so glad of a Sims game where mortality is optional. :-)

Yes! Sims 1 is helping me stay sane during this time. I love the Makin Magic expansion the most. The magic town lots are so detailed, and I love the way townie sims react to Bonehilda. I wish I had an enchanted skeleton to clean my house.

I think I'd find an enchanted skeleton a bit too creepy in real life; I'd rather have Servo clean my house. Though I do have a Goth friend who would probably make messes on purpose, just so she could have a skeleton walking around her house. :-)

TBH, I haven't tried it (though this post makes me hopeful technical issues on a modern machine will be minimal), but I miss it. I love, LOVE the look of TS1 objects. They're just so colorful and detailed.

I really like the Simlish voice actress for TS1; her vocalizations sound so much cuter and more involving to me than those in the later games.

I have the game working on Windows 8.1 Pro. I don't have Windows 10, but there are several places that have advice about how to get your game to work on it; here's one that looks helpful:

https://simsvip.com/2018/02/09/play...widescreen-fix/

Pandemic or not, for some reason this is the only game I feel like playing anymore. I would Love if a new Sims 1 was created! Something Very close to sims 1, but for modern computers.

I've just got this going again, and despite being able to remember so little (apart from the music), I feel very much at home. I wonder if my sims play style was set in sims 1 and I never really adapted properly to the rest of the franchise.

I love the Sims 1 music, especially the Build Mode music! I don't enjoy listening to the Buy Mode music, but I think it's perfect and has the right cheesy sales pitch note.




That's a really interesting thought! If you ever did anything in subsequent games that prepared your children to grow up and become adults, I'd say you adapted at least a little bit. :-)

Yes to build mode music!!

Re: children, children not growing up in sims 1, I didn't even remember that!
In subsequent games , ts2,3&4 I have tended to play lots rotationally, and where possible set lifespans to the longest possible setting.
I tend to focus on adults and their dramas, and not really play children (or babies). As soon as a baby is born I lose interest and either miss that family out, or start a completely fresh game.

I'm really surprised at the discoveries I've made re-opening this game, especially as my conscious memories of it are so sketchy.

Glad to know people still enjoys this gem. I am afraid of installing it just because I don't want to see it crashing after the load as I got when I tried to play it with Windows vista even in compatibility mod.

What operating system are you using nowadays? I have it running fine on Windows 8.1, and other people have reported getting it to run in Windows 10: Play TS1 with Windows 10 and How to play TS1 in Windows 10.

I'm using windows 10, it took me a day of fiddling about to get it going. It runs really well apart from the studio town street plan which still works, but is missing some graphics.

To fix graphical glitches, you can use dgVoodoo 2, follow the guide below (its pretty easy)

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/T...phical_glitches

Currently reinstalling the first game. I have both 2 and 3, but there's just something about the struggle for everyday survival in Sims 1 that pulls me back. And also because I played it when I was a kid.

I'm agreeing with everything except the 'playing it as a kid' bit, my kids played it as kids though

(Quote by kkffoo) "I've just got this going again, and despite being able to remember so little (apart from the music), I feel very much at home. I wonder if my sims play style was set in sims 1 and I never really adapted properly to the rest of the franchise." (end quote)

I think you hit the nail on the head. I love sims 1 and 2, but I just can't seem to play sims 4 no matter how much I tell myself I want to. It always ends up feeling like WAY too much trouble to achieve my (simple?) "play style" .And I don't want to Have to install a major mod that needs updating every single time I buy an EP or whatever, there's an update etc etc. I shouldn't be forced to mod a game to be able to stand to play it. (sorry I can't figure out how to "quote" properly! The option just doesn't seem to be available)

Windows 10 64 bits

Well, take a look at the links I gave you, then. Other people are getting TS1 to work in Windows 10, so I'm sure you can, too.

I have mine running fine under Win 10; all I needed to get it to play was the noCD. I use DxWnd to put it into fullscreen letterboxed, so that it doesn't get stretched on the widescreen monitor.

You can use a hex editor to play it in widescreen using this guide : https://www.wsgf.org/dr/sims (this uses the 1024x768 shotcut to start the game)

To make it easier : the hex value for 1920x1080 is


I'm playing it in 1920x1080 using the above method.

Next i've made the ui files compatible with 1920x1080, you can download them here
Extract these folders to the The Sims\UIGraphics folder.

After that i've used dgVoodoo 2 (which i linked to a few post above this one) to fix minor graphical glitches.

Hope this helps

Thanks @PanCakezzz I already tried that, but it makes the neighbourhood screen distorted as the aspect ratio is wrong. DXWnd allows me to letterbox it in the horizontal aspect, so maintaining the picture in windowed fullscreen.

With the ui files, the neighbourhood view is centered as 800x600 with a big black border around it.

*simsample gets magnifying glass out* That's no good for me, I need bigger things to click on!
This is what I get using DXWnd, my screen resolution is 1440x900:




It's the most satisfactory solution I found to get this result on my hardware; I daresay others will have different preferences and different solutions for their own hardware.