finished building my cheap apartment~
it looks really expensive but the rent's only 500-700 woot woot
now all i gotta do is play test :3

In my opinion 2 points deducted for the mailbox/trashcan is too much.

I still don't agree that my bathrooms have too much space. There is enough space for a Sim to move about freely but by no stretch of the imagination are they too big. I had to use wide angle to get the room in.

avoid putting anything on the tile next to the faucet side of a bathtub. doing si will block sims from using it.

I haven't?

I posted a question about the price of the Nocturnal Rumours half wall in the stupid questions thread, but since everyone here is trying to build cheaply right now I thought I should mention it here, too. For some reason, in my game one of these walls (the colour is "whisper") is only costing $1/tile, while the other 3 colours cost $80. I noticed the discrepancy today when trying to find a cheap wall or fence, and I don't know if it's a problem with my game or something common to others. I'm doing my building in a minimal cc setup, with only the essential mods, cc stairs, and cc windows and I'm not aware of having anything that changes the prices of walls even in my full cc set-up. If it's a common pricing error made by EA, everyone should know that there is an inexpensive wall option, and if it's something with my setup, I'd like to know so that I can avoid taking advantage of a problem with my setup.

Hmm, interesting. It's the same in my game. Thanks for the heads up, although I've now finished my build.

Haha, so you found it, huh? I use that wall in quite a few of my Frugal Lane and Tightwad Street homes, because it is so cheap. I found a few walls like that too if anyone wants to know what they are, although I'm sure you guys do already. So there is nothing wrong with your setup. I build in a game with very few mods and no CC - that wall is a Maxis glitch, enjoy it!

*squints*
curse these weak eyes! I thought your toilet was next to it sorry

@Karen Lorraine , I have messaged gummi about raising your playability to 4. Also @Magnolia , I have forgotten how those stairs work (teleport thingy) , and clearly I was wrong, so you will get small raise also.

Sorry it took so long to reply, I was not at my computer and my phone refuses to log me in here. Now only short visit and then won't be back until late tomorrow.

I hope you (generally) understand I am new at judging, and only way to learn it right, is to make it wrong first (or I am just too stubborn to learn fast )

while playtesting I noticed that my sims refuse to use their in-unit microwave and insisted on trecking 2 floors from their apartment to the communal kitchen FOR THE SAME MICROWAVE

thus i removed their kitchenettes and found the playables and townies using the communal spaces like i intended them to uvu

Thank you Ellu, much appreciated Judging is very hard.

So guttered, wish I'd realised this was on, feeling like a good contest!

You can always play along. We didn't get very far yet.

Please join as a playalong! I would love to see what you make.

You guys have inspired me to open my game for the first time in months from seeing everything presented here. :lovestruc
Now if I can just get past those "haven't uploaded in a while jitters".

another quirk I found in playtesting

there are no breakfast / lunch / dinner options for refrigerators and stoves in communal kitchens but only make single or group plates (kinda ok if I dont want time-specific meals)
if they have a dining table and chair in their apartment unit, they will eat there instead of the communal dining hall which sucks since my communal dining room is now a ghost town.

Hey kanzen, if you put a mini fridge in the sims' unit, does that unlock regular actions on the communal fridge? It did for me.

yes it did =) but it would make them use the communal kitchen instead of their own kitchenettes and then go back to their units to eat. thus making the dining hall empty as ever
sims...such weird creatures =))

I have yet to test what happens if they have a mini fridge but no dining tables and chairs in the unit
edit: they still insist on eating in their units even if they have to do it on the sofa.

Thank you! Yes, the backyards use invisible fencing so they are indeed private. I didn't realize about the pool table! I only had one of my sims test it out and I see later that multiple sims need more space, whoops!



The apartments do all have phones, but I'll try to make sure to put them where they can be seen on the screenshots better. All but one are wall phones, I believe, so the overhead view hid them I guess. I didn't realize I used any restricted CC, unless Store items count as CC. I wasn't sure about that so I just left them in. And that's a good idea about plants in the front of the apartments! Thanks so much!



Whoops, I -did- forget trash cans in those two units! I must have moved something around and forgot to put them back Thanks for the advice about the roof and the screenshots! I definitely have a plan about improving the pictures this time, but we'll see how it goes.



I'm so sorry! I thought 5x3 was smaller than 4x4, whoops. I'll watch out for the space on future builds. Thanks!

Also I've definitely been avoiding actually replying to the scores because I was a little embarrassed, whoops.

Cat, I always wondered why you disliked orange so much, and for me it was the same (parents dressing me in it). Being the first baby girl to my parents, I got absolutely smothered in pink. Pink EVERYTHING. For years into my pre-teens I had so many pink things to wear and play with it... it was bad.

I'm an only, of an only... I don't know why I didn't get the pink smother. I guess it was because my Mom liked orange, she was a red-head (dyed) at the time (mid 60's) - she even wore orange lipstick. I remember being horrified LOL!
Anywho... I love pink - especially raspberry! Yes, I even had a raspberry beret - back in 'the' day - though I always wore it with everything on

Sims are strange, indeed they are - and people are funny!

I have already posted this in the Strangetown contest, but I guess it is best to also post it here.
I'm at the hospital and I'll probably be here for at least a week, so building for either contest is on hold. So is having a closer look at my scores and comments, I'll try to take a better look at those (and post my thoughts) when I'm back home and feeling well.

EDIT: I only have 2 out of 6ish units (haven't decided on the total number yet) decorated, but they're quite cheap, around 800 simoleons of rent and actually feature somewhat nice furniture. I thought it would be harder to get things under the budget. When I leave the hospital I will post my findings (they are on my desktop) regarding rent and apartment space (I hope I leave on time to still be of use to others!)

Don't worry about the contests. Your health is way more important. Take care, and see you back here soon.

Edit: Three days left and no-one's put up an entry yet. I was waiting because I didn't want to be the first again... :P

Three days? I've started taking pictures but I'm still playing with camera mods...We'll have an explosion within the next 72 hours, though, you'll see.

I'm sorry everyone. I have house guests this weekend and they turned out to be a lot more nocturnal than I expected, no "free" time at all. They leave in the afternoon tomorrow so will get up to date on score questions then, and fix the scores judges want edited.