Updated: 7/6/2023

Phase One | Main Rules | Phase Three

• Your top 8 sims have now been set “free” and have been given permission to move out of the Asylum to a nearby Halfway House. They must now work on a career and job-related skills to prove you can make it on their own.

Preparation:

• Build a Halfway house, or download one, or use the one I will build to prepare for Phase 2. All accessible items should be of mid-range quality and price. Not too cheap and not too expensive. The Sims have worked hard enough to get to this point in their lives, they deserve to have some more comfort. However, they are still living in close proximity, so privacy is not always a foregone conclusion.
  • Every bedroom must have the same things in it to start with. It wouldn’t be fair to give one sim a starting advantage over the others. Also, each bedroom should be locked to allow ONLY the sim who lives there access to it. The bedroom suite should include: a bed, mirror, dresser, access to a bathroom (can be shared with a maximum of one other person – and the access door must be locked for all other sims), a desk, a laundry hamper(if you have the laundry pack), and a personal journal. Anything else is at your discretion – but if it is in one bedroom, it must be included in all bedrooms. (IF you load back into the lot and someone got stuck in someone else’s bedroom, let them out and relock the door. Sims is buggy this way.)
  • As mentioned above, each bathroom can be shared by a maximum of two people. In other words, there must be at least four bathrooms in the house.
  • The Halfway house must include a communal kitchen, eating area, recreation area, computer room, and several skill areas with an absolute minimum of 6 different skill items. If you have the laundry pack, you must also include a laundry room. Vacuums are optional and discouraged, however, even if you have the pack. (In other words, turn off this pack unless you really want to torture the sims).
  • I suggest keeping the Celebrity system turned off.
  • When adding items to the halfway house from a redeem (other than personal items included in the above bedroom suite list), they must be added in a communal area so that all the sims may share the item, or added to every sim’s inventory or bedroom.
• Clean out the Sims’ inventories. All the projects (and any other items) from the previous Phase must be gotten rid of PRIOR to starting the second Phase. In other words, these projects CANNOT be used to give any of the sims an advantage in Phase Two. (DO NOT clean out things like Knitting bags if you provided them, all sims should be allowed to keep those.)
• Remove Fears: Starting with fears would make this just unfair.
• Refill all sims’ needs: This makes the starting playing field fair.
• University: For the purposes of this challenge, do not have any sims go to University (and no Academic Aspiration).
• Lastly: Go through each sim and spend any satisfaction points they have earned or won from the last phase, then let them use however many skill points they have coming to them (note: I would cater their traits bought and skills spent towards their coming career). Decide what their first aspiration is (-if the aspiration they start with is forbidden for this phase – otherwise, their first aspiration is already chosen for them), what career they will be focusing on. You may want to involve your chat in this process through votes, dice rolls, and/or suggestions. Feel free to also roll for which skills each sim will work on if you’d like (see “goals” below to figure out how many each sim needs). I highly suggest writing all of this down on paper and placing it somewhere you won’t lose it so you don’t forget what was picked for each sim. 8 Sims is a lot to remember all these details for. Once all this is decided, give each sim their chosen career. Exceptions: The Renaissance Sim aspiration will require you to pick two careers to spend some time in before they start their main career. The Master Maker aspiration requires you to max out the Freelance Fabricator career – but this cannot be your main career, as it doesn’t have 6 levels to be gotten to.. So I would give them this career until that aspiration is done, then they can move on to their main career.

Goals:

• Each sim must do three things: 
  • Level up some skills to at least 4 out of 5 or 8 out of 10.
  • Get hired at your chosen career and get to at least level 6.
• For Easy: 6 skills per sim.
• For Medium: 8 skills per sim.
• For Hard: 10 skills per sim.
• Again, more than one sim can “pass” this phase. Once someone has been set loose, save them as-is to your library, and/or the gallery, and remove them from the Halfway House family to come back in the next Phase.
• At least one sim must survive to be “set loose”.
• This phase ends when:
  • All sims have either died or 4 sims have been “set loose”. Any sims who remain in the asylum after those 4 have been moved to the next phase, are eliminated from the challenge.
  • *If you started this phase with less than 8 sims, halve that number to find out how many sims are moved to phase three.

Rules:

• Controlling Sims: start with the top placed sim, and work your way down the list. Control each for 12 hours. The only way the order changes is if someone redeems multiple personalities. In which case, that sim is place next in the order (keep a list somewhere).
• The bathroom – There must always be at least two full bathrooms, redeems cannot take away this basic necessity.
• The Kitchen – There must always be at least one fridge, one oven/stove, and a single clear counter.
• Beds – There must always be at least as many beds as there are sims in the house. Your sims did their time, they deserve to be comfortable.
• Seats – No limits, but no LESS than 8.
• Alarms and Cameras – There must be at least one smoke alarm in the building, as well as a fire extinguisher box. If you include security cameras, they may not be in the sims’ rooms.
• Skill-building objects – There must always be at least 5 of these.
• Babies – should any sim have a baby for any reason during this phase, it must be sent to live with it’s other parent or sent back to Sixam (in the case of an alien abduction). Babies and children are not allowed in the Halfway house except for visits.
• Death – Should a Sim die, one bed must be taken away down to the minimum allowed. The graveyard and the tomb or urn does NOT have to be kept on lot for this phase. However, having a graveyard somewhere in the world where they’re placed would be a good idea. Obviously, dying also eliminates that sim from the challenge.
• Careers – All careers allowed except the active ones – Detective, Scientist, Doctor, Actor, Interior Decorator, and Paranormal Investigator – and the Freelance or Part-time careers. If your sim wants to do any of those careers, they have to wait until they’re out of the Halfway House. (Exception: if a sim has chosen the “Master Maker” aspiration, Freelance Maker is allowed until their aspiration is fulfilled.)
• Curfew – Except for career-related absences (or university), you may only leave the building from 8 AM – 11 PM. Breaking curfew brings punishment – see the next point.
• Punishment – Should a sim stay out past curfew without being excused (even if it’s just because you forgot), or get demoted in their career, punishment is demanded. This means that particular sim is restricted to the halfway house except for career related tasks for the next 7 days.
• Getting Fired – If a sim gets fired from a job, they skip punishment and they are immediately sent straight back to the asylum. In the case of a layoff (thanks to the Growing Together expansion), the sim is not eliminated, they can get a new job and continue. (This removes them from the challenge unless someone specifically gives them a second chance.)
• Visitors – You are now allowed to meet people outside of the Halfway House “family”. However, visiting with new friends and/or partners is only allowed during daytime hours (see Curfew). Romantic liaisons cannot be in the halfway houses’ bedrooms (since those are locked!) – so get creative!
• Service Sims – All allowed, and meals can be ordered in.
• University – IS NOT allowed. Testing proved this made the whole phase way too difficult, because un-played sims will not pass University on their own.
• Moving Sims out – Once a sim has gotten their goals completed, they must be removed from the family. I suggest using MCCC on them – go to sim commands -> maintain sim -> move .. and move them into a new household. Then set them as a “played” household, edit, and save them so you have a copy, and leave them on their own. (Make sure your MCCC is set to bypass all played sims on the checks it runs!)

Redeems for This Phase:

• Donation! – Add a necessary or activity item to the halfway house (if there are different qualities of item available, choose a mid-range one) (100 points)
• Queue up an action – tell a non-controlled sim to queue up an action, kicking any other sim off the item of choice. The sim still can stop working whenever they want, but at least they have a chance of finishing it! (150 points)
• Therapy – Max the needs of any chosen sim in the house. (200 points)
• Upgrade! – Pick an item already in the halfway house, and allow it to be sold and replaced with a better item of the same type. (The item must be able to be upgraded!) (250 points)
• Taste of Freedom – Pick a sim to take a vacation day and go out (while being controlled!) to viewer’s choice of type of lot. May pick someone who isn’t in the Halfway House to go with them! Must be back in by Curfew! (350 points)
• Multiple Personalities – Queue viewer’s choice of sim into the next controlled sim spot. Will put that sim on the “to be controlled” list. (All sims get a minimum of 12 hours under control) (400 points)
• You Broke It! – Remove an allowed item from the halfway house. Redeemer must enter which item to remove. (Cannot remove personally owned inventory items!) (600 points)
• Danger! – add a dangerous item to the halfway house. The item added must be something that is known to be able to cause sim-death. (666 points)
• Reward! – Choose a sim, and a reward store item or trait, they are given the amount of redeem points to get and use said reward. As you are the one in charge, you may choose to allow only traits to be bought in this way, in effect banning reward potions from use during this phase. (DOES NOT ALLOW SIM CONTROL BEYOND THE PURCHASE AND OR USE.) Also: DO NOT use any points they have earned themselves, this is a gift item! (2000 points)
• Resurrection! – A deceased sim is brought back into the household to get another try. (Add their ghost to the household, then use MCCC to Sim Commands -> Maintain Sim -> Revive) This can also used to bring a sim who was sent back to the Asylum back into the Halfway House household. (3000 points)
• Change or Add Lot Trait – Add a lot trait to the current lot. If all three traits are taken, you must choose which trait to replace. This can also be used to add or remove a Lot Challenge. (4000 points)
• Group Therapy! – Raise needs of everyone in the household. (Use the mailbox to fix the needs of every sim in the household.) Only usable once every 5 minutes. (5000 points)
• YOINK! – Redeemer’s choice of sim gets to steal 2 skill points from another sim in the house OR remove a rewarded trait from another sim. Must specify sims involved and skill or trait. (Cannot reduce past 1) (6000 points)

Ending this Phase:

• First place – 10000 satisfaction points to spend wherever you choose, and 25000 extra simoleons to make their lives easier. This sim also is the first controlled sim.
• Second place – 8000 satisfaction points to spend wherever you choose, and 19000 extra simoleons to make their lives easier.
• Third place – 6000 satisfaction points to spend wherever you choose, and 14000 extra simoleons to make their lives easier.
• Fourth place – 5000 satisfaction points to spend wherever you choose, and 10000 extra simoleons to make their lives easier.
• Fifth place or lower – Elimination.
• *Remember, if you started this phase with less than 8 sims, halve that number to find out how many sims are moved to phase three.
• Any sims who are dead when the phase ends – stay dead. They can no longer be brought back once the phase ends.

Phase One | Main Rules | Phase Three