Written by: IllusoryThrall
Updated: 5/6/22 to add Gen 5
Packs needed: Cottage Living & Seasons *
Packs Recommended: Laundry, Outdoor Retreat, City Living, Jungle Adventures, & Island Living **
Hashtag: #misery2mansions

This is my new project – a new original concept challenge designed to show off the Seasons and Cottage Living packs. There are other packs that are recommended, but they aren’t 100% required for play. (They will affect the difficulty if they’re missing, though.) See the rest of this page for the reasons the packs are recommended or needed. This is a difficult challenge where you start out with the bare minimum to survive, and eventually – through unlocking items each generation – end up living in a mansion on a huge farm. Unlocks are done through Errands completed, ribbons won, skills maxed, money earned, and even Aspirations completed.

Warning: this challenge is still under construction. As of this writing, only generations 1-5 are fully complete.

*Packs Needed are absolutely necessary. Without these two packs, this challenge is unplayable.

**Packs Recommended are ones you probably should have, but the challenge can, technically, be played without. Laundry is for realism and difficulty, Outdoor Retreat is for the plants and travel for the fourth generation, City Living is for several of the lot challenges, Jungle Adventures for the lot challenge Creepy Crawlies & the pee bush (you could also use Get Together’s bush), & Island Living, again, is for the lot challenge.

General Rules:

• Do not add lot traits to help you out until specifically told you’re allowed to
• NO Aging up sims early. You must wait until their birthday notice in the notifications of the game (this includes babies). (And until you have an oven and can actually cook, you won’t be making birthday cakes, so you’ll have to wait for them to age up on their own.)
• This challenge is NOT designed for play by the various occults you can be in Sims 4. If you think you can adapt it, feel free… but I would recommend against vampires… or Mermaids.
• No Jobs for anyone in the family until they’re unlocked (including odd jobs and part time). A spouse can do errands for townies for extra cash, but they DO NOT count towards your generation total.
• Do not use the Tiny Residential or the Haunted House Residential lot type
• No travel to other worlds until unlocked, once unlocked, you must remove at least 100 simoleons from your bank account every time you travel to another world for travel expenses (this is total for a round trip to the world and back home – and the actual amount differs based on where you’re traveling to).
• ALL TRAVEL ON VACATIONS MUST BE DONE WITH THE WHOLE FAMILY. (If you still have an infant, they must be aged up “early” to toddler so they can come with you.)
• No building on other lots in Henford-on-Bagley until told
• Do not build a pond or any other water feature on your property until unlocked
• Do not buy seed packets of any type until unlocked! All plants must be harvested from the wild.
• No cutting or grafting or splicing until unlocked
• No canning until unlocked
• Pay attention to what crops you are allowed to use each generation. If it’s not on the list (or on a previous generation’s list – once you’re allowed to plant that crop, you never lose the ability to use it), and you get one of this crop, PUT IT IN YOUR CHEST – you are not allowed to sell or use this for either planting or eating until it’s unlocked!
• Do not buy furniture until it’s unlocked
• Making money MUST be done by selling your crops to the stands in finchwick. Do not sell anything else you find until told you’re allowed to. If you find upgrade parts or other collectibles, store them in the chest.
• Do not add holidays to the calendar until told
• No visiting any of the world festivals up to and including the Finchwick Fair until unlocked
• No making friends with any wild animals until unlocked
• No pets allowed to start (until unlocked)
• Do not purchase farm animals or buy cooking ingredients until unlocked
• EVERY Sunday at 6 am (the seasons changeover) – roll the dice as listed with each generation and follow the instructions
• Cheats are strictly forbidden EXCEPT for build cheats like move objects, and opening up debug and live edit objects.
• Do NOT use any mods that make game play easier. Ones that make things harder, or allow game progression for the rest of the world (like MCCC) are up to your own discretion.
• Do NOT go making friends with townies (except the Creature Keeper), prospective partners, or start a family until Travel to Finchwick is unlocked
• ALL SALES of crops must be done to the vendors in Finchwick. Obviously, this means you must unlock traveling there before you can start selling. Things other than unlocked crops must be stored in family inventory or your chest (no selling them!) until such time as selling them is unlocked. I very highly suggest holding all unlocked and saleable crops in your inventory until each Saturday’s fair. If you can manage to haggle, you can sell for a much higher price! Remember – if a crop or item isn’t unlocked yet, you CANNOT SELL IT.
• Unlocks DO NOT have to be done in order!
• NO hired services until unlocked – this includes nannies and daycare for your children – they must not be left home alone!
• All unlockables must be paid for out of your budget. If you’ve unlocked it, but can’t afford it, you’ll have to wait until you make enough money to buy it.
• Terrain paint is always free and unlocked.
• Lighting may be bought at any time provided you can afford it – it does not need to be unlocked. Pay attention to whether it works off the grid, though, if you still have that lot challenge!
• If you can buy the items you need for errands from the Finchwick vendors, go ahead. However, those items cannot be resold, or used for cooking at home. If an errand needs items you cannot buy or make due to unlocks, drop that task until later.
• You are welcome to socialize at the beginning of the game, including with animals. Do not, however, start any romantic relationships or family until it’s unlocked, and do not build wild animal homes until they are unlocked.
• Errand numbers count for that generation alone. It is NOT cumulative, and errands MUST be done on your main sim, not their spouse or children. Any errands completed by them can not be counted!
• No Lottery Holiday. All other reward traits and potions are 100% allowed.
• Do not buy a Money Tree from the rewards store or from anywhere else until they are unlocked.
• Cowplants cannot be planted until unlocked.

Plants & travel that will not be unlocked:

• Travel to the Magic Realm is locked.
• Mandrake and Valerian are pretty un-necessary being that there are not SpellCasters in this challenge.. So I’ll leave them locked. 
• Travel to Forgotten Hollow is off-limits.
• Plasmafruit, Mosquito Traps, and Wolfsbane will remain locked, as there’s no real use for them in this challenge.
• The Bizarre Fruit and all travel to StrangerVille will stay locked. That’s a .. different.. sort of gardening.
• Travel to space or Sixam (the alien world) is off-limits.
• Being that aliens are not off-limits, but, travel to space or Sixam is, they would have memory of their plants. They can’t go back and get them, but perhaps a friend has brought some along and sold them in Finchwick. Therefore, these plants CAN be bought in Finchwick should you find them (after they are unlocked): UFO plant, Quill Fruit, Fang Flowers, and Glow Orbs.

Getting Started

1. Make a SINGLE sim – any gender (must be regular sim, not occult – Vampires, Mermaids, and Spellcasters are off-limits. Aliens, by virtue of being impossible to spot, or forcing abductions on you – are not disallowed. Space travel, however, will be locked.) – Traits and Aspirations are completely up to you for the entire challenge. However, remember that some aspirations may not be able to be completed until those skills or lots are unlocked.
2. Move your starter sim into the 64 by 64 lot in Henford-on-Bagley
3. Set your lot challenges to: Creepy Crawlies, Cursed, Filthy, Gremlins, Grody, Off the grid, Simple living, and Wild Foxes (Or as many of these as you have access to)
4. Bulldoze all lots in Henford-on-Bagley and evict residents (this will not affect plant spawns)
5. If you want, delete townies. The game will repopulate.
6. Make the “Pub” lot in Finchwick into a Park – or use the one I made for it: The Gnome’s Park
7. Make the Bramblewood park blank residential
8. (If you want to skip steps 9-13 you can use this lot: Camp Misery Starter)
9. Buy six plots of land for farming – you will not be allowed to plant anywhere else, or buy more until told.
10. Starting Furnishings: You are allowed one of each of these: tent, cheap grill, pee bush, mailbox, outdoor trash can, “Buyer Beware” treasure chest for storage, and the lump of clay.
11. Do NOT build any structures, fences, or anything else man-made.
12. Feel free to add trees and greenery to make it look more wild (I suggest debug items, because it won’t raise your bills.)
13. Once you’re done building, use money cheats to reduce your sim’s banked Simoleons to 0.
14. Delete ALL game-generated holidays (Love Day, Harvestfest, Winterfest, etc.)
15. Game Settings are as follows: Normal Lifespan, Seasons 7 days (all weather on), fame disabled, bust the dust disabled, all eco options disabled, Aging on (for all sims), fill homes off, Animal Aging on.
16. Read the General Rules below, and the first generation instructions.
17. Grab a six-sided die, as well as a pen and paper or sticky note to have on hand to keep track of your errands completed, and remember to save a backup of your starting setup – you know, just in case.
18. That’s it! You’re ready to play!

Notes on Changing Generations:

• Your heir must live on the 64 by 64 lot that you started on – the entire challenge is lived on this one lot. Which gives you a choice. Either you can deal with your parents living with your heir, and move out any siblings you have once they hit young adult.. Or you can choose to move your extended family to another lot. To this end, you can build them a house somewhere in either Bramblewood or Henford districts, and use manage worlds to move them out. Then use freerealestate for your extended family to move into their new home.

Generation Rules:

1. Camp Misery
2. Tiny Cabin in the Woods
3. Civilization Returns
4. Little House in the Countryside
5. Moo-vin’ on Up
6. Electric Woolies (under construction)
7. Upstairs Downstairs (under construction)
8. Passion for Patios (under construction)
9. Leisure Time (under construction)
10. Time to Retire (under construction)

Other Useful Tools & Links:

• Generation goal checklist (under construction)
• Plant list reference sheet
• Download the Camp Misery Starter
• Download The Gnome’s Park
• Download the Primitive Family Cabin (for moving your family out to the woods)
• Download the Finchwick Corner Pub
• Download the Volpe National Park