The challenge is inspired by both the famous Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, and KaduMcFadu80’s Mystery Mansion Challenge on the sims forums. Basically, your job is to build a mystery mansion of your own. I include some gameplay in the challenge, however, feel free to ignore most of the gameplay by using money cheats instead, and just build each day. It is important to play the day in between each build time, though, because it gives you time to think about what to do next.

Getting Started

Create a Young Adult female sim – you can name her whatever you like, I chose to name mine after Sarah Winchester. (If you want to use mine, it’s here: https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/BFFE67FCE90111EB84121188C4E77F67. She must have the “Erratic” and “Creative” traits, but the third trait is up to you. As for aspiration, Start with the Mansion Baron, and you are welcome to swap to any other aspiration you want at any time. Move her into any lot that’s 50 by 50 (or larger), then using money cheats, drop your funds to 0. That’s right, you’re starting from scratch. I leave it up to you to decide whether to start with a starter home intact and decorated, or from nothing. Nothing would obviously be tougher. I will put the house I started with on the gallery. (Optional: if you’re in this for the building, not the game play, feel free to use money cheats to give yourself unlimited funds.)

Full version starter home: https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/2CAA797EE9D411EB81CAADE44B91FD6A

BASE GAME starter home: https://www.ea.com/games/the-sims/the-sims-4/pc/gallery/8D1EAF3EEA8011EB88F01188C4E77F67

The starter home I provided follows what the original house would have looked like as close as I can figure. If you choose to build your own: Maximum rooms inside on the first day that you can build is 8 (because that’s how big her original house was.) There is also a base game version by me! Check the hashtag #winchestermysteryhouse to find them (edit: they’re linked above). Once this home is built, make sure you start game play with 0 Simoleans.

On Lot Traits: I suggest using the Spooky challenge (needs City Living), based on the actual reasons why the house was built in the first place.

The Paranormal: Feel free to make use of this pack and make the house a Haunted Home Residential, but be aware it WILL make the game play considerably harder!!

Game Options:
Autonomy: Full
Lifespan: Long
Aging: On (for both played and un-played sims)
Pack Settings: celebrity and seasons are fine, eco living footprint is fine, neighborhood voting should be OFF, and bust the dust should also be OFF
Weather: This is up to you, but I suggest either 14 or 28 day seasons. I used 14 day. Also, set it so that weather effects are all on and can affect sims.

Rules

• No Using any means of extending your life. (No Vampires, no Immortal Spellcasters, no Potion of Youth.
• Your matriarch can NEVER hold a job or run a business. Find another way to make money. Marry elderly sims and take their cash (a viable way to make money back then), paint, garden, write, whatever.
• If you marry in a sim, you can keep the cash, but you CANNOT play as the new spouse or any step children. Leave them on free will, and the only time you can control them is if they get stuck or need resetting. (Un-played sims can hold a job, but you don’t get to change the way they work – in other words, you can’t tell them to “work hard”). They also can’t be directed to gain skill points, so promotions probably won’t happen.
• If you choose to have children from your Matriarch’s bloodline, those kids can be controlled by you.
• Any child that gets to Young Adult must move out of the household immediately.
• I will leave the use of technology up to you. I chose to go off-the-grid, and pretend it’s the Victorian times, but if you want to make a modern house, feel free (I also don’t suggest it – it makes things REALLY tough)!
• MONEY CHEATS: this I will leave up to you. If you’re doing the challenge just to build the house, feel free to use them. If you’re doing it as a gameplay challenge too, do not use them at all.

How to Play

• Every Day except Sunday, build a full room onto the house. It must be roofed, decorated, painted, furnished, the works – in other words, it needs to be a COMPLETE room. But JUST ONE ROOM. It can be any shape or size, and doesn’t have to connect to the main house.
• Every Sunday, pick one room, keep the furniture in inventory if you want, and delete that room.
• If you cannot afford to build a room on any given day, you must SKIP that room, you don’t get to save up rooms for later. (Also, if it hits midnight and you forgot to build it – you lose that room.)
• The room deletion on Sunday is a MUST do – this cannot be skipped. This is done to help you make your build a bit more on the random side. When I’ve tried a challenge similar to this, I discovered it’s very hard to PLAN to make a random build!

Building Goals/How to Win

Your mystery mansion can be built in any style you want, using as many or as few packs as you want or have access to. You must have (at least):

• 13 hidden passageways
• 13 balconies
• 13 windows on interior walls (not facing the outside)
• 13 different sets of stairs
• 13 Dead ends – hallways that lead absolutely no where.
• 13 Skylights or glass roofs (your choice how and where to make them)
• 17 chimneys and fireplaces to go with them
• 13 bathrooms
• 6 kitchens
• One “Door to Nowhere” that exits an upper floor to .. open space outside.
• A Gazebo
• Accessible Attic space (can be counted as a room if you want)
• Basement – as big or as little as you want!
• At least 1 free-standing tower that’s 2-4 stories tall and only connected to the main house by an upper floor “catwalk”
• 1 Fountain
• 1 Altar for the Matriarch with a portrait of her hanging above it (should be painted by someone else – for this and this alone, you can control a non-controllable member of the household)

You will end up with a LOT of rooms. They don’t all have to be huge rooms, though. The real-life house has 160 rooms+!

You “WIN” the challenge by including all of the above building goals, and continuing to build onto the house until your Matriarch dies, at which point the challenge ends. If she dies before you get all of that finished, you lose! You cannot keep building with an heir (even though they are playable). The real life house was then turned into a museum- a haunted one, no less. (which would be fun to do in Sims, too.)

Feel free to upload your build to the hashtag #winchestermysteryhouse