The Sims FreePlay Walkthrough and Guide

Welcome!

You are reading the most comprehensive guide to the mobile app The Sims FreePlay that is available online (a fact that was true at the time of writing and with the recent update continues to be true!), representing well over 200 hours of Game Play and counting, and encompassing the careful analysis and application of its variety of game play options, providing a comprehensive guide to play that continues to grow in both depth and quality as the game expands and a deeper understanding of its nuances through play is obtained.

While this guide started out as a brief Overview based upon the first hundred hours of play -- a process that underscores the significant differences between The Sims: FreePlay and all of the other games that are part of The Sims empire due to its reliance on a real-time-clock and the inability of players to "speed-up" time, an option that is available in all of the other series and versions of The Sims but is not available in this version -- gamers can consider the information and guidance contained herein to be both hard-won and worthwhile!

As befits the rather simplistic nature of the game, despite the fact that this guide is packed with information that you will find useful as you embark upon building the simulated lives that are under your control in this sandbox-style God game, it will also provide you with the special insight that is absolutely necessary due to the nature of this game -- and in so doing presents (and encourages) the sort of well-founded guidance towards developing patience and self-discipline that is required to progress in the game without spending real-world money in the process.

That alone makes this an invaluable source of information for most players, but especially those who desire the pleasure of progress within the game world without having to pay for it...

Before you jump right in, I strongly urge you to read this entire guide, from start to finish, because there are pitfalls in this game as well as Tips and Tricks that will make your life in it ever so much easier (and cheaper) if you know about them.

The Slow Process of Adding Details and the facts behind "TBA"

Due to the lengthy nature of the play process, which is very time-intensive and time-relative, you will Notice that there are some bits of the game that are marked with the tag "TBA" -- this stands for "To Be Added" and represents information that, at publication time, was simply not available due to the fact that we have not yet arrived at the point in which we have completed the related action, Activities, or builds that will provide that information.

We ask that you bear with us with respect to patience for that information to be provided; at no point in the play process as we researched and prepared this guide did we choose the expedient option of purchasing either Simoleons (money) or Life Points, because this is a guide that is intended to provide you, the gamer, with the information and strategies that you need to do precisely the same thing: play the game and not spend real-world money!

A Long and Arduous Journey

We have been playing The Sims series since it first was published (the team behind the Game Play that has gone into creating this guide is just that, a team effort involving the author and his family who have worked together to share the play schedule in order to complete the processes efficiently), and we started playing Little Computer People back in the bad old days when our PC was made by Atari -- and then moved on to Sim City until, finally, The Sims appeared and it got more interesting. With all that in mind we thought that we should begin with a brief look at the history of simulated people gaming...

The Sims is an incredibly successful game franchise that was created by game designer Will Wright, whose previous ventures into the world of computer simulation gaming includes the also very popular Sim City series -- but it was The Sims that caught the imagination of gamers and that has logged an incalculable number of game hours over the past 14 years, running through three series versions (The Sims 3 is currently the most recent revision), with each new version adding to the reality presented to gamers.

Each new version of the series adds something new to the world of The Sims -- the first series began with the base game, The Sims, and then added the Expansion Packs The Sims: Livin' Large, The Sims: House Party, The Sims: Hot Date, The Sims: Vacation, The Sims: Unleashed, The Sims: Superstar, The Sims: Makin' Magic creating an epic Game Play experience that most gamers thought would be a challenge to top.

The release of The Sims 2 was met with frank and open confusion -- players who already owned the full set of the original series wondered why they would want to pay for what amounted to a new base game that supported none of the expansions previously purchased -- it was like stepping backwards in the series... But the pre-release videos and PR information made it clear why they would want to make the change to The Sims 2 -- as some of the expanded content from the first series was now part of the new series and, perhaps more important, the graphical environment and the experience of playing your Sims was exponentially better.

The Sims 2 Expanded the Graphical Capability

Among the significant differences was the fact that the Sims were now rendered in 3D, and supported fully customizable facial features, widely expanded animations, and now had a well-defined life-span that factored into Game Play with great significance. Collections were added to the game and other small and seemingly disconnected elements that together changed the game experience for most players. Careers were expanded and more interesting, and the building system of the game was also widely expanded. Gamer participation in creating Objects was a feature and it worked well!

Following the release of The Sims 2 base game the anticipated Expansion Packs released at a regular pace, adding The Sims 2 University, The Sims 2 Nightlife, The Sims 2 Open for Business, The Sims 2 Pets, The Sims 2 Seasons, The Sims 2 Bon Voyage, The Sims 2 Free Time, and The Sims 2 Apartment Life which was, taken together, simply amazing content creating a huge and complex game world in which it felt impossible to do everything, and to experience everything that the games had to offer -- but that was not the end of it all.

In addition to the to-be-expected Expansion Packs, EA also presented gamers with a new content pack, called Stuff Packs, whose function was to add new Items to the game (usually in groups of around 60) that gamers could use to further customize and make their world unique. The Stuff Packs released for The Sims 2 included the Holiday Party Pack, Family Fun Stuff, Glamour Life Stuff, Happy Holiday Stuff, Celebration! Stuff, H&M Fashion Stuff, Teen Style Stuff, Kitchen & Bath Interior Design Stuff, IKEA Home Stuff, and the Mansion & Garden Stuff, offering gamers with an incredible variety of.. Well... Stuff!

When The Sims 3 was finally launched gamers were anticipating a major improvement to their Sim Lives -- and they got it. The June 2009 release for Windows PC and Mac OSX was followed by the release of versions for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, iOS, Android, Nintendo DS, and Wii, offering gamers a newly updated graphical world in which what your Sims do outside their homes actually matters as much as what they do inside their homes.

The game world was tweaked in several ways, with the most obvious being the replacement of the previous goal-based system with the new Wish-based one. An expansion of the skills and Career tree top-off the new Game Play model, and the series of expansions that quickly followed the release of the base game, World Adventures, Ambitions, Late Night, Generations, Pets, and Showtime quickly expand play to exceed that of the previous generation.

Little Computer People Influence

Before we move on to The Sims FreePlay we need to jump into the Wayback machine and take a quick look at the game that most veteran gamers believe served as inspiration for The Sims series: Little Computer People.

Developer and published by Activision, and designed by David Crane and Rich Gold, Little Computer People -- also called House-on-a-Disk -- was a life simulation game/god game released in 1985 for the Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum, with a version for Amiga following in 1987.

Each copy of the game generates its own unique character -- so no two copies play exactly the same -- and this little person who lived in your computer would move into the three-story house which appeared as a cut-away on the screen, doing everyday things like walking around, eating, sleeping, reading the paper, and playing games with the gamer, who can interact with the little computer person in a number of ways. Every now and then the little person living in your computer will write you a letter telling you how they feel, adding to the interactivity in the game.

While nobody is saying that The Sims are based upon Little Computer People, and the two games are very different in their approach and their style of play, Will Wright himself has said that he played Little Computer People prior to creating The Sims, and even received what he considered valuable feedback on The Sims from its lead designer, Rich Gold -- so any serious Sim fan will want to take a look at this game just for the fun of it!

The process of creating this guide turned out to be a mixture of persistence, patience, self-discipline, and the acknowledgment that creating a useful guide for you, the gamer, was our most powerful motivation. We are committed to staying the course as the game expands and is refined by the studio, so that you have a constantly updated and useful source of Game Play information, Tips, Tricks, and perhaps more important than that, a go-to source for answers to the questions that will invariably crop up as you discover the joy of playing God in this newest mobile incarnation of The Sims.

Now that we have come full-circle, it is time to take a look at The Sims FreePlay...