building a sims house for vampires + witches
I've changed. I think I might actually like occult Sims. I know, this is very unlike me, but I spent like, two hours the other day on stream making a spellcaster and a vampire, which again, very unlike me. I don't usually really spend a lot of time in CAS because I just don't think I'm very good at it, so it's not like, my favorite thing to do, mostly I just like to build.
And I also don't really play with vampires or spellcasters that much, mostly because they just don't really fit into my gameplay -- oh my god, this is why I don't do CAS by the way, the way they don't stop doing that. When I was trying to make these Sims, literally every two seconds, they're like, swinging their arms around. Stop! See, stop! Anyway, I made these couple Sims on stream the other day and I was feeling so inspired by them that I wanted to build a house, so I to walk you through the storyline real quick and then I'll show you the build. This here is Sterling Sylver, they use they/them pronouns. They're an outgoing, snobby, perfectionist, obviously a spellcaster. And I am just -- oh my god, stop, stop. Stand still. And I'm just like, obsessed
with how this sim looks, I think they turned out so cool. I'll show you all of their outfits really quickly, I tried to use a lot of the clothing that I don't use all that often, and I just thought it was really fun. I don't know, I really, really like this sim. And so the whole story is that Sterling Sylver has a couple of best friends, they all met in a bowling league, like, a bowling league for occults. It was Sterling and then their two friends that were twins, Cosmo and Wanda.
Now Cosmo and Wanda were both vampires, Wanda here is unflirty, hot-headed, and hates children. These are all of her outfits, I think she's super, super cool as well, I really liked her. This is her dark form, also very cool.
But you see, Wanda used to have a twin brother, his name was Cosmo. And then one day Cosmo and Sterling were like, oh, what if we did a spell to make it so that you don't burn up in the sun anymore? So they did that, they tried to at least, and um, it turned Cosmo into a cat. So Cosmo does not burn in the sun anymore, but Cosmo is a cat. In my mind, Cosmo is a talking cat, he is the sim that he used to be, he's just a cat instead. This obviously did not actually happen, this is just the storyline that me and my chat came up with on stream.
The three bowling buddies and um, the tragic cat incident. But that is the backstory for the house that we're going to build today, so with that, let's just get started with the build. You can see that I'm building this in Glimmerbrook which is the world that came with Realm of Magic. I think I bulldozed the starter home to build this, like, I'm pretty sure that's what lot this is on, but I don't remember, so you might have to correct me, but either way, it's one of the lots in Glimmerbrook. There's only like, five, so it's not too hard to find. And I was kind of trying to go for like, an older brick house. I wanted to have like, dark brick and beautiful windows.
I was trying to make use of a lot of Realm of Magic stuff because I'll be honest, I don't really use Realm of Magic build items all that often. I do have a good reason, I just find it really hard to build with the windows and doors from that pack. This is the issue that I have a lot of game pack build items, they're not necessarily bad, it's just that when we get like, a full brand new build style like in Realm of Magic, those windows do not match any of the other windows in the game. And that's kind of a good and bad thing because it's nice to have a brand new style, right, but also the windows don't match anything else in the game. So it's really hard to mix and match like, use those windows with base game ones or whatever because they don't really have the same style or even the same swatches. So you're kind of stuck with just those windows, but there's only like, a couple of them, there's like, one for short wall height.
And it's really hard to use those windows to cover an entire house, especially when you're trying to use like, taller walls and there's only tiny windows, or if you want shorter walls and there's only big windows. It's just tough to try and use a lot of the game pack windows to make an entire house I've found because I just need some more variation. That's why I use the base game ones a lot because there's so many different sizes and variants and they all match, so you can sort of mix and match a lot easier to make the house look how you want it to. I have that issue with the wedding pack windows too. There's two windows and they're both
really awesome, like, genuinely great windows, but there's only two of them and just two sizes, and even those two windows don't have matching swatches. So when you want to use them on a house, like, how are you supposed to fit in anything? They don't match any other windows. And you don't want to use just like, one kind of window on the entire building. I don't know, it's just really tough so I kind of avoid using Realm of Magic just for the fact that like, the windows don't really match a lot of things, so it's hard for me to fit them in places. I don't dislike them, it's just hard to fit them in places because the swatches are so different.
But I did make a serious effort in this build to use those Realm of Magic windows and I think they turned out really well. I was having a really hard time with color scheme because of the swatches being different. There's not like, a good solid white and black on those. Like, the other swatches either have like, full stained glass or no other like, interest on them, and I wanted to have a little bit more pizzazz. So it was a serious problem trying to get like, what color I wanted to use, but I set it on the white and brown windows and black trim, which I think when it's on just like a blank wall looks a little bit weird, but once I put in the wallpaper, it all kind of comes together. You can just tell that from the outside I was really struggling. The front was like,
the biggest issue and once we got through it, it was like, smooth sailing from there. And I love the inside of this building. So when we actually do the floor plan you'll see it ends up being a two-bedroom house which sucks for Cosmo because um, I did want to give him a bedroom, I thought it'd be funny to have like, Cosmo have his own room that he obviously doesn't use anymore because he's a cat now, but I didn't end up giving him one. Instead I gave him like, a cat tree in the corner of his sister's room, but what I did do was I have the two bedrooms upstairs, one for the vampire, one for the spellcaster, both kind of decorated with stuff to fit their vibes. There's also a big basement for the vampire, I wanted her bedroom upstairs to be very like, normal. Like, if you went in there, you wouldn't know that she was a vampire and then she kind of like, keeps her vampire stuff secret in the basement, but her roommate Sterling is a little bit more like, open with their magic so they just have their stuff in the room.
You'll also notice that the vampire has like, a lot more space indoors because she's got her bedroom and the basement downstairs, but in my head, I was like, well, the spellcaster Sterling, they can go outside and like, do magic outside and they can have an extra cauldron in the backyard, whereas the vampire can't. Like, she can't go outside at all because she's gonna burn in the sun so I figured it made more sense to give her a little bit more of the indoor space since Sterling can take over more of the outdoor space. And the cat just vibes. They don't have much going for them, so they can just go around the whole house I guess. Sorry, Cosmo.
It was so funny explaining this story on stream. This is always how it goes, right, you get these stream memes that just kind of like, devolve. But we had like, spent two hours making these Sims and making up this storyline.
It's an absolute ridiculous storyline and obviously like, it's not real, you can't actually turn a human into a cat in The Sims, it's just pretend, but people would come into the stream having missed that like, you know, vital context, and they'd be like, I'm sorry, hang on, her brother is a cat? Her brother was turned into a cat? And we'd be like, yes, let me explain. It was a lot of fun. If you like this kind of thing, if you like making Sims and building and stuff, I do a lot of this on my Twitch channel obviously. I built this live and now I'm posting the speed build separately on YouTube, but if you like that kind of thing, I can link my Twitch channel down below, it's just Twitch.tv/lilsimsie, same as my YouTube channel and stuff, I'm the same, lilsimsie just everywhere, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, all of it's just lilsimsie. But now's a good time to pop in and follow because we're gonna be doing a lot of early access with werewolves next week.
I get early access to werewolves on Tuesday and I can stream it on Wednesday, but the pack comes out on Thursday, so if you want to play with us, we can like, see werewolves early next Wednesday, so I'm just warning you, if you're interested, we're gonna have early access to it next week to play. If you follow now, you can turn on notifications so you won't miss it next week. Ah, and the other thing -- sorry, I'm like, all over the place, but the other good thing about this house is that I feel like the floorplan just really came together on this one. I think sometimes when I build houses, the floorplan is tough, but then other times it just feels like it makes itself, you know? It just kind of all comes together and works so easily, and this is one of those ones that just worked, I felt like. It just all sort of made sense as soon as I drew it. Didn't really take a lot of fiddling with, it just kind of worked.
So you'll see downstairs, there's like, a little entryway and then to the left of it, there's gonna be a dining room and then through those big arches, there's a living room and then a kitchen off to the side, it's kind of clear from the flooring what's going on here. I also put like, a little sneaky bookcase door space that has a ladder that takes you into the basement. I love the idea of these two best friends, I guess I should say three best friends because Cosmo can be involved too, but I love the idea of these three best friends having such different outlooks on this. Like, obviously Sterling the spellcaster is like, super proud of being magic, like, they show it off, they're not trying to hide anything, but the vampire is so secretive, you would not know from her bedroom, you've gotta go through a secret door into a secret basement to see all of her vampire stuff.
I think once we get the werewolf pack actually out, it's coming out next week, I'm I'm definitely gonna make like, another sim for the bowling league. I'll make a third friend. Or sorry, a fourth friend. Cosmo counts too. I'll make a fourth friend to come live in this household. I don't know where I'll put their room, I might need to build a new house, but I'll make a fourth friend and then they can live in here too, I wonder what they'll be like. I'm so curious, I don't know, I feel like I've been so anti-occult sim for so long. It's definitely just like, my playstyles kind of changed a little bit recently, but back in the day, especially when like, vampires first came out, I just did not care about them at all.
Like, I really did not play with vampires ever when they first came out. I was also like, 16, so that kind of contributes to it. Just wasn't my thing. And then Vlad would come knocking on my door like, every day, so it just kind of became a meme that I hated vampires.
I don't actually hate vampires, I think the pack's actually kind of cool. The world sucks, the world does suck, but the pack's actually kind of good. I just don't really, you know, care to use it all that often, the same goes for spellcasters. I want to like Realm of Magic, but I was so, so disappointed in the world that they made that it like, kind of ruined the pack for me. I know that's kind of silly, but like, the builds that they did for Realm of Magic were genuinely so bad. That was like, the last straw. And luckily after that they sort of started getting simmers to make the builds for the packs, but the Realm of Magic ones were so bad, it like, made it hard for me to enjoy the pack because you go to the magic realm, and that magic realm thing, that big lot there, is just -- it's honestly the ugliest building in the entire game.
It makes it genuinely hard for me to enjoy the pack, so I just haven't given them much time or thought in the past, but now I feel like my playstyle in The Sims has kind of evolved recently to be a little bit more chaotic, and so maybe I'm like, a little bit more interested in them now. I don't know, but I feel like I'm more excited for werewolves than I thought I would be, so I'm genuinely curious to see the pack next week, um, it should be interesting. It's also fun to see like, how your playstyle kind of changes as you -- I mean, we play the same game, like, it's been the same game this whole time, but my interests in that game have definitely adjusted a lot.
Even down to like, I used to use custom content, now I don't really, like, it's interesting to see how we all sort of change our minds and grow as people. Grow as people into um, Vlad stans, apparently because that's a little bit what I am now, I won't lie. I hate to admit it, but I kind of am. Anyway, so I'm actually starting to furnish the house now, you can see, I just did that dining room and there is one thing you might be looking at and thinking hm, why is that there? There's a cat like, pet bowl on the dining table, a little green one. Um, that pet bowl on the dining table, yeah, that's for Cosmo. See, the beauty of cats in The Sims 4 is that you can actually put their food bowls on tables and on counters and they'll still use them. The dogs can't eat on counters and tables obviously, but the cats can jump around, so you can put their food bowl up there, it slots there just fine.
And they will still use it, so I put Cosmo's food bowl on the dining room table because I liked the idea of Cosmo like, sitting there and eating with the family. I guess in hindsight, the vampire's not gonna be sitting there and eating either, like, Wanda's not gonna be eating there. She doesn't eat, she's a vampire, she just attacks people, but I don't know, I thought it was funny, the thought of like, Cosmo sitting with everybody and them all eating together at the table, so I gave Cosmo a spot at the table to um, further embrace the storyline, so. This here obviously is Wanda's spooky little basement. I think it turned out really cute actually, I'm kind of into it. It was hard to figure out what kind of furniture I wanted to put down there because I wanted it to be kind of creepy, but I also wanted it to be kind of fancy, but leaning more on like, storage basement that she sleeps in with her coffin, and I think I managed to make it work.
There is also space for like, a second creepy area in this house if I so desired to add it in. I'm gonna play with these Sims on stream I think so I'll update you if I decide to use the space, but the roof has that like, third story attic area that I just put in so I could do the roof better, but I do have that space upstairs if I wanted to use it for something. Originally I was thinking about using it to give Sterling like, a secret area as well, and have like, a ladder up there for them to access, but then I decided I didn't want to hide away Sterling's stuff, like, I wanted it to be out and like, have them have like a cluttered little cauldron corner in their bedroom or something, so I decided not to use the attic space, but maybe the werewolf could live up there in the attic, I don't know, I guess we'll find out once we actually get the pack and see what they all have and what they come with, but there is an attic in this house if you want to download it and you wish to use it for something, it is there for you if you want to like, hide some stuff up there or something like that, I don't know. I will say, this house does use a lot of packs so I apologize. I kind of try and balance this, I always like, give a disclaimer about it, but I do a lot of builds that are like, oh, this one's gonna be just base game and Cats and Dogs, and then I'll do ones like this that I kind of just like, use whatever. I really try and do a kind of like, half and half thing because trust me, I know how annoying it is to like, want to download something or be like, watching a YouTuber and be so jealous because they've got packs you don't have.
For me, I used to play The Sims 3, I used to watch like, all of the YouTubers back in the day. I mean, I still kind of do, but I used to watch like, all the simmers play The Sims 3 and they all had like, all that store content, and all of The Sims 3 packs and I used to be so jealous, I wanted those things so bad, but it's expensive, you know, so I really try and um, do some balance. Some balancing of the pack usage in my builds so that hopefully people can still use them and um, not be upset because I know the feeling very well, unfortunately, we're all on the same page with this one. And in this house I simply um, prioritize the storyline as opposed to the usability, you know? I'm sitting here putting pet bowls on dining tables, so you know, it's all a balance. Well, now you can see that I'm working on what is going to be Sterling's bedroom, so their room's a little bit smaller, they've got like, the smallest bedroom. Which again kind of sucks because Wanda's got a bedroom and a basement, but like I said, Sterling can use the outside, you know, like they can actually go out there.
I put another cauldron on the patio and stuff for them, so they can actually go out there and use it whereas Wanda cannot because she will die, so I figured it made sense. Sterling also has a little balcony space too, I put some garden things as well, um so that they could like, use them to grow craft -- craftables? Collectibles. Grow collectibles to craft with. So we should have all the things we need in there covered. I had kind of a hard time figuring out like, the amount of clutter that I wanted to include in this room because I really wanted to have like, piles of books, like, in my head, I was picturing like, piles of books and potions scattered around and like, all of this decorative stuff, I wanted to have like, a floating diary because I figured they were using magic to like, make it float, like, I had this vision in my head of all of this story to it, and then I was like, but I want it to function. Like, I want to still be able to use the cauldron, so I was kind of trying to balance finding like, the cool potion corner and putting in some clutter, but also not too much clutter so it still works. And I think it ended up okay, but I did struggle with trying to balance that when I was first starting out.
It's so different than my usual build style as well, like I do so much building of like, little suburban houses for like, your average suburban family, and then to come in and try and build a house for like, multiple different occults and a cat is um, real different than how I usually play The Sims. It's fun though, it's fun to branch out and try and do different things, right? So in this living room, I did struggle a lot with the layout because I wanted to make sure I had a piano because I did give the Sims likes and dislikes and one of the ones that Wanda has is that she likes piano, but I was trying to fit it in her bedroom and it just -- there wasn't the right space, like, it was too small, so I wanted to put it in the living room, but then there's not a lot of space for anything else. There isn't a TV in this house, I did like, remove that, I didn't include one, but there is a computer upstairs. I used like, the little typewriter that came with Cottage Living. In my head,
I think that Wanda is very anti-technology and I think that Sterling just doesn't care that much because they're like, you know, they're magic, they can just do whatever anyway, but I think that Wanda being, you know, an ancient vampire, in my head I picture her being kind of anti-technology so I um, I didn't include like, a modern computer or a modern TV. They've got like, modern kitchen appliances, I guess, well, they're Realm of Magic kitchen appliances so they're not like, super modern. And I don't think Wanda cares about that because she doesn't go in the kitchen anyway, she's a vampire, like, she just eats blood, so.
Sorry, plasma. Plasma, not blood. No blood in The Sims, T for teen. But she just drinks plasma, so she doesn't care about the kitchen too much. But I did want to try and fit in that storyline a little bit, you know, of her being kind of anti-tech. I did set one of Sterling's likes to baking, I figured they were a big fan of like, making cupcakes or something. They're a cake decorator on the side, so they get good use
out of the kitchen at least. Oh, and there is a thermostat, um, that is one set of modern technology that we do use is we've got modern heating and cooling in this house because it's real annoying gameplay-wise to not have it, so I did put a thermostat in here, we did do that. And with that, the house is pretty much complete. That is the whole build. I think it turned out really cute, I'm excited to play in it.
And now I want to pop into the game and give you a tour so you can see it better up close. It's always kind of hard to get like, the right vibes from the build when you just see it in a speed build because it all spins around and leaves so fast, but this is where the lot is built, you can see I've got it on that smaller lot in Realm of Magic. I don't want to look at or think about these so I'm just gonna -- I'm loading into the house and I am ignoring the rest of the lots here.
Oh my god, it deleted my terrain paint! That is the most annoying glitch in this entire game! Why. Does that happen to you? Do you also have the game delete your terrain paint like that because it is SO infuriating. There we go, okay, I placed it off the gallery so it's back, but this is the finished product of the exterior of the house. I really had a lot of fun with this, I used a lot of like, fun ivy and stuff too at the end to kind of, I don't know, make it look nicer I guess, but I just love the color of this brick, I think that is such a beautiful brick color. I like how it's kind of purple-y almost, I don't know, I just -- I think it kind of ties together the brown windows and the black, I just -- I thought it looked nice. But again, it's very much out of my comfort zone, this building.
So you can see, there's kind of like, two front entrances. My chat was kind of annoyed at me for that, but in my head, this is the front door, that's just a side door, okay, side door off the kitchen. No big deal. To the left side we've got the yard, there is no gate to like, get to the yard from the outside, but I just -- I didn't like it, the only gate that matches this is like, way too much. Look, it's very dramatic. I couldn't, I couldn't.
That's really dramatic, so I didn't use that, but we do have a little garden space and also like, a little cauldron space for the spellcaster to use, and then they also have their little balcony up here, but from the inside of the house, when you first come in, we've got this little tiny skinny entryway. To the left we have that dining room. In my head, I imagine that these two portraits were of Cosmo and Wanda when they were young and not dead, and not a cat. So like, in my vision, this is them when they were young before they became vampires. So like, that's Wanda, there's her brother Cosmo, um, here's Cosmo now. Looks very similar obviously, but that's why I hung up those pictures.
And then further into the house over here, we've got that living room. I quite liked this, I thought it was kind of cozy. We've got one little door that goes out to this hallway, this hallway takes you to the backyard, but also into a little half bathroom. We've got this kitchen right here off the living room, I love the use of these giant archways, I think they look so nice. And then right here, this is that like, secret bookcase door which behind it is the secret ladder into the secret basement where Wanda's bedroom is, or Wanda's like, second bedroom I should say, so she can sleep in here and use this coffin. My chat really wanted me to give a second coffin for Cosmo, but in my head, I was like, Cosmo can't even get down there, he's a cat. So even if he wanted to he couldn't. He can't use the ladder.
Um, but then upstairs, we've got a little hallway that kind of has like a little office space almost that has that typewriter there. There is a full bathroom up here, all very like, old school fancy golden vampire stuff, and then laser litter box. I think that is where they draw the line. They're like, I'm sorry Cosmo,
I am not picking up your poop. Uh, I will burn it. There is no way I'm cleaning it Cosmo, so I got the fancy one. And then through here, this room is Sterling's bedroom. I left a couple empty spaces because in my head I wanted to like, put a bunch of potions here, but I didn't want to do debug ones because I'm actually going to play in the house so this shelf will be full of potions eventually. And then through here, this pink bedroom belongs to Wanda.
I love this cat tree here for Cosmo and like the little hint of green as well for him, it just -- it really amuses me. She also has a really fancy vanity space, but I put a lot of nail polish on the table because when I was making her in CAS -- oh, she's gonna burn out here. She always has these fancy like, long pink nails on and obviously good makeup too, but she can't see herself in the mirror because she's a vampire, so there's no makeup out, it's just nail polish, it's all she uses this vanity for. And that's pretty much the whole house, there is that like, secret third story that I talked to you about.
There's a cool tower in Wanda's room, but I just left that. And then this is that third story that I did think about giving access to for Sterling, but I might also end up using it for a werewolf or something. It's just -- it's not like, super usable space because there's no windows in it or anything, it's only there because I wanted the roof to look like this, but it is a little secret spot if we so desire to use it. And like I said, that is the build complete. I've got it on my gallery if you want to download it, my name's just lilsimsie.
And if you want to take part in these shenanigans on Twitch, I'll have that linked down below too. It's fun to catch this kind of stuff live, I don't know. Also feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel because I am fun here as well.
And with that being said, I will catch you all tomorrow. Okay, bye everybody. Could you imagine if I had killed Wanda by accident while recording this? I'm just like, trying to do my little tour and then Wanda's outside burning in the sun. I wouldn't put it past me. I feel like I always end up doing stuff like that by accident.
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2022-06-14 03:38
