The Sims team has released a new community blog detailing some new features that will be included with The Sims 4 “Arts and Crafts” Community Voted Stuff Pack.
Hello, Simmers! I hope everyone is doing all right in these crazy times. Just stay indoors and stay safe—and maybe play some video games?!
As you are all hopefully aware, our next Community Voted Stuff Pack* is centered around knitting! Sims will be able to kick back, turn on some tunes, and start stitching to their heart’s content. Knit a plushie! Knit a hat! Knit a mailbox? If you’re into that, I guess, we don’t judge. Knitting provides all sorts of creative avenues for your Sims.
I am the lead designer on this pack, and today, I’d like to talk about some of the gameplay that will be included with this Stuff Pack and give some insight into what’s going on in early development.
Create-A-Sim Improvements
One of the cool things we’re adding to this pack is the chance to knit your own clothing. Sims will have the ability to unlock exclusive knitted clothing in CAS, making it available for everyone in their household to wear.
I felt like this was a very important system for knitting, perhaps the most important! While it may sound like a no-brainer, keep in mind that most clothing in The Sims™ 4 is readily available for all Sims to wear.
So, our idea was to create a new UI that displays locked Create-A-Sim clothing items. This way you’ll be able to view things like knitted sweaters and socks (yes, socks!) before knitting them. This will also show you everything your Sim can aspire to create! Knitted clothing needs to be special, not just something every townie wears (I’m looking at you, Eyeball Ring).
To better illustrate what I mean, I provided some UX mock-ups below. What is a UX mock-up? I’m glad you asked! Early in the design phase—after the design is written, but before it is finalized—our user experience designer (whose job is to design UI, among other things) reviews the design and creates imagery illustrating how the feature will look in-game. We can then review this as a team and make changes until we’re happy. Then, when the engineers and the UI artists implement the feature, they know exactly what it should look like. Pretty cool, huh?
Let’s Rock
Next, let’s talk about Rocking Chairs! For a pack about knitting, it just felt right.
Rocking chairs will mostly function like regular chairs, but with a few added twists! Sims will be able to do things like talk, watch TV, listen to music, read books, and knit while on a rocking chair. If it works while sitting, we’ll try to make it work while rocking.
Now let’s talk about Elders. We’d like Elders to have some unique gameplay with rocking chairs, so we’re including a special interaction on rocking chairs called Reminisce, where Elder Sims think back to their days of yore and recall something nice—or maybe not so nice. Maybe something super embarrassing that they buried deep, deep down? Who knows? (I know… but you’ll have to wait until the pack comes out to find out!)
What else does the rocking chair do? Lots of stuff! But I can’t reveal everything just yet.
Plopsy
Also in this pack is a cool feature called Plopsy. Yes, Plopsy.
What is Plopsy? It’s an online store where Sims can sell their crafted art! This store isn’t tied to a career or a gig, so if you wanna make a little art money on the side, Plopsy is here for you.
Being able to sell your knitted items online felt like a really strong feature for this pack, and we weren’t sure if just dragging an object into the Sell button was gonna cut it. With Plopsy, Sims will be able to list their objects online for a small fee in hopes that an internet stranger will buy it. Once a buyer is found, Sims will need to ship the object themselves by routing to the mailbox. Or they can ignore someone’s offer, and try for a better deal.
Not only can knitted objects be listed on Plopsy, but so can things like Paintings and Woodworking sculptures too! I’m hoping to include as many things as possible that make sense for a store like this. Whichever item you choose to sell, you should hopefully make more of a profit with Plopsy than selling things the old-fashioned way.
Your Sim can also purchase things from Plopsy! If you don’t feel like knitting a hat, maybe someone has one for sale. Listings update throughout the day, so you can keep checking back in search of the perfect item.
Plopsy is still hot off the presses, so I don’t have any screenshots to share. But for now, please enjoy this potential Plopsy logo!
Last but Not Least…
Thanks to everyone who voted in our surveys and took the time to answer my community questions on The Sims 4 forums. Your feedback helps! You guys are amazing! And again, keep in mind all things mentioned here are still in early development and are subject to change, yadda, yadda, yadda (sorry, I need to say it).
While I can’t share everything about our latest Stuff Pack yet, I at least hope you found these sneak previews interesting!
Until next time, —SimGuruConor
