Sims 100 Baby Challenge: 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started

The other day I rediscovered this post that I had written way back in October 2021, forgotten, alone and gathering cyber dust in my drafts folder. I was going to delete it but then I thought I may as well share it to tie off my The Sims 4 100 baby challenge posts, even if I never finished it.

The 100 baby challenge is a challenge in the sims where the goal is to have a female Sim give birth to 100 babies in as few generations as possible, if you’re interested then you can see rules of the challenge here. I started the challenge because I love The Sims but I sometimes got stuck in a routine of crafting the same storylines or the same kinds of sims. This challenge helps you to discover new ways of doing things, aspirations and traits you may not normally use, and gives you an end goal. It turned out to be a really good way of experiencing a game that I’ve played since I was a child in a totally new way and while I didn’t finish it I learned a lot and would definitely consider doing it again, I would recommend it to any Sims fan and if that’s you then it’s your lucky day because I have made a list of tips and tricks to make your challenge a little bit easier:

1. Play it on a computer. This is the main point for me. Trying this on my PS4 was a challenge in itself. The slow loading time was particularly painful, even just going into build mode took forever. It also glitched like crazy, and not the funny kind of glitches that make the game more entertaining, the annoying game crashing ones.
2. Make sure you have a lot of expansion packs. You will be playing this for a LONG time and there’s just not enough variety in the base game to make it interesting. I have City Living (my favourite, if you could only get one I’d say this), Seasons, Island Living, Vampires, Magical Realm and Jungle Adventure… Honestly, it’s still not quite enough in my opinion, the things that make these packs initially interesting become tired quite fast in this challenge but it’s the little things that make it better; like the City having events on every so often, new aspirations and traits, the seasonal events, and just having different places to go… I’d like to get more but I can’t justify buying any more on PS4 when I know I’d enjoy it more on PC.
3. Give your lot the ‘Ley Line’ trait. This trait makes the chances of your sim having twins higher. I didn’t realise it was allowed until quite late and it made getting that baby count up way easier. It does make baby management harder though because twins are an absolute nightmare, especially if you have twin toddlers and then twin babies come along, that feels like a survival game rather than Sims. Choose other handy lot traits as well, you can have up to 3.
4. Use the aspiration rewards. I forgot that these were available and allowed, the only ones you can’t use are the ones that extend your Sims’ life.
5. Use the gallery. I am so bad at making houses but there are loads already made by much more patient and talented sim players especially for the challenge. It’s also a good source of handsome Baby Challenge Dads. Just search #100babychallenge to find loads of pre-made stuff.
6. Stream, don’t blog. If you’re a blogger and you’re going to write about this it may not provide you with as much inspiration as you would think. The initial part of the challenge, when all the experiences were new and it was that much harder because there was no money, was fun to write about and share but the longer I played, the more repetitive the gameplay was and the less there is to share. In hindsight maybe just doing a couple of review-style posts about it rather than ‘episodes’ would have been better. It would be more fun and sociable to stream though and then people watching can suggest where to meet people, what to do, baby names, etc.
7. Apparently, if you give a key to ghosts they don’t wreck your stuff. I wanted to have a morbid little graveyard of my previous matriarchs but their ghosts haunted my sims and made them scared and started breaking things. Unfortunately, the more generations you go through the more ghosts you get and eventually I had enough and released their spirits. I never got to test out the key theory because unfortunately there seemed to be a glitch where the dialogue option ‘give residence key’ seemed to just disappear so… Not tested but highly recommended in case it’s true and still available.
8. A-students age up. All through the first generation I had forgotten that once your children and teens become A students they get to have their birthdays early, and once I remembered that the child turnaround was much easier and faster.
9. Don’t bother with high chairs. The toddlers just end up trapped in them because your Matriarch will be so busy doing other stuff. Toddlers can grab food off the side so just have your Sim make a meal and the Todds can just grab it and go sit on the sofa to eat (follow me for more excellent parenting tips).
10. Have fun with it. It’s surprisingly easy to get into a routine but don’t be afraid to let your Sim leave the house occasionally and try some different things, let her go on dates and explore different areas. She deserves it!

In the end I managed 3 matriarchs and 38 children before I gave up. I would definitely attempt it again but I would consider waiting for Sims 5 so that I could buy it on PC rather than power through on the playstation.

Would you play the 100 baby challenge? Have you played it? If so, what was your experience?

100 Baby Challenge – Episode 9: Meet Our Magical New Matriarch

It’s been a while since we had a Baby Challenge update. To be fair there’s only so much I can write about the daily goings on in a Sims life but finally we have made some headway and a new chapter of the challenge is underway: current Matriarch Artemis became an elder.

She had 17 children, beating previous Matriarch Gaia’s score of 14. Not only that but the final baby she had was a girl, the next matriarch: Ariadne. This is good because it meant I had all the time between Ariadne growing from a baby to a young adult to teach her the ways of the Matriarchy: charisma, cooking, repairing and something she can make money doing from home.

In the meantime Artemis gets to mentor her and enjoy her retirement… Well, sort of. I still need her to make money. Being a ‘Meme Maker’ wasn’t the best career route, you have to get 1,000,000 followers to get a promotion! That is so hard when you barely leave the house and all you do is make babies!!! Although, in reality if someone was actually attempting this challenge for real they would probably have a decent following. Don’t do it though, very irresponsible, only try this challenge in a simulated environment. I digress, back to the money issue: there’s not much of it. BUT I realised a little late that every day Artemis can use her platform to promote a product for $3,000, which is rather nice (though it doesn’t always work). She got to work and became an incredible viral granny. Ariadne will have to do something more lucrative though; we want a super big, nice house. 

While the money making was going on a new curve was thrown at the challenge, because that’s exactly what it needed of course: all of the first kids (Gaia’s kids) started dying… Dropping like flies. Every day at least one would pass away and apparently, even if they didn’t know each other, all relatives get a phone call and become ‘Very Sad’. I was really upset at first, especially when some of my favourites passed on (Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Aphrodite… My babies!) but Sims (understandably) don’t really want to do much when they’re super sad and it started to stunt skill building, so my sympathy quickly turned to frustration. 

The day eventually came where it was Artemis’s time. She lived for a long time as an elder actually, I was wondering if it had bugged out and she just wasn’t going to die. She was an active Sim though so I guess that explains it. I was upset, but I didn’t quite have the emotional attachment to her that I did with Gaia, she wasn’t quite as interesting a character really. I suppose Gaia was the one that had all the ‘firsts’ in this challenge so there was more of a story there.

Meanwhile, I was excited to find that Ariadne has the ‘Weak Bloodline’ magic trait which means she will be a spell caster! A Witch Matriarch! So cool! Her sisters Circe and Megara are also spell casters and I plan to have them all live together in a coven for a while until I have to kick them out for baby space. Despite my excitement in the shake up to the normal challenge routine, which was getting a little monotonous, I will admit I am disappointed with the Magical Realm expansion pack in the Sims. The actual realm itself is gorgeous, the first time I saw it I was blown away by how beautiful it is. It’s very ‘Hogwarts-esque’, there’s a school where you can learn magic from Sages, a duelling ground, magical herbs for potion brewing are scattered about, there’s even a shopping area called Diagon Casters Alley where you can buy brooms, familiars, etc. You would have thought learning magic and exploring this realm would be fun but unfortunately, the Sims seem to view it as a chore, they get no enjoyment from using magic, which is bizarre to me. Even if their aspirations are centred around learning magic they still don’t enjoy it. It’s also disappointing that other, non-magical, Sims don’t react to spells being cast around them, at all. Despite this, magic does come in handy, one of the types of magic you can learn is ‘Practical Magic’ where they can clean, repair, etc. It’s a lot faster than doing those things manually and that will be very handy for Ariadne. There is a risk of setting fire to the things you try to repair but… Hopefully we’ll be alright. Maybe she can brew up some love potions to help with the challenge.

A magical duel, not at all Harry Potter inspired

On top of magical ability, I set about making Ariadne the chattiest, most creative kid around. Kids have 4 skills: Social, Motor, Creativity and Mental. Unfortunately these don’t become other skills when they become teenagers, they just disappear, which sucks. I read somewhere that if you make the kid skills quite high though then they will find it easier to level up ‘adult skills’ in that area in the future, so if Ariadne has high Social skills as a kid hopefully she will level her charisma up really fast as a teen/adult. 

The day after Artemis’s death, Ariadne aged up into a teenager so the skills building could being properly! She got a Matriachal Makeover from this:

To this:

I love her hair (I think red hair is gorgeous).

The real skill building began now for Ariadne, she spent a lot of time chatting to herself in the mirror to get that charisma skill up. Meanwhile, her brothers and sisters were working hard topping up the cash to get a new house. I had my eye set on a 100 baby challenge house that I found in the online Gallery (that is a godsend, I hate making houses on the Sims but I love the creative ones people come up with).

We got enough cash to get the house just as it was Ariadne’s birthday. I moved her into her new house with her sisters Circe and Megara; I had a really cool image of them in my mind being a witchy coven until I have to boot them out to make baby room. It’s a really cool house but it is a little squashed… I’ll have to make sure the next one is bigger. It is however ‘on the ley line’ which means it’s way more likely that you’ll get twins. I thought that might be cheating but apparently it’s not! Wish I had realised that sooner but nevermind.

Finally, let’s take a look at the final traits for the lovely Ariadne:

She wants to be an alchemist so some interesting potions can come into play now.

The welcome wagon came round to welcome the girls to the neighbourhood and Ariadne sprang into action. The Marroquin family came to visit and Ariadne invited the reasonably attractive husband up to her room to seduce him while Circe and Megara kept his wife occupied downstairs. Scandalous… He wasn’t the most discreet, after the deed was done he walked downstairs in his pyjamas like nothing had happened and went home with his wife.

We’ll see how effective the ley line trait is next time…

Gaia and Artemis’ resting places by the ‘baby’ wall.

Baby count : 31/100

• Zeus
• Hera
• Demeter
• Persephone
• Poseidon
• Hecate
• Aphrodite
• Athena
• Boreas
• Hades
• Artemis
• Apollo
• Hermes
• Hephaestus
• Hestia
• Nike
• Ares
• Tyche
• Nyx
• Iris
• Dionysus
• Pan
• Helios
• Helen
• Atlanta
• Hercules
• Pandora
• Ajax
• Circe
• Megara
• Ariadne

100 Baby Challenge – Episode 8 : Back to it!

← Episode 7

There may have been a bit of a break in the challenge there for a while… Mainly because there was an incident with my PS4 involving a flying coffee table and a glass of rum and coke. After rushing it to an emergency bowl of rice and careful cleaning it’s all good, even better actually now that the fan has been cleaned but it set me back a bit.

Let’s have a quick challenge recap: current Matriarch Artemis (2nd in the line) has so far had 7 children, she’s a young adult still so we have quite a bit of time left before we switch to the next Matriarch. I want her to beat previous Matriarch, Gaia’s record of 14 children. So far it could go either way. Unfortunately, when I started playing again we were flat lining. The house is full (8 sims max) and while one child has now become an adult, I was trying to get some other kids to adulthood and out the house in bulk before Artemis got busy again. That way twins/triplets would be a possibility. 

Get. Out. Of. My. House.

A rule I hadn’t really taken advantage of too much before is that when kids become A students, regardless of actual age, they may age up. I didn’t realise though that that doesn’t just mean doing a load of homework, they also need to get a skill to level 4. Simple right? Not really. Unless they get pretty high levelled skills when they’re children teens start with no skills, which seems a but weird to me : You could play the violin yesterday but then you turned 13 and now you have to learn it from scratch all over again? Ugh. I don’t think I have actually managed to have a child max out a skill yet so… Not a great start. As for the teens though, I managed to get Nike, Tyche and Nyx to age up to adulthood but try as I might Ares was incredibly resistant to any skill he was given, often just abandoning it halfway through and he had to age up naturally. Kids these days.

Eventually though I managed to kick almost everyone out and I was left with Iris and Dionysus. It was time to get started again. Totally coincidentally a house with 3 men had moved in right next door and Artemis got to know all three very well. I have the whole process down now, as soon as they come over they’re invited to chat in the bedroom where she has an item with the romantic aura permanently on and so far it has not failed. One of the neighbours came to visit and the challenge was back on!  

The ladies don’t look very impressed with their new neighbor but he’ll do.

Dude doesn’t know how to keep his cool when he’s asked if he wants to woohoo…

Then there was a glitch… Not a terrible one but it was still annoying. Iris and Dionysus were doing very well at school and I was expecting to be able to move both out very soon once they hit A student status. Then Dionysus just stopped going to school. He was not having it. Iris could go just fine but the command for Dionysus simply did nothing no matter how I tried. I restarted the game, I restarted the Playstation, I waited overnight, I tried having him go from other lots. Nothing. There was nothing to do but have Iris age up and move out without him and just watch as his almost A student grade slid down. As annoying as it was he became the resident repairman and Nanny and made Artemis’s life way easier. He also got a job. It was actually quite nice. Then a few days later he decided he could go back to school and suddenly everyone was unhappy again and poor Artemis was exhausted trying to do everything.They were also a bit stuck for money since about 3 fires in 3 days happened (teen sims learning to cook…) and I had to replace the fridge and cooker every time so on top of constantly being pregnant Artemis was also trying to do her job (Meme Maker), it really isn’t the hardest of jobs, one of the tasks was to watch funny videos on Sim.tv for four hours, but if you think she has four hours to spare you are wrong. Once the easy task of “give an energetic speech for 1 hour in Uptown” came up I couldn’t pass it up, we needed the money… Along she goes with some of the older kids for support and she nailed it. As with literally everything in this challenge though there was a downside and right after speaking she wet herself, and passed out from exhaustion in the puddle in the middle of the square. Classy. We got a new fridge though, let’s hope it lasts longer than the previous ones. At the end of play we have an additional 4 babies to add to our list (BUT STILL NO TWINS/TRIPLETS!!!), Pan, Helios, Helen, and Atlanta. We are moving on from Gods and Goddesses to heroes now because I can’t remember what most of the children are called at this point, let alone which names I’ve already used.Finally, Artemis became a middle-aged adult, next stop: old lady. She’s had 10 kids so is very close to the goal of having over 14 kids… Hopefully we’ll find out in the next episode!

Baby count : 25/100

• ZeusHeraDemeterPersephonePoseidonHecateAphroditeAthenaBoreasHadesArtemisApolloHermesHephaestusHestiaNikeAresTycheNyxIrisDionysusPanHeliosHelenAtlanta

Episode 9 >

 

100 Baby Challenge – Episode 7: Full House! … Now What?

← Episode 6

It’s a new dawn here in the Olympae household. Our new Matriarch, Artemis, is a young adult and she is inviting over a street performer she met in the city… I think a cool, guitar playing guy from the big city is a good first victim for her.

When your one-night stand tells you she’s pregnant and you realise you’ve become a Victim of the 100 Baby Challenge

Ghost Mum is thrilled at the news though

Very good start, a couple of days later and Artemis welcomed Hestia to the family. The new generation has begun.

I was initially annoyed about the Aretmis’s younger brothers (Apollo, Hermes and Hephaestus) still being around for all this but honestly they are being so helpful and I think it’s quite a nice that they’re helping their sister in this. Speaking of brothers, as a WTF side note, she’s very friendly with her brother, Hades who stops by quite a lot and I noticed that she has the romance bar with him. How?! Why?! Gross! She doesn’t have the romance chat option with him but I freaked out when I saw that. Suddenly I had a horrible fear of accidentally making one of the brothers a father (there’s so many kids, if it wasn’t for the Ancient Greek names I would forget). Ew. Luckily it just seems to be some weird glitch so it’s not possible.

Queue the Game of Thrones theme tune

Back to the babies; Second baby, Nike, made things a little more difficult. The brothers still had to go to school so they weren’t always around and I lost a day trying to get Artemis energised enough to go and meet someone else. Her body clock is all wrong now, she’s really awake at night and out cold most of the day and when you phone men and ask them to come over in the middle of the night they (totally realistically) tell you to go away and that it’s too late, they’re sleeping goddammit, what could you possibly want this late at night? We may have to go clubbing to get some eligible, night owl bachelors.

Welcome to Motherhood, Artemis

Christmas time happened before we could do that and I was wondering about another Father Winter baby (it’s a different Father Winter every year, why not?) but of course, someone died (I couldn’t figure out who, there’s so much death in this playthrough, I’ve lost track… Artemis’s half-brother on her dad’s side maybe…) and so Atremis trying to flirt while sobbing to a guy dressed as Santa wasn’t really going down well. WE ARE BEHIND SCHEDULE, ARTEMIS. YOU NEVER EVEN MET YOUR HALF BROTHER.

We lost two days but then we were back on track. I was determined to beat Gaia’s record of 14 children. Skipping forward a bit we find ourselves now both brothers moved out, and 7 children while Artemis is still only halfway towards becoming middle aged!!! That is half our goal already! Maybe I can do this…

Here we see the Matriarch of the 100 Baby Challenge in their most common state: Smelly and unconscious.

Now we have a full house (you can’t have more than 8 Sims in a household) and that kind of stalls the challenge a bit. My lovely Hestia (now a teen), while incredibly helpful, is not doing great at school and I can’t boot her out until she either becomes an A student or ages up naturally and she has a while to go… But even when I’ve done that I’ve still got a household of 7 which would make twins (or dare I even dream of triplets?) impossible… Hmmm… If I hold off though and she doesn’t have twins then it’s a waste of time.

Ghost Gaia is around to help with the kids. When she’s not breaking everything in a fit of poltergeist rage that is.

Anyone got any theories? What would the best tactic be? Hold off on kids and make some space, or keep going whenever a spot opens up?

I dunno Love Guru, I think you may be wrong about that…

Baby count: 21/100 (This is embarrassing but I totally forgot about Hermes, one of Gaia’s last children – I’m sure everyone forgets about one or two of their children sometimes when they have so many – so she actually had 14 babies! I may have said 13 in previous posts…) 

• Zeus
• Hera
• Demeter
• Persephone
• Poseidon
• Hecate
• Aphrodite
• Athena
• Boreas
• Hades
• Artemis
• Apollo
• Hermes
• Hephaestus
• Hestia
• Nike
• Ares
• Tyche
• Nyx
• Iris
• Dionysus

Episode 8 →

100 Baby Challenge – Episode 6: Saying Goodbye

← Episode 5

Baby free post today! Today it’s all about recognising Gaia for all the hard work she put into this challenge.

A flashback to young Gaia just before the challenge. So innocent and blissfully unaware of the challenge to come…

I originally planned for Gaia to marry the original Victim, Travis (Zeus’s dad, blast from the past!) After a bit of wasted time I realised they weren’t actually hitting it off that well and while they were happy to sleep with each other they didn’t actually seem to enjoy chatting to each other much. Fair enough. She was also just most happy when she was around her family so we decided not to worry about Travis anymore. She’d had enough flirting and men for a lifetime anyway.

I knew her final days were coming so I threw some big parties with the whole family where she got to speak to everyone. I actually got quite emotional.

 

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Finally, the time came. She woke up and immediately collapsed. Grim appeared to take away her soul but Hades ran in and pleaded for her life! Grim relented and Gaia was brought back to life! I may not have been able to have Hades be the son of death but he lived up to his name eventually.

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Your mother is lying dead on the floor, the Grim Reaper is standing in front of you but no, by all means lets focus on the black pit that is your stomach, Boreas.

Gaia lived another 3 days and then took me on an emotional rollercoaster. I had just loaded up the game and the very first thing that happened was she collapsed in the living room and died. For good this time. I was a bit shocked, wasn’t expecting that first thing. I may have been a bit choked up, I had dedicated a lot of time to Gaia and I was really proud of her…

Noooooooo. She died embarrassed and smelly!

I spent some time making her a shrine. This of course now means that every time any of the moved out children come to visit their siblings they just stand in the living room in front of the urn and cry for 5 hours then go home. Whatever they need to do to come to terms with the death I guess.

I’m missing some photos but it’s getting there

Here are Gaia’s stats from the game. I’m very proud that her most prominent moodlet was Happiness, I thought for sure it was going to be Uncomfortable (though that was a close second at 556 times). She also wet herself a record 24 times and passed out 22 times… Ouch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a quiet and sombre day in the Olympae household but then Hades got a text from Ghost Gaia saying she needed some ‘retail therapy’ and could they go to the flea market together. You know… As ghosts do… I guess she’ll be hanging around a bit.

Finally, Artemis aged up and I got to randomise her final personality trait. It is my honor to present to you the new Matriarch as an adult: Artemis! Active, wannabe chef, outdoors lover, and kleptomaniac. It could have been much worse.

We’ll finish this post with some flashbacks to moments throughout Gaia’s life…

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RIP

 

100 Baby Challenge – Episode 5: The Clock Starts Ticking

← Episode 4

I’m going to skip the Olympae family ahead here a bit as I’ve been playing this A LOT and I haven’t been writing fast enough to keep up. When we last saw the Olympae family they had moved into their new, 2 bathroom home and had a lot more space. Since then Hades and Artemis have also been born and another baby is on the way, the lovely Poseidon (one of my favourite children) had moved out to make some room for potential twins and I was waiting for Hecate to come of age too. I was toying with the idea of letting her stay on as she’s magical and that makes repairing and cleaning stuff very, very easy. Here she is repairing the fridge and oven that she set fire to trying to cook lunch.

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We got an answer to ‘Who is the most beautiful Greek Goddess?’ from the old myth Judgement of Paris. Aphrodite and Athena became teens and look at how gorgeous Aphrodite is. Hera was the prettiest but she’s been de-throned. Not only is Aphrodite gorgeous but she’s super chill and helpful too. Athena is a bit alternative and also has the evil trait so she was often happy just because she enjoyed being around sims that had negative moods. Aphrodite was the clear winner in both looks and personality, in this universe anyway.

Aphrodite in her Winter finery, she looks like she’s about to hit the slopes and slay the snowboard competition.

I did move Hecate out in the end as having twins would be amazing and I guess the more space in the house the higher the chance? Spoiler alert: twins have not been a thing since Demeter and Persephone and annoyingly they continue to not be a thing for the rest of Gaia’s matriarchy.

Speaking of our next Matriarch I suddenly became acutely aware that Gaia was approaching retirement. The rules state that the youngest daughter has to continue the challenge as the new Matriarch once their mother has become an elder. If only it had been Aphrodite… At that moment Artemis was the youngest daughter but Gaia had another baby on the way and enough time to have another one. Ideally the next Matriarch would be Gaia’s final baby then you have a nice gap where everyone else gradually gets out of the house, there’s a break where there’s no babies and you can just focus on the Matriarch’s development.

The next Matriarch?

The baby was born and unfortunately it was a boy, named Apollo. Gaia was straight on it finding a new victim ASAP and I crossed my fingers… I was working on Artemis already just in case, getting her good grades and getting her skills up nice and high. Also letting her have some fun though, she potentially has quite a life ahead of her, let’s give her a fun childhood.

Next baby was born and it was… Another boy! Crap. This was Hephaestus. So… Artemis, the maiden Goddess who in mythology is chaste and virtuous, is going to be the next Matriarch. Ironic. On top of that she has 2 younger siblings that won’t be moving out before she’s started the challenge. Not the best outcome but never mind. Time was up and Gaia aged up into an elder.

Silver Fox!

Good news for Gaia though, she just needs to enjoy her retirement now. I think she did pretty well in her Matriarchy career with 13 kids. Or at least I thought I did until I watched an episode of Single Girl’s stream of this challenge (which inspired me to do it) where her first matriarch becomes an elder and she had 33 kids!!! WHAT?!?!?! HOW?! Maybe I let Gaia rest too much. I was too concerned with making her happy. Honestly that depressed me a bit. My girl doesn’t even have half that amount of children… I’m going to be really mature and say that Single Girl owns way more expansion packs than me, therefore she has more stuff so maybe it’s easier, and she got incredibly lucky with twins. That’s totally it, right? Also my PS4 is really struggling with this game sometimes and it bugs out quite a lot… I do wish I had a gaming PC for it instead but nevermind.

My future Matriarch needed a new look…

Much better

To sour my mood even more and make me want to curl up into a ball on the floor and reevaluate my choices in life I decided to calculate, based on Gaia’s 13 kids, how long it would take me to get to 100 babies… 7.5 GENERATIONS! … I can’t do that… I have to step it up… Is teen pregnancy a thing in the Sims?  Oh no…

Gaia is finally having a great time now that she is unburdened with upcoming children and men

Baby count: 13/100

• Zeus
• Hera
• Demeter
• Persephone
• Poseidon
• Hecate
• Aphrodite
• Athena
• Boreas
• Hades
• Artemis
• Apollo
• Hephaestus

Episode 6 →

100 Baby Challenge – Episode 3: Fire and Death

← Episode 2

Today is a baby-free post. There’s 7 in the house which means no room for twins/triplets so the focus was on making everyone happy, building relationships with future victims and getting some desperately needed money coming in (current household total $57 with bills of nearly $400).

Making everyone happy is my biggest struggle in this challenge, I know they don’t have to be but it makes everything so much easier when they are. Unfortunately, I seem to be cursed with bad luck where whenever the household is feeling particularly good something will go wrong and unleash a chain of unfortunate events. This was a particularly bad one.

It all started when Zeus put the entire challenge in peril by setting fire to himself. If a teen dies then I lose the challenge and I have put WAY too much time into this challenge at this point to be taken out by a house fire. He managed to extinguish himself but was understandably rather tense and upset about the situation… As was everyone else.

When you’re on fire but you really want those scrambled eggs…

It took a while for everyone to get over it. We ran out of money replacing the oven he’d destroyed and got the power shut off which really didn’t help anyone’s fun levels and meant Gaia couldn’t make any money programming. I really should have gone down the artist route there. She might not have made as much money but she’d have been able to do it whatever the state of the electricity and it would have increased her fun levels too.

My gorgeous girl, Hera in her Winter best

Luckily, it was Harvestfest (see also Thanksgiving) which we don’t do in the UK, but apparently it’s when gnomes invade your home and break all your stuff if they don’t like you but give you seeds if you appease them. We appeased the hell out of those gnomes and they gave us lots of seed packets that we sold, and then we sold the gnomes, which gave us enough to get the power back on.

I thought everything was sorted, we had some spare cash, Hera was now a GORGEOUS teenager with a good job (seriously look at her. I don’t think I could have made a prettier Sim if I tried), and everyone was actually pretty happy!

Gaia decided to make a big meal for everyone to celebrate and invited over a group of potential victims to chat up. Not to seduce just yet, we’re still biding our time there, just to see who she has the best relationship with. She invited over Don Lothario, Simeon (he’s incredibly unattractive but is also a sage at the magic school so I assume his offspring would have that similar Ancient Bloodline trait that Hecate has), and blond guy. I didn’t realise that Simeon is an elder now at this point! What?? Maybe we won’t resort to that, there are other sages after all. He seemed to be enjoying himself anyway so no worries you can stay for some food. Suddenly, with no warning, he falls to the floor and DIES. WHAT?!?!?!?!

Everyone is just stood around eating eggs and bacon and this guy is lying there dead in the middle of them. The Grim Reaper shows up and everyone (understandably) suddenly freaks out and starts crying. There goes the happy moods everyone was in.

Thanks Simeon, this is going to take them ages to get over. We can’t even sell his urn which is now just on the kitchen side being useless. What do I do with it? It’s just there and it’s not like anyone in the house was particularly close to him. Awkward.

Gaia was having a pretty good chat with the Grim Reaper though and I had the sudden realisation that the name Hades was still available and how awesome would it be if he could literally be the son of death… You can flirt with the Grim Reaper after all, maybe you can have a baby with it/him/her?

Power through the sadness, Gaia

She spent a bit of time chatting but I decided to Google if it was actually possible as I can’t really waste any time on this challenge, I’m already on a child break as it is. Turns out you can’t have the Grim Reaper’s children. Damn, that would have been a good.

It really did take a while for everyone to get over Simeon dying but eventually they did and we had some birthday parties! Poseidon, Persephone, and Demeter all aged up! Poseidon into a child and Persephone and Demeter into teens. We now have 4 teen incomes! Thanks to the randomised traits Persephone and Demeter were given some interesting personalities. Demeter is a lone wolf who has the Popularity aspiration of being a comedy queen and Persephone is an insane music lover intent on finding her soulmate. That will be fun.

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Demeter and Persephone (and Simeon in the background)

Finally, with Zeus nearly a young adult, which means he can move out, I decided to try and time the next birth with his birthday. Gaia invited Victim 6: Don Lothario (famous Sim Romantic) round and child number 7 was on the way. The names Cupid or Aphrodite are being reserved for this baby, inspired by the father.

Things we learned

• Can’t have the Grim Reaper’s children
• Except for Hera all children have been automatically given a dreadlock-based hairstyle at some point… There are so many different ones and they keep giving them the same ones??
• Gaia had red hair so almost everyone had red hair, now she’s blonde which means her new kids are too. Seems the dads’ genetics don’t have a huge amount of say (Hera again being the one exception)

Child count: 6/100

• Zeus
• Hera
• Demeter
• Persephone
• Poseidon
• Hecate

Episode 4 →