Dates & Dentures: Day 1

Welcome back to Date & Dentures; gameplay starts in this post. If you haven't already, check out the introductions for our bachelorette and contestants here.

I'd like to begin by saying I'm fairly new to playing challenges in the sims 4. I don't know if there's any official ruleset for doing it in 4, but the ones I found on google didn't seem particularly great. Since I'm pretty familiar with how this challenge works in 2, I decided to follow this ruleset as best I could, and adapt it for 4's gameplay where needed.

I ended up doing two runs of this challenge, because halfway through the first one I realized the way I was approaching interactions was throwing off my scores. This gameplay is from my second run, after I figured out the best method for those group dates and one-on-ones.

That said, onto the challenge!

My game plan for playing this group was to keep Regan as my active sim, and do a round of checks on the contestants every so often to make sure they were taking care of themselves. I was not going to issue her any commands, outside of taking care of her own needs, and whatever social interactions were needed for the dates/group hang outs.

To keep everyone running on the same schedule, I set a mandatory bedtime, which was whatever time Regan went to bed at. I figured this would prevent any sims from ending up on weird schedules and interfering with the timing of group activities.

I used Hound's Head in Brindleton Bay as their 'retirement' home/bachelor pad, keeping most of the layout the same. I redecorated it with some nicer furniture, and more activities they could do in groups.

The first floor contained a kitchen, a dining room and bar, one bathroom, a small gym, and a living room that I hoped they'd use as their main gathering space. The patio had a table set up with Don't Wake the Llama, and there's 2 hot tubs and a pool out of frame.

The second floor contained all the bedrooms - one for the ladies, one for the gents, and a master bedroom for Regan - 5 bathrooms, a private room for one-on-one dates, and a secret room of victory for the end of the challenge.

Day One:

Most of the contestants started gathering in the living room as I hoped, and Regan waltzed in shortly after with a glass of wine.

The sims 2 ruleset has no scheduled activities for the first day, so they were free to wander about and do whatever they pleased.

Regan ignored the living room gathering, in favour of heading outside for the llama table. She was promptly yelled at by Allen, who then left the table. Sadie left quickly after.

Regan sat down for a game anyways, and was joined by Geoffery and Barbara, who are clearly much smarter than Allen and Sadie. 

They spent a few hours playing outside, which gave them an early headstart with Regan. 

Glen, being the active sim that he is, was the first to hop on the exercise equipment. Now, the discord warned me that this was probably a bad idea with elders, and I ignored that warning because death would make for a pretty exciting elimination.

He got tired almost immediately, because sims 4 elders are about as fragile as a piece of tissue paper.

Sidenote, I am not looking forward to playing my Paraneighbours as elders; poor Jeff lives for his treadmill.

The other contestants mingled amongst themselves as the game of Don't Wake the Llama continued, some in more reasonable places than others.

Hunger bars were starting to drop, so I had Regan prepare a group meal for the house, and then call everyone in to grab a serving.

Despite being dangerously exhausted, Glen nabbed one of the three seats at the elusive island bar, along with Sadie. The rest of the contestants were left to eat their lunch in other, less desirable places, as sims tend to do anyways.

Since these sims in particular were garbage at starting group conversations, I decided I would have Regan initiate one friendly social with whichever sims were sitting next to her, both during meals, and when they all decide to gather around the tv, hot tub, etc.

From there, I'd leave it up to the sims to keep the conversation going.

There was a bit of free time after lunch, during which Barbara and Jermaine initiated a little bit of conversation with Regan.

Everyone started getting pretty sleepy after that, so mandatory bedtime was put into effect.

Once Regan woke up, I slowly began to wake up the other contestants one at a time, for their first one-on-one date. 

I instructed her to do one 'flirt' with each of them, to start working towards the romantic relationship bar.

Allen was unimpressed.

The other 7 contestants, however, all accepted the interaction. Glen's missing from the pictures, but I know he accepted because I took note of the success rate for dates on my phone. :P

After their dates, Regan went down to the kitchen to prep their breakfast. I used this time to make sure all the contestants had taken a shower, and used the toilet.

It's like the sim equivalent of the 'make sure you use the bathroom before we leave' move you pull on children.

Regan is prone to bouts of evil laughter, which are especially ominous during meal prep.

Has anything good ever come out of someone laughing manically over your breakfast? Probably not.

I decided that at least one meal a day would be eaten in the dining room, where all 7 of the contestants would have a chance to socialize with Regan.

Of course, sims are sims, so at least 2 of them decided they'd still rather eat elsewhere.

One of them was Allen, which was a poor decision because he's definitely on the chopping block after his first date.

He did clear the dishes, but sadly chores do not earn you brownie points in this household.

Glen didn't earn any brownie points with his push-ups, either. He did, however, exhaust himself from the effort.

A+ effort, Glen.

Everyone gathered in the living room after breakfast, where Allen then decided to yell at poor Barbara for seemingly no reason.

He could've at least saved his anger for Glen, who was blocking the television.

Noon rolled around, and Allen was the first one eliminated, to no one's surprise.

I can't find the screenshot of it, but he texted Regan immediately after moving out to ask her on a date. A bold move that did not pay off.

To prevent any more date shenanigans in the future, I decided to clear the previous contestant from Regan's relationships.