It's time for the promised spin-off rotation for Andy!
I waffled over who to choose for the StrangerVille mystery for a bit, because I had a few sims who I thought would be a good fit.
Persephone was my first choice, because it would give her a reason to move out on her own, but she wasn't really the type to solve a mystery.
Then I considered Alec, who was a much better fit since he was a vampire hunter (finally, something for him to hunt besides vampires!). He already had a lot going on though, considering I needed him to finish his career, aspiration, and he had still yet to open the restaurant that I had initially set as his main goal.
Finally, that left Andy, who was as equally good fit, since she was at the top of the science career and had just completed her City Native aspiration. Finishing both of the location aspirations seemed like a good goal for her, so she (obviously) ended up being my pick.
She begins her StrangerVille adventure in the trailer park lot, because it really seems like it was designed specifically for this purpose. Also, it's very cute.
The welcom wagon showed up the next day, and apparently they leave you some ~special gifts~ if you invite them in and stick around long enough, but sadly I did not realize that, so they didn't leave anything for Andy. :(
Instead I ended up sending her to the curio stand, which this random townie was running. I was supremely disappointed, because I had been expecting Erwin.
Turns out Andy's In the Know discount from finishing her City Native aspiration applies to this shop as well! So she gets a big discount on all the new items, which is great.
The game prompts her to buy 5 items, so I picked up all the books, because they seemed like the most useful item. Also, the bizarre fruit.
The next prompt in the aspiration sends her to the secret lab, where she needs to investigate the sealed door.
After she investigates said door, she's prompted to compile a dossier of evidence, so she goes around rifling through stacks of secret documents, hacking computers, and taking a couple pictures.
She also helps herself to some chicken nuggets from their kitchen, because she was getting a little hungry.
There isn't quite enough evidence at the secret lab for Andy to compile a full dossier, so she heads back into town to plant some bugs on some unsuspecting scientists, and military personnel.
Once she's got her evidence dossier finished, she sends it in to some sort of secret hacking group on the computer.
There's a few different ways to get a keycard in StrangerVille, and I like that it depends on what skill set your sim has. Andy's got a high programming skill, which is what unlocked this for her, but it looks like she could have also requesitionied one from the military if she had a high enough rank, or gotten one from the curio shop if she had traded her evidence in there.
Her keycard arrives in the mail the next day, and she's ready to open up that sealed door!
Unfortunately she's not able to go very far, without needing a hazmat suit. I suppose I could have sent her down anyways to see what would have happened, but it didn't seem like anything good would come of it. :P
Opening up the door kicks off the next stage of infection, which comes with some delightful atmospheric effects!
This is actually very pretty, it would be kind of fun to use an infected StrangerVille as an apocalypse save, if I ever hated myself enough to try playing an apocalypse.
Her next task is to obtain an infection scanner, which she scores from some military dude by doing some push ups.
After she gets the scanner, she's supposed to scan around the plants to find spores, and it takes me way too long to realize you should be scanning plants around the secret lab if you want to find more than one spore at a time.
I did discover that you can nurture the plants to get bizarre fruit, and kick them (jsut for funsies, I guess) while I was having her wander around town and scanning plants there.
Erwin! I don't know where the random townie lady went, but I don't care. Erwin is here and he's taken over as the rightful owner of the curio stand.
Andy uses her alien powers to detect his personality, which I am sure he appreciated very much.
Not sure what the crazy colander hat is supposed to be protecting him from, exactly, but clearly it's not much use against aliens. ;)
Sink plant! Again, I love the little details the town has as the infection spreads.
She manages to collect five spores once I figure out that the game wants you to look for them around the secret lab. She then needs to make some sort of profile of the spores in the lab, and take them to a scientist so they can invent a filter for her.
She finds another scientist back at the bar, and after chattign him up a bit he agrees to send her the finished spore filter in the mail.
She does need a hazmat suit to go with the filter, though, and apparently you get that from the curio shop.
Erwin is missing again, and some other townie has taken his place. Maybe he left after he realized his special conspiracy hat was useless against aliens.
I wish the town was a little bigger - it'd be nice to have a couple more community lots - but it's really gorgeous. It gives me
Welcome to Night Vale vibes, especially with the scientists wandering about, which I love.
Like with the keycard, her spore filter arrives in the mail the next day, so she heads off to the lab once more to assemble her suit, and explore the lower floors of the lab.
Now, you have an option to try fighting the plant, or communicate with it, so I had Andy talk to the plant, because it seemed like the most Andy option of the two.
Any woman who befriends a raccoon thinking it's a cat would also attempt to befriend a large plant.
It gives her a bizarre fruit once she's built up a bit of a friendship with it, and I have her accept a couple more, because you seem to need the fruits in order to make a vaccine.
Outside the lab, things are really starting to kick off.
She has enough spores and fruit to create one vaccine before she leaves, however she still needs to complete another two before she can progress any further.
I sent her back home at this point to take care of some needs, and let the spore scanner recharge.
In order to reach the boss fighting stage you need to cure three sims, but you also need to recruit three sims to help you fight the monster. Now, I was really hoping I could have her team up with Alec, but it turns out you can only recruit sims that you have cured.
So, I did what any logical person would do.
I had her pull out her sim ray, and attempted to brainwash Alec into eating one of the bizarre fruits. Sadly, the eat option only makes them prepare some new food, so I had to try something else.
She gifted him some fruits instead, and then invited Miko over to give her one as well.
I then switched over to Miko, and had her eat the fruit. :)
Miko leaves as Jeff arrives, and he is entirely unfazed by Miko's exit.
Once everyone had consumed the fruit, I switched back to Andy, and had her start the vaccination process.
I was hoping it would cure them but apparently you have to test it out on multiple sims first?
So she cured Alec, and then Jeff, and then had to wander outside to track down Miko, who took off running as soon as she left the trailer.
It took a bit, but Andy did manage to find her wife, and administer the last test vaccine.
Thankfully, you only need to test it on three sims before the game allows you to create the final vaccination, so I had Andy travel back to the lab to make these three a proper cure.
It takes her a little bit to finish, because she needed to wait for the
scanner to recharge in between collecting spores, but she manages to
create another three.
>
With her vaccines at the ready, she invites over her team of recruits to give them their cures, and have them join the fight.
Jeff insists that he feels fine now, really, but his face says otherwise.
It's go time!
Alec unfortunately got his ass kicked by one of the infected townies that roam around the plant, which was a little surprising because he has a very high fitness skill.
I wonder if the level of infection of your team factors in to whether they win the fight.
She lost the first fight, and then game suggested I craft more vaccines to fight the monster with. I hadn't even realized that you could fight the monster with vaccines, so maybe I should have waited a little before jumping straight into the boss fight...
Andy recuperates at home, and takes another day to collect spores, harvest fruit, and create a few more vaccines at the lab.
She then gathers up her team again, and they all look like they're back to normal now, thankfully.
I was a little concerned that Jeff and Alec were going to be stuck with the possessed faces, but they seem to have fixed themselves when I loaded their household to check in on them.
Success!
Jeff got taken out by one of the townies (Really, game? Have you
seen Jeff?), but they defeated the mother plant on their second attempt! Having the extra vaccines to throw at it definitely helped.
Andy finished the StrangerVille mystery aspiration, and earned herself the Hero of StrangerVille trait, which allows her to recount her heroic tale to other sims, and it also means she gets shitty fan mail delivered to her house every day, for the rest of her life.
It's more of a curse than a blessing, really.
With that, Andy gets to return to her wife and kids in San Myshuno. She got to enjoy having both of the location aspirations completed for about a day, and then I got Island Living and that added a third one.
I don't think I'll be able to have her finish that one though, because I know one of the requirements is to get a tan, and aliens can't tan, sadly. :(
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