The Sims has been around for 22 years now, with even the fourth, and most recent, numbered entry being a venerable eight years old. My first time playing the original was a communal experience in the sixth form common room, crowded around a friend’s laptop. We created a replica of said common room, populated it with facsimiles of friends and mostly left them to their own devices. One of them forgot where the toilet was and peed himself, then cried about it.
The Sims 2? Not sure if I even played it. I was 21 when it was released in 2004 and, like much of my life back then, the memories are a bit fuzzy.
Number three meanwhile was inspirational. Not so much the game itself, although many would say it’s the high point of the series, but the writing about it. Robin Burkinshaw’s “Alice and Kev”, a blog chronicling the adventures of a homeless Sim and his daughter, really struck a chord and inspired me to try my hand at something similar. (It was rubbish.)
About Author
