Ah, The Sims 2. Is there any better way of manipulating your friends and enemies into doing ridiculous things without causing any long-term damage to them, yourself, or the universe at large? I can't think of one.

In fact, it occurs to me that we have a pretty close-knit Internet community here at LazarusWorld. Several of us jumped over here from The Bad Boys of Computer Science when it shut down, which speaks volumes to me about friendship. More than anyone who jumps ship because the other kids in school convince him I'm a tool. (FACED, Geoff Severtson, first grade.)

I'm pretty sure just about everyone else in this group who's ever played The Sims has made a house with us as its family. So today, I blaze new ground by becoming the first to actually post it on our Web site. I know, I know, several people have already done it better, but none of them had a tentacle monster or a vampire goddess.

Hi. I'm Endy, your host on this magical mystery tour. Some know me as "Iron Chef Endy," and indeed I tried to get the apron on as custom clothing, but, you know, the body shop can only do so much. There are default shapes for the clothing, so even if you modify the crap out of the image files you still get the apron bib following the shape of the jacket lapels. You'll see what I mean later.

Meet Kris, aka "the girl." Why is there only one girl? Well, two reasons.

1. See where it says "computer science" up in the title bar? That doesn't have the draw on the ladies you'd think it would.
   
2. Because the rest of you are slackers. There is more than one girl on the board, and I know a lot of them read my LiveJournal (where I cross-posted about this project) and yet they still didn't respond to get in. Lame.

Please notice the awesome band t-shirt, which I made because I care.

This is Tony. Well, technically we're all Tony. Our charter as a bulletin board states that all members are automatically Asian Tonys. So I'll refer to this one as KC, short for KellysCappuccino, the longest-ass handle on the entire board. (OK, except OptimusMiddleFinger.) Tony is Kris's big brother, and though that's a figurative statement outside the Internet realm, I went ahead and gave them that sibling link in the game.

Here's Q99, one of our most frequent contributors to the front page. I wasn't able to get him exactly right -- his hair is longer than this, but this is the only male 'do with tied-back hair. If I'd thought about it, I probably could have ported over a female ponytail, except that might have been too bouncy and full of body. I'd call Q my "arch-rival" in terms of posting frequency, except he already got sick of the rivalry he had with KC. Plus he actually posts a lot more, I just make flippant replies.

Mr.Gray is our token poster from down under. He's a pretty serious basketball player, so I'd initially wanted to give him a jersey, but imagine my dismay when all the separate shorts had dorky socks and dress shoes attached to them. And I couldn't for the life of me make that hat turn around backward. At least he got a sweet wetsuit for working out.

Here's where things take a turn for the weird. Laz is our tentacle monster, but if I had trouble with an apron and a hat I sure as hell wasn't gonna be able to make a tentacle. So I settled for the green skin and purple hair. This was actually a lot easier to do in Photoshop than I thought it would be. Come to think of it, I might even have been able to apply some suckers to the undersides of his arms. Blast my awful timing!

I've never actually seen Liquid-X in real life, and what little I know about him relates to the sites he likes to link (often porn). This representation comes from another defunct Web comic called Idle Banter, based on the IRC channel of the same name. None of us actually frequent #IB anymore, but hey, it's the best I got.

Log was a little trickier. I mean, how do you take an avatar that's a section of tree and represent it as a human? Best I could do was find a wood-grain image and overlay it on the body skin. I know it looks a little freaky, but if you think of it as wood and not as the ugliest set of varicose veins you ever saw, it's easier to take.

Family portraits suck. Here's the one thing I really wish I could have done with this game -- change heights. You'll notice that Mr.Gray is the same height as Kris-chan, and that just ain't realistic -- he's more than a foot taller. If I missed it, feel free to slap me in the head with a comment. Yes, I know Endy's and KC's outfits are exactly the same. Shut up. I never should have come here.

As we're forever talking about zombie attacks, alien encounters and conspiracy theory in the forum, I thought it only made sense to buy a lot in Strangetown. But, then again, not too close to the neighbors.

Although, ideally, there'd be an actual house where we plan to live.

Experience with The Sims has taught me that the bare minimum my little guys need is food, comfort, light, a place to sleep, entertainment, and a way to remove stinkiness. Though I guess it wouldn't kill me to put, like, walls and a roof too.

It ain't much, but it's home.

Join us next time, when somebody actually does something.

Posted by Endymion at February 17, 2005 10:58 AM