Once all goals have been met you can age all the toddlers up to children all at once.
Rules:
The household starts with nothing on an empty lot (use cheats to set funds to zero; i.e. ‘testingcheats on’ or ‘testingcheats true’, then ‘money 0’ )
No cheats or mods for needs or to add money. Can use cheats to reset sims when they are stuck.
Must bring all the toddlers with you if you travel off the home lot (wandering around the neighbourhood is fine).
Aging should be on long or off.
Can hire services, including a nanny.
Can use lot traits and if you have Tiny Living you can build the house as tiny residential lot (may change to regular lot if wish).
Caregiver cando freelance work. If choose to be a freelance artist, you can’t accept gigs that require you to leave the lot; cancel gig if you accidentally accept one.
Can’t modify community lots to add things you need; however, you can add toddler items to them once you have provided them at home.
If have Seasons, it’s your choice as to whether you have weather/temperature effects on or off.
Challenge is considered a fail if any toddlers are taken away.
While it is considered a challenge fail if you have a toddler taken away you could try an easier ‘version’ of the challenge and keep going! In this case the challenge is to see how many toddlers you still have when you meet all three of the goals, the more toddlers you have to age up to children at the end, the better.😊
Here’s a closer look at the toddlers and their mom, including their names and traits:
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
If you’d like to play along with the same family on and the same starting lot, the family will be starting on Tranquil Crescent in the Llama Lagoon neighbourhood of Newcrest and I have uploaded them to the gallery under my Origin ID MapleSimmer. 😊 https://tinyurl.com/yawemswm
Alternatively, you can come join my Facebook group and share how you do in this challenge, or in anything sims related, be it sim creation, sim builds or your sims stories &/or challenges! It’s also a great place to ask any sim related questions, including questions about this or other challenges, that either I, or other members can try to answer. Sims Sanctuary
Your sim, or sims, start with nothing on an empty lot and the goal is to become ‘rich’. You can define what ‘rich’ is, just set this up front. I often have at least one sim complete the fortune aspiration, which means they need to earn 200,000.
Note ‘Rags to Riches’ is often referred to as ‘R2R’.
How Do You Start With Nothing?
Using cheats, first open the cheats console to turn cheats on
‘testingcheats on’ or ‘testingcheats true’
Then type ‘money 0’
If you do not want to use cheats, add your sim to an existing household or create an extra sim you don’t plan on using. Move them into an existing lot (it can have a home) and then use the ‘split from household’ option and make sure the sim moving has enough money + 1 simoleon for an empty lot (the two cheapest lots in Newcrest are 1,500, so give them 1,501). See my updated tutorial on splitting from households if you’d like to see it in action: https://youtu.be/mbA0BLEL
Frequently Asked Questions (‘FAQ’):
Can your sim have a job? Usually not to start with, and I generally find sims make more money collecting, etc than a low-level, rabbit hole career. A good time for a sim to get a job is once you’ve built them a starting home.
Does the challenge require the use of mods? The use of mods is not required and if you want to use mods (or custom content), it’s recommended not to use any that will give you an advantage over someone not using them (i.e. create a sim custom content would have no impact however furniture custom content that is less expensive than it’s in game content, especially if it has higher stats would give an advantage).
How many sims do you start with? That is up to you, most people start with one, though I sometimes start with more than one, it depends on what I’m trying to do with the challenge.
Is there a specified age for your starting sim (or sims)? Again, that is up to you. You will need a teen or older to create a valid household in Sims 4. I often start with a teen and to make it harder, make them go to school so they have less time each day to earn money.😊
What lifespan should you use? That is up to you, you can use short, normal, long or turn aging off.
Can you use cheats for needs? No, since one of the goals of the challenge is to see if your sim can survive when starting with nothing.
How does your sim survive with nothing? Re: earning money, I find it’s best to start with fishing and collecting to try and get money & when you can find some harvestables, start a garden. You can also take photos and sell that into your inventory. Re: looking after themselves, sims can sleep on benches, eat produce, or cook on the BBQs in the world after you sell something from collecting. I will have more details in my separate video on this. 😊
Can I add things to community lots to help my sim? The general rule is no, especially if it is something that doesn’t make sense it should be there. I do often add a potty chair since usually in real life a toddler can use a toilet with help.
Can my sims visit sims’ houses to help meet their needs? Generally, no, though I have seen some R2R challenges where they can do so once a week if they are good friends. Though usually sims will ask your sim to leave unless they have the ‘always welcome’ trait.
Can I keep the money a sim brings when they move into my home? Usually no since the goal is to earn the money, not to bring it into the household when you add another sim. To accomplish this, you will either have to make sure the sim you are moving in lives with another sim who is teen or older or if they don’t, make sure to choose the option ‘sell furniture’ and use cheats to reset the household funds to where they were before they moved in (see cheats from how to set funds to zero when starting)
Impact of different packs on the R2R challenge? I’m working on doing R2R video tutorials by pack for any packs that impact on the challenge, including how to survive with the impact of weather that comes with Seasons. These videos will be added to the playlist linked at the top of this page as they get released.
As you may have gathered from the answers to the FAQ, the general idea is that if something makes it easier, usually you don’t do it. That said, it’s your game and your challenge, so it needs to suit you and the main goal is to have fun!
Suggestions for Additional Rules or Goals to Add to Make it More Challenging:
Add the lot trait ‘off the grid’ and have your sims earn and ‘pay’ (using cheats’) the value of the lot to ‘connect to the grid’
Don’t let your sims travel from their starting neighbourhood until they have a predetermined amount of funds (e.g. 1,000, as used in the ‘Drifter Challenge’)
Make it more challenging;
only let your sims earn money from predetermined things. e.g. writing, programming, fishing, gardening, music. Some things let your sims earn more money than others. When I do this, I usually set a predetermined amount that sims can earn money from other things once they’ve reached that goal as I don’t like to be limited in what my sims can do/earn money from.
Don’t let your sims sell things into their inventory (examples that work with that are writing, programming, music. Also, if you have certain packs you can sell things from retail (Get to Work), yard sale table (City Living/Jungle Adventures) or the Street Gallery (City Living)
These are just guidelines for the basic concept of the challenge and some tweaks you can do to make it your own.
Alternatively, you can come join my Facebook group and share how you do in this challenge, or in anything sims related, be it sim creation, sim builds or your sims stories &/or challenges! It’s also a great place to ask any sim related questions, including questions about rags to riches or other challenges, that either I, or other members can try to answer. Sims Sanctuary
Challenge and Playlist Links:
There are a couple of challenges, such as Rosebud and the Rags to Riches Mega Challenge that have more details and rules and others that use the concept which I’ll link below. I also have a number of Rags to Riches Challenges Let’s Plays which I will also link below.
Nomad Challenge (you can start with a couple or a single sim who start with nothing & they can’t buy/build anything that’s not portable until the first collection is completed, this requires Outdoor Retreat. The overall goal is to complete all the collections, over as many generations as it takes, and build a museum on the lot to house it. This includes having a perfect garden with at least one of each type of plant.): https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/811827/nomad-challenge-requires-outdoor-retreat
If you are moving your sim out of an existing lot and would like to know how much money they need to buy any starting (ie less than 20k simoleons) or empty lots, here are some screenshots with that information as well as some information re what is in the neighborhoods that can be useful if you are planning on doing a Rags to Riches challenge.
Keep in mind that if you want your sim to move into an empty lot they will need the value of the lot plus 1 simoleon as the game won’t allow them to move in with the exact amount. If your sims are moving into a lot with anything of value of it, this includes landscaping, they will be able to move in with the exact value.
Keep in mind that for both Willow Creek and Oasis Springs the Commercial Districts have fishing, playground area and barbecues in the common, ie surrounding, area. Oasis Springs even has a public bathroom in the common area.
Willow Creek:
Pendula View has a playground with public barbecues & public bathrooms in it’s neighbourhood as well as a community garden to the left of the empty Hallow Slough lot.
Courtyard Lane has public barbecues.
Foundry Cove has the tree that will give you access to Sylvan Glade (see my video tutorial for more information: https://youtu.be/vk0MKwM151I)
The surrounding neighourhood of Magnolia Blossom Park has barbecues by the water at the back and a public bathroom at the front of the park.
All neighbourhoods have fishing and collectibles including plants you can harvest if you stay in the neighbourhood long enough (and if it’s the correct season if you have Seasons).
Oasis Springs:
Parched Prospect has a little park with playground equipment for children, but none of the neighbourhoods in Oasis Springs have public bathrooms.
Both Bedrock Strait and Skyward Palms has fishing, Bedrock Strait also has a community garden with barbecues.
Acquisition Butte has a portal to the Hidden Grotto, Desert Bloom Park has a matching portal, however both portals need to be unlocked by a sim with level 10 handiness (see my video tutorial for more information on the Hidden Grotto: https://youtu.be/vP6Ib7ahlPI )
The surrounding neighourhood of Desert Bloom Park has barbecues and a public bathroom at the back of the park. It has fishing to the side and back of the park.
All neighbourhoods have collectibles including plants you can harvest if you stay in the neighbourhood long enough (and if it’s the correct season if you have Seasons).
Newcrest:
Llama Lagoon has fishing, two sets of public bathrooms, one of which is at the playground with monkey bars and public barbecues, a jungle gym on the water between Twin Oracle Point and Rippling Flats and another public barbecue behind Tranquil Crescent.
Ridgeline Drive has no fishing but it does have a public barbecue area.
Bridgeview has one fishing spot and a playground with monkey bars and public barbecues.
All neighbourhoods have collectibles including plants you can harvest if you stay in the neighbourhood long enough (and if it’s the correct season if you have Seasons).
The Drifter Challenge is a challenge created by the lovely Vihisha Tak’Nai and if you plan to do all, or most of the challenge, you start with both Willow Creek and Oasis Springs empty, ie you delete all the lots from those two worlds (one exception, if you have Dine Out you can add one restaurant to the museum lot in Oasis Springs).
The challenge can be thought of as a generation challenge as well as a building challenge, with each generation, or ‘house’, starting with no money on an empty lot and each ‘house’ having its own set of goals. As you meet certain goals over the generations, or ‘houses’ as they are called, you can also start adding certain community lots (which you can build, download from the gallery or add back the original lots if you’ve saved them in your library).
The only way I’ve ever managed to play for multiple generations is when playing the Drifter Challenge.😊 I find it to be a great way to examine a lot of different elements in the game, and you can skip any generation you do not want to do. Alternatively you can just do any house as a stand alone challenge; each house’s rules explain how to start each house, both if you are continuing or doing it as a stand alone challenge, along with the goals and rules for each house.
As an added challenge for most houses you can only control your main sim, ie the ‘Drifter’, apart from a few exceptions, one main one being aging up on a cake (and before we had the ability to assign beds, claiming beds was allowed). However, there are some houses where that varies and you can control more than one sim. In all cases each house always indicates who can be controlled.
Alternatively, you can come join my new Facebook group and share how you do in this challenge, or in anything sims related, be it sim creation, sim builds or your sims stories &/or challenges! It’s also a great place to ask any sim related questions, including questions about Drifter or other challenges, that either I or other members can try to answer. Sims Sanctuary
I have been doing this challenge on my YouTube channel and I am currently on House 6; as I start individual houses I will add links to each playlist and a summary of the goals for each house here. 😊
Starting Lot: Sultry Springside, Oasis Springs (30×20) Controllable Sims: Drifter * (heir from prior house) (*main exception is directing non controlled sims to ‘eat cake’ on the cow plant, see goal 4 below)
After living a fairly sheltered life, our new drifter Charity Driver returns to her grandmother’s world of Oasis Spring to start her first day with nothing in an empty neighborhood.
Here are the challenges facing Charity:
To max both the fishing and gardening skill.
At a minimum, build a 2 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom Home worth at least $40k Simoleons (after Depreciation)
Complete the Angling Ace Aspiration,
Raise a cow plant and collect five unique essences, and
Produce and raise an Heir to the Young Adult life stage; this Heir will become the Main Sim in the 4th House Mini-Challenge.
Starting Lot: Riverside Roost, Willow Creek (30×20) Controllable Sims: Drifter (heir from prior house)
After living a sheltered life, our new drifter Dominique Driver returns to her grandmother’s world of Willow Creek to start her first day with nothing in an empty neighborhood. She is fascinated by aliens, since her grandfather was abducted late in life and came back pregnant with her aunt Bridget.
Here are the challenges facing her:
To max the scientist career (if you don’t own Get to Work (‘GTW’) you can instead max the astronaut career).
At a minimum to build a 2 Bedroom, 1 Bathroom Home worth at least $50k Simoleons (after Depreciation)
To achieve level 10 of the Rocket Science skill
To travel to space and bring back 3 unique Space Rocks or Aliens *If you own GTW, items acquired from Sixam count
To Befriend and Move In a Co-Worker (*If you own GTW, you may befriend and move in an Alien instead, so this will be my goal)
Produce and raise an Heir to the Young Adult life stage; this Heir will become the Main Sim in the 5th House Mini-Challenge.
Sims have been added to the world from the following creators (*Origin ID at time they were added):
EuphorialQueen ndsmith1689 gamersims101 mistycleo nikinicole1234 Siriusly_Black20 (uses CC eyelashes) Mewsage86 KristalSparrow Lisabeesims Rogueokie and The Smith Family by Maxis
Starting Lot: Arid Ridge, Oasis Springs (40×30) Controllable Sims: Drifter (heir from prior house) and Secondary Sim (newly created)
After living a sheltered life, our new drifter Emmeline Driver along with our secondary sim Edward Quin, returns to her grandmother’s neighbourhood in Oasis Spring to start her first day with nothing.
Here are the challenges facing them:
Max the painter career (Lvl 10) for both sims: (Drifter: Patron of The Arts branch Secondary Sim: Master of The Real branch)
Achieve level 5 of the Photography Skill on either Playable Sim
Complete the Photography Treasure Hunt *A completed collection should yield a total of 10 photos with all items and colors used only once
As a minimum create a 3 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom home worth at least $100k Simoleons (after depreciation)
Produce & raise The Heir to the Young Adult life stage; this Heir will become the Main Sim in the 6th House Mini-Challenge.
Starting Lot: Oakenstead, Willow Creek (50×50) Controllable Sims: All Sims, starting with the Drifter (heir from prior house) and Secondary Sim (newly created)
After living a sheltered life, our new drifter Fleur Driver along with our secondary sim Felix Juno, returns to her grandmother’s world of Willow Creek with the goal of building a mansion after starting with nothing* ; how will they fare?
Here are the challenges facing them:
As a minimum create a house worth at least 350k simoleons, must include a total of 8 beds (at least one needs to be a double)
Complete the Mansion Baron Aspiration**
Produce & raise The Heir to the Young Adult life stage; this Heir will become the Main Sim in the 7th House Mini-Challenge.
(* Three starting options: Standard – start with 100k, Difficult – start with 50k, Extreme – start with nothing)
**Upon completing Goal 2, access to the following Lot type has been unlocked: Nightclub Lots Those playing the full 24 house challenge may now place a Nightclub Lot on Blue Velvet in Willow Creek world
The winning bachelor will join our heir from house 6, Gabrielle Driver in the second part of this challenge. In the second part, Gabrielle will have the following goals for her house:
Starting Lot: Vista Quarry Lot, Oasis Springs (30×20) Controllable Sims: Drifter (heir from prior house) and Secondary Sim (newly created).
Disguise their home (example: underground lair that looks like a park above ground)
Achieve level 10 of the Diamond Agent branch of the Secret Agent Career on The Drifter*
Achieve level 11 of the Villain branch of the Secret Agent Career on The Secondary Sim
Produce and raise The Heir to the Young Adult life stage**
*Upon reaching Field Agent (level 4) of the Secret Agent Career, access to the following Lot type has been unlocked – Gym Lots. Those playing the full 24 House Challenge may now place a Gym Lot on Burners and Builders in Oasis Springs world
**Select at least one of the following Traits on The Heir: Active, Vegetarian Trait (City Living no longer needed, this is now a base game trait), or Adventurous (Snowy Escape needed)
As a minimum create a 2 Bedroom, 2 Bathroom home worth at least $50k Simoleons – include a pool and a designated personal workout area.
Achieve level 10 of the Fitness Skill
Produce and raise the Heir (see my notes on this*)
Note that I will be adding goals from House 11 to this house, so here are the additional goals that will be required, note House 11 also requires you to raise an Heir:
In addition to the house requirements noted above, it will also need to include a designated party space.
Complete the Master Mixologist Aspiration.
Achieve level 10 of the Mixologist branch of the Culinary career.
*Re the heir, usually the goal is to raise the heir to the young adult life stage, however, with the changes to life stage lengths that came with the July 26, 2022 game update, I plan to end this house when either A) all the goals are complete or B) the heir ages up to a teen, whichever happens second.
I will be doing a blog post with more details on this house, including optional goals I’m adding for me to do & exceptions noted re non controllable sims, I’ll add the link when it’s available.
While there are 24 houses in total, this is going to be the second last house of this challenge for me. I will be finishing with House 24, which will also include goals from House 13 & as mentioned above, we will hopefully be starting it during the heir’s teen life stage.
With the Discover University game update, we can now move our sims out of households when actively playing them, however they are no longer are given 20,000 simoleons to start and instead you need to give them funds to set up a new household.
For some this is good news as their families have money and they may want to give the new sim(s) moving out more funds then the game used to give them. For others this may not work as well. If your sim family doesn’t have money to spare for the new household and you don’t want to use cheats to get them to start, particularly if you are playing on console and don’t want to disable trophies, you can transfer your sims to another household and take funds from them.
Here is a list of the sim households with more than 40,000 simoleons and their funds when you start a new save:
I came across this picture schematic on how to appease the gnomes that appear at Harfestfest (Sims 4 Seasons) and I’ve had a lot of success with it. So if you’re looking for something that will help you be successful, I recommend following it! 😊
I first saw this in a Sims Facebook group and the original source is noted on the picture itself.
Which of the 3 should become a spellcaster in my Life after Foster Child Let’s Play?
Link to poll, which is open until 9 pm EDT, Sept 15/19
Note I will be adding anyone named in the video comments for the intro to the poll so the total will be the poll here plus anyone named before this poll ends (ie before I start recording the next part 😊). Link to intro video: https://youtu.be/oKP5C5RlvMU
Updated January 16, 2022 to reflect the most recent menus.
Sometimes we need to recover to a prior version of our save, and Sims 4 keeps up to 5 copies (if the save is old enough to have five of them) that we can easily recover from them. Here’s a quick summary of how you do that.
Step 1:
Open your game and choose the option to ‘load game’
Step 2:
From the load game menu, chose the save you want to recover a back up from (ie roll back your game) and chose the option ‘Recover Save’ to the left hand side of the delete button as indicated here.
Step 3:
Once you chose the option ‘recover save’ it will bring up something that looks like this; choose the save you want to recover from the ones showing and use the ‘recover’ option. I usually decide based on the date and time saved.
If you have any questions or want to share your own Sims game play with other supportive Simmers head over to my Facebook group, Sims Sanctuary or my discord.
Bradley and Darren Jefferson have just moved out on their own to a house that their parents bought them, though it still needs to be furnished. They would love if you helped them furnish it. Here are the guidelines for furnishing:
Use Base Game + One Pack of Choice OR Base Game Only
No Budget
Basement is optional to furnish
No Custom Content
Floor plan can be altered
Furnish for the Jefferson brothers OR for your own sims
Bradley is a computer whiz who is a genius, geek and a bookworm. He would like the house to include a computer, television and a radio of some type.
Darren would like to write novels and he is creative, bookworm and family oriented. Since he is creative he would like to learn to paint and to play an instrument. He also needs a computer and a radio to listen to while writing!
Both Bradley and Darren were created with base game only. If you decide to give them makeovers with your chosen pack (or with only the base game), please upload them to the gallery with #JeffersonBrotherMakeover for me to find.
That said, feel free to furnish the house for your own sims if that’s what you prefer!
Note: as of Oct 14/19, release date still hasn’t been announced, it was originally scheduled for June 2019
This overview includes:
1) Important Announcement from the EA Team re system support of old systems (this was made in March 2019).
2) How to find out what type of operating system you are on for Windows.
3) How to find out if this affects you as a Mac user
I expect that the majority of Windows computers are 64 bit system so this is not likely to affect that many Windows players. I can’t speak for the Mac players. For those it affects, there will be a legacy edition of the game available around June 2019, but you won’t get new updates after June 2019, you will not be able to buy new content released after February 2019 nor will you have access to the gallery. Exact timing has not been released yet.
“Today we are announcing some changes to the supported specifications for The Sims 4™ on PC and Mac. As of June 2019, we will no longer support The Sims 4 on Non-Metal Mac OS machines or PC 32-bit Operating Systems.”
“There will be a ‘The Sims 4™: Legacy Edition’ available for those who cannot update. This change is tentatively planned for June 2019. The Gallery, game banners, and social integrations will be disabled. The Sims 4: Legacy Edition will not display or allow any purchases of content released after February 2019.”
This same post has FAQ about the update, here’s a copy of what is said:
“The Sims 4: Legacy Edition FAQ
Where can I get The Sims 4: Legacy Edition?
The Sims 4: Legacy Edition will be available in June 2019. If you are an existing The Sims 4 owner, we will have instructions on this page which will walk you through the steps to get your free copy of The Sims 4: Legacy Edition when it is released. The Sims 4: Legacy Edition will not be made available to new players.
I already own The Sims 4, will I need to purchase The Sims 4: Legacy Edition?
No, if you are an existing The Sims 4 owner, you will be able to get your copy of The Sims 4: Legacy Edition for free once it’s available in June 2019.
When will this change happen and when will The Sims 4: Legacy Edition be available?
This change is tentatively planned for June 2019. If there are any changes to the planned June date, we will update it.
Will The Sims 4 on my Non-Metal Mac OS be automatically updated to the legacy version?
Will The Sims 4 on my 32-bit OS PC be automatically updated to the legacy version?
No, you will need to download The Sims4: Legacy Edition.
Will The Sims 4: Legacy Edition receive any additional content or bug fixes in the future?
No, The Sims 4: Legacy Edition will not receive any more content or bug fixes.
Will any online features still work in The Sims 4: Legacy Edition?
The Gallery, game banners, and social integrations will be disabled. The Sims 4: Legacy Edition will not display or allow any purchases of content released after February 2019.
What Stuff Packs, Game Packs, and Expansion Packs can I play using The Sims 4: Legacy Edition?
You will be able to purchase and play all Stuff, Game and Expansion packs released between September 2, 2014 and February 26, 2019. This includes Luxury Party Stuff Pack, Perfect Patio Stuff Pack, Cool Kitchen Stuff Pack, Spooky Stuff Pack, Movie Hangout Stuff Pack, Romantic Garden Stuff Pack, Kids Room Stuff Pack, Backyard Stuff Pack, Vintage Glamour Stuff Pack, Bowling Night Stuff Pack, Fitness Stuff Pack, Toddler Stuff Pack, Laundry Day Stuff Pack, My First Pet Stuff Pack, Outdoor Retreat Game Pack, Spa Day Game Pack, Dine Out Game Pack, Vampires Game Pack, Parenthood Game Pack, Jungle Adventure Game Pack, StrangerVille Game Pack, Get Together Expansion Pack, Get To Work Expansion Pack, City Living Expansion Pack, Cats & Dogs Expansion Pack, Seasons Expansion Pack and Get Famous Expansion Pack.
Content released after February 2019 will require you to upgrade your system.
Will custom content still work with The Sims 4: Legacy Edition?
It will be up to the custom content or mod developer to decide to support their custom content for both The Sims 4 and The Sims 4: Legacy Edition.
Will there be different versions of The Sims 4: Legacy Edition for Non-Metal Mac OS and 32-bit PC OS?
There will be one version of The Sims 4: Legacy Edition that you will be able to download.
Will my save files still work in The Sims 4: Legacy Edition?
Yes, save files will still work with The Sims 4: Legacy Edition. Instructions on “how to” will be published once The Sims 4: Legacy Edition is released.”
2) How to Find Out if you are on a 32 or 64 bit System in Windows:
You can find out what version of Windows you have by going into your system information. To do this on Windows 8 or 10, right mouse click on your windows icon on the bottom left hand corner of your screen. Then select ‘System’, which will pull up your system information. The System Type will indicate if it is 32 bit or 64 bit.
Darren would like to write novels and he is creative, bookworm and family oriented. Since he is creative he would like to learn to paint and to play an instrument. He also needs a computer and a radio to listen to while writing!
Maple Simmer 