Hello! If you're reading this on this blog, you may wonder why this is not the teased beginning of my Apocalypse Challenge with Sawyer Silva. That is still coming, but in the mean time, I wanted to play the Wonder Child Challenge again to try to beat my personal score and crack 400. The result is The Desai Wonder Child Challenge. I needed a place to post it and it's not big enough to warrant its own blog, so I picked this one. Since it's not part of a larger story, we're going to do this quick and silly. Still interested? Read on!
Our founders are Jude and Fiona Desai. Even though, as per the challenge, they're starting out as adult roommates, I gave them both the same last name since they'll eventually be getting married and I wanted them to both have the name of this iteration of the challenge. Why Desai? I randomized it and that's what came up.
Jude is a childish geek, yet also a genius. Fiona is creative, good, and family-oriented. Jude will primarily be working towards the Computer Whiz aspiration, while Fiona will primarily be working on Successful Lineage. Something I didn't realize when I was doing The Silvas Succeed is that everyone in the family can change aspirations at any time, so I'm going to try to use that to my advantage to get more aspiration points this time around, so they won't always have these aspirations, but that's what they started out with and what they'll mostly be working on. I picked traits that I knew would reliably generate fairly easy whims and/or that would help with skilling and careers. Jude is going to go into Tech Guru, of course, and Fiona will be pursuing writing so she can write excuse notes for their Wonder Child, so she'll be going into writing as a career as well.
My characterization in my head of Jude and Fiona is that they're two aging hipsters who have been brought together by the program and a desire to reproduce. They're going to attempt a suburban lifestyle without being too ironic about it. They also have matching tattoos on their left arms. That must be a sign that it's meant to be, right?
Jude and Fiona hit all the first milestones of their relationship with ease. Maybe those matching tattoos do have an effect. Huh. Anyway, their relationship is smooth sailing and it's not long before they're thoroughly in love and engaged. They've also picked up their careers by this point and been working on skilling some.
With that, it's time to make a Wonder Child! I was happy with my decision to have the Silvas reproduce early, because they lived through the challenge and I didn't have to deal with any sad moodlets, and I didn't feel like it handicapped them at all in terms of their careers or generating aspiration points. So, since it worked before, I'm going with roughly the same timing here.
And it worked right away! Everything is going very well so far, but Fiona, where is the rest of your confetti? You just have a few streamers.
"Beats me."
Well, for some reason, it appeared in the next room over, which happens to be the inspiration room. As usual, I'm utilizing mood rooms to maximize skilling. However, I . . . didn't really plan the room's readiness for confetti.
"Jude! Jude! You'll never believe it! I'm pregnant!"
"You're what?! Oh, this is awf..."
"And I'm also a black belt!"
"Heh heh. I meant awesome. This is awesome! Yay?"
That's more like it, Jude. I swear, the fathers in my game are never happy about getting their partners knocked up.
Fiona takes a responsible tack to her pregnancy by cloudgazing in the middle of the road.
"Technically, I'm in the bike lane."
Your hip isn't.
"Technically, I am
mostly in the bike lane."
We'll need a few friends to celebrate the Wonder Child's child-to-teen birthday, so Fiona spends a day off getting to know their neighbors and engaging in good road safety.
With the birth of the Wonder Child approaching and their engagement moodlet wearing off, Fiona and Jude get hitched right there in their kitchen, witnessed by a copy of
Lord of the Swings. So romantic.
We're not far now from the birth, and the real start of this challenge.
Unfortunately, the end of Fiona's labor catches Jude at a busy moment. He makes the responsible choice of any father choosing between his spawn and grilled cheese . . .
. . . and brings the grilled cheese over to watch.
This is the face of a woman whose husband chose grilled cheese over their child. I wouldn't be pleased, either, Fiona. Oh, and this is the Wonder Child. I guess that's important too. It's another boy. I really wanted a girl Wonder Child this time, but oh well. Welcome to Jonah Desai. His name was randomly generated, but I chose this one over others I rolled because it's kind of a combination of Jude and Fiona. Cute, right?
Jonah's infancy lasted all of about two minutes because who has time for that in a Wonder Child challenge? Seriously. We've got skills and whims to attend to! First though, a makeover and look at our Wonder Child.
Jonah caught the hipster bug from his parents and based his sartorial choices on an aesthetic that says, "I spent all morning to look like I don't care." Seriously, though, he's pretty cute, right? We can work with this. Jonah's trait is outgoing (to help with the social butterfly aspiration), and his first aspiration was Whiz Kid, but it changed around a lot. I was constantly changing his aspiration based on what was available for him to fulfill whims on or skill on. For instance, he never had the social aspiration at night when there was no one to socialize with. That's when he would work on other things.
"Hey mister!"
"My name's Ezekiel."
"I will almost definitely not remember that. Mister it is. Come play chess with me! My parents are busy and I'm currently an only child who needs to play three games of chess."
"For some reason, that sounds like a reasonable proposition. Okay, you're on."
"Oh, come on! That's not fair. You can't win again. Best four out of seven?"
"No can do, mister. I just finished that step of my aspiration. You're free to hang around and play on our computers until you decide to go home, but I'm done with you."
"I feel so used."
". . . and so that's how you solve for the square root of x."
"Dad, you do know I'm in grade school, right?"
"Look, are you focused while completing your homework or not?"
"Sigh . . . yes."
"Then our job here is done."
Fiona is now pregnant with Jonah's younger sibling, who will contribute to his potion fund. As is becoming usual, she got only streamers again.
"Pfft. I think I got confetti in my mouth. Where did this even come from?"
Unlike his dad, Jonah is actually really excited that Fiona's pregnant. Fiona and Jonah are a lot closer than he is with his dad. Eventually they got there, but these two started out on better terms.
Jonah was born right before the weekend, so he spent all weekend skilling before heading to school. He's actually really close to completing two of his aspirations at this point. Although I am switching around and that means he didn't finish one quickly, I think overall he is making faster progress on all of them. He looks pretty confident about his first day of school, right?
So, how was school, Jonah?
"Why don't you ask my plumbbob?"
Oh, you're just tired. Go have another moodlet solver.
Jonah actually did not sleep ever as a child. He had a steady supply of moodlet solvers from his parents and eventual sibling to keep him peppy and ready to skill. We bought a bed just in case, but the sibling ended up being the only one to use it.
See? There's the unneeded Emergency Bed tucked away in a corner of the living room because they don't have enough money to build another room right now. While completing his homework that night, Jonah finished the Whiz Kid aspiration. That's one down, three to go! Additionally, Jonah got his grade school A with 8 days left. If he hadn't been born before the weekend, that could have been quicker, but I felt like the extra skilling time was worth the trade-off.
Artistic Prodigy soon followed Whiz Kid with a particularly artful flourish of macaroni.
Then, finally, Jonah's sibling was born. It's another little boy, this time named Dion. I wanted his name to be another mash-up of his parent's names, but I couldn't think of anything, and Dion sounded good to me. Looks like he got Fiona's skin tone. Please also notice that I elected to buy a motion gaming mat rather than build a child's bedroom at this point. Although it's pricey, it is absolutely the quickest way in game to raise fun, and it raises motor skill as well for kids. It also helped Jude reach the part of his aspiration where he needed $3,000 in electronics.
Dion grew up immediately because again, I have no need for babies in this challenge. Let's take a look.
Oh, no fair! Dion is way cuter than Jonah. Not only did I not get a girl, the sibling is way more adorable! Oh well, settle yourself, Roxanne. It doesn't matter to this challenge. Only the points do. Dion escaped the hipster theme of the rest of the family and just dressed like a regular little boy.
Dion is creative and started with the Artistic Prodigy aspiration, though he also jumped around.
At first, Jonah and Dion were kind of silent around each other. They didn't interact a whole bunch right away because they were both busy skilling and doing homework. On top of that, Dion had to tend to his needs, unlike his brother, who was relying on moodlet solvers for all but the quickest of need top-offs.
They did eventually become good friends, though. They're very cute together, don't you think?
". . . so, in conclusion, that's why this band you've never heard of is superior to all the music on the radio."
"Kid, you are boring me."
"And yet you keep talking to me."
"Weird, right? Anyway, tell me about school, reference pop culture, and goof around again."
"You read my mind!"
Okay, Jonah, you don't even have the bike lane excuse this time. You are literally lying in the middle of the road. I just want to remind you that a flattened Wonder Child does me no good.
Social Butterfly was achieved with the help of this very goofy-looking fellow, who was Jonah's final child friend. There's only motor left now.
Jonah then had a couple of illnesses that momentarily slowed him down. Sawyer's whole challenge occurred before GTW, so I never had to deal with this with him.
Meanwhile, what's the rest of the family up to? Dion completed Artistic Prodigy about halfway through his childhood. Because she needed to wait for Jonah to be a high-schooler for Successful Lineage to advance, Fiona switched her focus to Bestselling Author, and made incredible progress on it. She also got to the split in the writing career and chose the author branch. Her royalties bring in quite a bit of money every day.
Jude is making good progress in the tech guru career, and has modded nearly all of their games in addition to doing a fair amount of freelance work. He is incredibly close to completing Computer Whiz.
Anyway, back to people that matter! Jonah has mastered motor to become a Rambunctious Scamp, thereby completing all four of his aspirations with 7 days left in his childhood. I was pretty proud of that. He spent the rest of his childhood skilling the various adult skills that children who have completed those aspirations have access to.
With the help of these handy-dandy drinks, Jonah indeed did not sleep once, and he got a lot of whim fulfillment and skilling done. As his childhood neared its end, he had nine traits: Outgoing, Mentally Gifted, Creatively Gifted, Socially Gifted, Physically Gifted, Night Owl, Morning Sim, Savant, and Speed Reader. I forgot to write down his skills at the end of childhood, but I know he had at least four points each in fishing, charisma, and mischief, a few in piano, and probably about six or seven each in violin, logic, and video gaming. Not bad. I didn't bother adding up the score since I don't know the exact skills, but he definitely had Sawyer beat at this point in the challenge.
What's going to happen next as Jonah ages into a teen? Will he be able to crack 400? Will he succeed as a Wonder Child? Will Dion ever figure out how to eat his cereal correctly? Stay tuned for the next chapter of The Desai Wonder Child Challenge, which will definitely answer some of these questions. Thanks for reading, and be sure to check in with me at
SiMania and
Boolprop!
No comments:
Post a Comment