It’s an exciting time at Maxis! The release of The Sims 3 Supernatural is finally here and we are anxious to hear all aboutthe unique new stories that you’ll create with your Sims in Moonlight Falls. I wanted to send out one last blog to thank everyone in The Sims 3 community for all your great questions, discussions in the forums and participation in our live events and demos. I also wanted to share a couple of unannounced secrets with you.

Over the past few months, you’ve heard from and seen several of our amazing producers and designers via blogs, forum replies, live broadcasts and Q&A posts. We really wanted to provide as many details as possible about the awesome new gameplay features in The Sims 3 Supernatural to be sure everyone had the chance to see just how different this expansion is from any other pack we’ve released for The Sims 3. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few months but I wanted to share two final surprises with you:

1.)   There is more than one way to make a Sim “croak.”  One of the more interesting magical abilities available to witch Sims is casting the“Toadification curse.” Casting this spell on any Sim will temporarily changethem into a ToadSim with an over-sized frog-like head and big beady eyes thatare constantly scanning for their next meal. Suddenly, the flies on trash cansand spoiled food look pretty attractive to Sims that carry this unfortunate curse. Those seeking the that fairytale moment can have their ToadSims ask fora kiss that will hopefully result in the curse being removed. A non-ToadSim can also offer up a kiss in hopes that it may cure them. However, they should use caution when doing so as it poses a potential risk.  There is always a chance that the “mood”won’t be right and the kiss could fail in a most shocking way.

2.)   Secondly, there is a new dance in The Sims 3 Supernatural and it is called “the Smustle” (aka – The SimsHustle). It’s a mix between the Hustle and Thriller. This fast paced danceseems to be a hit with Sims in Moonlight Falls. Don’t be surprised if you see agroup of zombies and werewolves doing the Smustle under a full moon. For those of you that were fans of The Sims 2, these wild gyrations may seem familiar.

Just one last thing before I sign off.  I was a huge fan of classic horror films, TVshows and mythical creatures as a kid, so it was really a dream come true to beable to research both the classic as well as the modern take on “supernatural”and apply the resulting creative ideas to The Sims 3.  As a matter of fact, I spent countless hoursas a kid drawing and sculpting strange, mystical creatures from my imagination.This hobby didn’t help my grades in math much, but it did lead to a passion that helped me get into the video gaming industry as an artist/animator many years ago. Even though I am not working as an artist anymore, you may not be surprised if I told you that one of my favorite things to do in TheSims 3 when playing for fun is to create funny and extremely unusual Sims. I’ve had a lot of fun using all the new Create A Sim options as they allow for somepretty interesting looking characters. I just had to share a couple of them with you.

Thanks again to everyone in The Sims 3 community! I sure hope you enjoy playing The Sims 3 Supernatural as much as all of us in The Sims Studio loved making it.

Happy Simming!