Alan Hsu, Assistant Producer, has given us this blog to tell us about Autumn in The Sims 3 Seasons. Enjoy!

Hi All!

I’m here to show off some of the awesome stuff that we’ve added into the Autumn season in The Sims 3 Seasons!  In this blog I will be highlighting some of the festival activities that happens during Autumn, a new harvestable, and the changes we’ve made to trees. I hope you will enjoy reading this as we’re having a great time developing this expansion!


Autumn Festival

First and foremost, during the Autumn season, there will be a haunted house at the festival where Sims can explore strange paranormal happenings, it’s a rabbit hole but still a lot of fun. Sims who are not brave enough have a chance to panic, vomit, or may even have a little bladder accident. Sims who are unlucky, or lucky depending on your point of view, may receive a “Cursed by the Witch” buff which temporarily changes them into a ghost when they leave the haunted house.



Once you’ve regained the courage that you left back at the haunted house, be sure to visit the pie eating booth. Here you can take on other Sims in a pie eating contest to determine who is crowned the festival victor. The winner is rewarded with an abundance of pie in their inventory, as well as bragging rights!





After competing in the pie eating contest, try your luck at the apple bobbing station. Here you can challenge up to three other Sims to find out who is the best apple bobber. The winner gets a nice buff to their mood as well as festival tickets whether they win or lose.  As mentioned in previous posts, you can trade in festival tickets for special objects which can’t be bought from the build/buy catalog.



We also added a couple special Fall seasonal foods which Sims can purchase from the concession stands. New foods include cinnamon donuts and yummy sweet potato fries.


Pumpkins

Pumpkins are the new harvestable in The Sims 3 Seasons. They can either be purchased from the grocery store or your Sim can plant pumpkin seeds and grow their own. Once you have pumpkins in your inventory you can make delicious home-made pumpkin pies. But not any ordinary Sim will be able to make pumpkin pies from the get-go. Only Sims with a cooking skill of level five or higher can make this festive treat.


Trees

Here in Autumn, you’ll begin to notice that rainstorms occur more frequently and trees begin their own transformation.  The leaves of deciduous trees will begin to change color in this season. Some of the leaves will turn red, orange, or yellow dependent upon the type. As time progresses, leaves will start falling from the branches creating leaving the branches more and more barren. Eventually when Winter arrives all the leaves will fall off of the trees completely.



It’s not only stunning to watch these transformative effects, but quite fun as well! We added all-new gameplay where Sims can rake leaves to create leaf piles on their lot. We have three different sizes of leaf piles. The bigger the leaf pile you have the more interactions are available to your Sims.  While children and adults can play in the leaf piles and get awfully dirty, adults can have their own private moments by WooHooing in them! It’s pretty amazing how the leaf pile still stays in shape after this.







Well, I hope you enjoyed this inside look of the Autumn season.  Stay tuned for more dev blogs soon!

-Alan Hsu, Assistant Producer, The Sims 3 Seasons

Here is a special blog from Designer Alan Copeland introducing the Basketball Hoop premium item for the Level Up Collection, now available in the Sims 3 Store.