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.

In the mysterious world of Moonlight Falls, your Sims can choose to live as witches, werewolves, vampires and fairies or choose to be an ordinary Sim living amongst these supernatural characters. IHowever you choose, you will discover enchanting mysteries that are revealed by the light of the full moon and an all-new mystical world full of magic, mischief and mystery. From turning your rival into a toad to using the supernatural population control cheats to shape your world - you are sure to fall deeper in love with The Sims™ 3 with the addition of The Sims 3 Supernatural! This helpful Hints & Tips guide will hopefully help you to make the most of this exciting new world.

Creating the World you Want to Play
 Want to get rid of all zombies - this is one way to do it. Here is a cheat to control your supernatural population by adding or removing supernaturals. First open cheat mode by holding CTRL+SHIFT+C and type “testingcheatsenabled true”. Now go to the mailbox on your lot and shift click which will bring up some cheat options for your game. Select “Supernatural Population Control” and this will bring up the option to either add or remove supernatural Sims into your game. Clicking “Add Supernatural” will bring up the type of supernatural you want to add and turn Sims in the world into this supernatural type (except for the Sims in your household). The “Remove Supernatural” works the same way except it will remove all of the supernatural types you selected from the world (except if you have that supernatural type in your household).

Can’t Stand the Heat?
Vampires prefer to be outside when the sun is down so what do you do if you want to go outside and enjoy the sunlight? Without a healthy dose of sunscreen applied your vampire Sim you’ll receive a “Heating Up” moodlet. Create a Vampiric Sunscreen elixir using Bloodstone Powder and Valerian Root of course! If your Sim doesn’t take shelter soon they could pass out or even die. So just like real life, cover up! 

Reanimation Ritual 
Want another way to bring back people from the dead, as a zombie?  Visit the graveyard and use your level 10 spellcasting skills to bring your Sims’ loved ones back to life.  This spell is mighty powerful but be forewarned, there is always a chance of this ritual backfiring and which could end with your Sim turning into a brain eating zombie. 

Toadification Curse
Once your Sim reaches level four of your hidden spellcasting skill you’ll have the ability to turn other Sims heads into toad heads. Like most spells, there is a chance it will backfire and turn your Sim into a toad. Either way, it sure is fun to see a toad Sim snap flies out of the air with their long tongues. A kiss will turn the toad Sim back to normal. 

A Hunting We Will Go!   
One of the main benefits of being a werewolf is that your Sim can find anything from uncommon to rare collectables while they’re hunting. Can you find a rare truffle or the Glow Orb mushroom? You can choose to have your Sim hunt alone or in a pack.  What are you waiting for? Get started to see what you can find.

To Transform or Not to Transform
If you choose to play as a werewolf, the full moon will always transform your Sim into its werewolf form, but there are also a number of other things that cause this change.  If your Sim’s mood is too low they will receive a “Stressed Out” moodlet and if you don’t make them happy they’ll transform. As you develop your Sim’s hidden lycanthropy skill, you will gain more control over these forced transformations.

Fairy Auras 
When a fairy enters the room, they bring their auras with them. Your fairy Sim’s aura will affect the productivity and moods of other Sims within the area of projection. There are three different types of auras that you can emit depending on the level of your hidden fairy skill. The auras that are available are the Aura of Soothing, Aura of Body and Mind and Aura of Creativity.  Not only will these affect other Sims, but your fairy Sim will also reap the benefits.

Mirror, Mirror 
This mirror is more than a reflection; it can help your Sim in many ways.  When your Sim steps in front of this magic mirror a mystical face will appear, giving you the opportunity to ask questions or even get a magical makeover! There’s nothing like a healthy change to your duds and a new hairstyle.

Bonehilda is Back! 
One of the coolest things from The Sims 2 is now back in The Sims 3 Supernatural. Say hello to Bonehilda once again!  In The Sims 3, you too can have your very own live-in (or rather dead-in) maid. Bonehilda is a great worker and addition to your family. She’ll scare away any criminal and can even extinguish most fires. Just don’t expect to have any deep conversations with her.

SimGuruBrit has shared his blog with us on two of the most intriguing characters of The Sims 3 Supernatural - Witches and Vampires!

By now you’ve gotten the scoop on werewolves from SimGuruJon, frolicked with fairies and SimGuruArgus, and explored lunacy with SimGuruMegan. Today I’m here to tell you about the ‘real’ power that’s in The Sims 3 Supernatural… witches! From the day we started brainstorming ideas for this expansion pack, I was completely in love with witches and all the possibilities they could introduce to The Sims. To me, playing as a witch offers the ultimate power of choice, “A am I good, evil, or just indifferent? Do I use my spells just to help my family and friends, or do I let my magic run crazy and turn everyone in town to toads?” Mwahahahaha, just talking about it makes me want to rub my hands together in evil glee…

Speaking of evil glee, I know you’re all wondering exactly what being a good witch vs. a bad witch really means. First and foremost are the traits. Witches with the good trait will get more wishes to cast spells that are considered ‘good’ and the same goes for witches with the evil trait, they will get more wishes to cast spells that are ‘evil’. However, being good or evil doesn’t mean you only have access to one certain type of spell. After all, even the friendliest of witches may need to throw a curse every now and then!

Just like the other supernaturals, you can create witches in CAS. Male, female, green skin or golden, you’ll be able to customize your witch to fit the story you want to tell. Witches come in all ages, and some innate witch abilities can even be present in childhood. Hint, keep an eye on your little witch’s toy box as they’re playing, or they just may magically multiply! However, the teenage years are when a witch’s powers really manifest. This is the time when they receive a wand to play with magic.

Wand, wand, it’s all about the wand! Witches need a magical wand in their inventory to channel their special powers. Every witch is given a basic wand, but if your Sim loses it or wants to upgrade it, there are several options available in Buy Mode to purchase. There are numerous wands to choose from and while each one has a distinctive cool look, they more importantly have unique affects to the way your witch will cast spells. If you’re looking for your witch to have a high success rate at casting spells, I’d recommend giving the ivory wand a try.

 But if you’re asking, “SimGuruBritt, I don’t want my witch to rely on a wand! I want them to be able to cast spells without that pointy thing in the way!” Don’t worry, we have you covered. The Lifetime Happiness reward Magic Hands enables your witch to cast spells only using their hands, plus their spells will never fail!

Enough about wands, let’s get into the actual spell casting! Witches will become increasingly proficient and learn more magic spells and abilities as they play with magic and cast spells. For instance, witches can learn how to use their wands to upgrade objects around the house – no more wrenches required! Quick tip, my advice would be to magically upgrade your wardrobe for a special surprise. You will get a message when your witch has learned new spells and abilities with hints for how to use them. Magic spells generally fit into one of three categories (with a few exceptions): Charms, curses and rituals. Charms are considered beneficial or ‘good’ spells. They can be cast on oneself or on others and range from simple good luck charms to love charms. Curses are harmful or ‘evil’ spells such as the bladder curse (super funny at parties!) or toadification curse. Rituals are spells that can be cast on objects or lots. They have a wide array of effects from converting collectibles to cleaning the house. 

I don’t want to give everything away. (Where’s the fun in that?!) But since so many people have asked about specific spells, I think a quick overview of a few of my personal favorites is in order.

One of the first spells a witch learns is the conversion ritual, which changes a collectible from one type to another.  The conversion ritual is a pretty useful spell, especially if there is an alchemist in the family. If you have a surplus of gems laying around, simply flick your witches wand and transform them into something useful for your alchemist. 

Ice Blast is one of those spells that doesn’t really fall under the category of charm or curse (since it is more of an elemental spell), but is super fun to use. Want to break your neighbor’s plumbing? Ice Blast! Want to give a Sim a severe case of chattering teeth and cold toes? Ice Blast! As a bonus, this spell has a chance of encasing a Sim in a solid block of ice, freezing them for a short time.

Sometimes spells can be fun, sometimes they can be useful, and sometimes they can be dark and dangerous. The haunting curse is definitely one of those dark and dangerous spells since your witch can summon a spirit from the netherworld to haunt a victim for days. Once cursed, the only way out for the victim is to wait for time to pass or to become friends with their ghostly tormentor. Be warned, cast this curse with caution! All spells can fail (sometimes with disastrous results for the caster), and the haunting curse does this in the most extreme way. If it fails, it could mean death for the witch that cast it!

I’ll leave you with just one more, the reanimation ritual. Cast this spell on any tombstone with a ghost and watch the dead rise as a gruesome zombie! Better have an exit strategy planned after casting this spell though as zombies make friends in interesting ways…

Like all great power, magic comes with a cost. Witches have to keep an eye on their magic meter as they use their spells and abilities. The lower the magic meter falls, the higher the possibility that a spell will fail. Once the magic meter is depleted, spells will fizzle and fail until the meter has been replenished. Magic power will slowly regenerate over time, or can be instantly replenished with an Essence of Magic elixir. Another, more leisurely way to regenerate magic power is to take a few loops around the magic broom arena on your broom.

Brooms! (You thought I forgot, didn’t you?) Here’s a secret, anyone can use a broom! Since the magic is in the broom, not in the user, even ordinary Sims can get a taste of magic by flying around town on one of these flying objects. Brooms come in several models. There’s even one with training wheels for the kiddies! For those daring Sims who think merely traveling around town by broom isn’t enough, the broom arena is a place to fly high and show-off your witches stunts. Can’t afford to buy one of these arenas for your house? No problem! The citizens of Moonlight Falls have recognized every Sim’s right to practice broom stunts, and built their very own broom arena park for any Sim to use. Any Sim can buy and use a broom, but witches will use brooms automatically when traveling solo, just like a taxi.