The strange case of the sliding wall door

One of the big upgrades in build mode with The Sims 4 is the ability to move around and plop down fully made rooms.  I tried using this feature to build a house only from premade rooms, but something still isn't quite right...

The door from the dining room to the kitchen didn't update the wall well enough.  This house was built only with premade rooms that are preinstalled with the base game, so this isn't a custom content issue.  On seeing this, I tried moving the door and furniture around, but it wouldn't display the open archway correctly no matter what I did.  The sims living here didn't seem to mind since they walked through the phantom wall section without any problems.

More details on Sims 4 build mode

Here we go again with another official video on The Sims 4…

Sims 4 Build Mode official trailer

This looks way cool.  Some things that I spotted in my first viewing that weren’t explicitly pointed out by the narrator include:

• curved walls!!!
• trees that look like they’re from a swampy area with moss hanging down from the branches
• the streetcar is operational
• skills include grand piano and some kind of crafting at a workbench

Overall, it looks like the default town is based on architecture and styles found in and around New Orleans, right down to a model of the New Orleans St. Charles Line Streetcar.  There will likely be more info at E3, and I am eager to see more.

What are those things?

I’m working on a new lot with a number of levels this week. Sometimes in build and buy modes there are these diagonal pieces that become visible. The lot has to be rotated at a certain angle to see them and they don’t appear to affect how the lot works, but they are really ugly.

In this screenshot, we see two pieces at the floors of two basement levels. These are phantom ceiling pieces that, as far as I can tell from a few searches around the interwebs, are a byproduct of the autoroof tool. Luckily they are easy to remove. Just use the sledgehammer tool to delete them. The tricky part of removing them is getting the sledgehammer in just the right place; sometimes you’ll only see a very small sliver of the edge, but if you’re careful, you can remove them.

More stuff to buy

So have you ever wondered how to add special “hidden” objects to your sims’ lots?  Almost everything that you see in the game can be purchased and added to your lot, you just have to know how to enable them in buy mode.

Open the cheat window (Ctrl-Shift-C) and type

testingcheatsenabled true

Hit enter and then reopen the cheat window and type

buydebug on

Turning on these two cheats will add all of the special objects to buy mode where you can select and place them like any other object.  They’ll be accessible through the menu labeled with a big ? symbol, like this

The Sims team took some time to add punny names and complete descriptions to all of the objects as well, so take a look through the full inventory and have a chuckle or three.

Misc tip – watch for store item discounts

There are a lot of items available from the Sims 3 store for various amounts of SimPoints.  But did you know that some items are available for free?

Most weekends, there are often two buy mode items that are discounted to 0 SimPoints for Saturday and Sunday sales.  Keep an eye on the official Sims 3 website for announcements of free items, but also watch for the little discount tag while you’re in build, buy or create-a-sim modes within the game (assuming that you are logged in to your Sims 3 account and have a decent internet connection).



When you click on an item in one of these modes that is free, it will download to your game and automatically install in your available items and you now have that item and can keep it as long as you keep the game.  The screenshot above shows me downloading the hairstyle that I found for 0 SimPoints this week.  I also found a couple of clothing items and two buy mode items were marked down this week.

However, don’t count on the 0 SimPoint deals to last long.  Download them when you see them because they may only be available on the day that you see them.

More details on Sims 4 build mode capabilities

In a word, awesome!  There are a number of new enhancements that are coming in The Sims 4’s build mode.  One of my favorite sim vloggers, TheSimSupply, sat down with SimGuruHouts to talk about some of the new features that we can expect.

I didn’t hear anything about the items on my recent want list post, but what they did tell us with this interview makes me want the new version even more.  Check out the video posted today on YouTube for all the juicy bits!