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Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 22nd Jun 2014 at 10:29 AM
Default Teen in trouble - can you turn their life around?
This is my first challenge, so be nice guys! I just played it for me, but I had fun so I thought I'd share.

The basic idea

Your nice middle-class Sim family are living a nice middle-class life when BAM, spanner in the works. Their teen comes home from school with the news that their mate is in trouble. He's had a big bust up with his mum, the social worker has decreed he's no longer to live at home, and he's destined for an uncertain future in a Simcity care institution. Your family step up and do the right thing - they take him in. But will it work out...?

To start off

Make a sim family - 2 parents, a teen and a child (they may be whatever personality/aspiration/gender you like). Move them into a lot of any size, whether prebuilt or not is up to you. Kaching 10 times to add £10,000 to the family finances. Don't get excited though, this is a bank loan, and will not be counted as part of the family funds when totting up points. Still, for now it's yours to do as you like with. Now, turn aging off.

When that's done, go back to CAF to make your troubled teen and their parent. Again, any personality and aspiration. Either gender for your teen is fine, but bear in mind there are to be no romantic attachments between them and your family. Now create an adult sim as their parent. In my game I made it the mother, and she was as unpleasant as possible, but it's entirely up to you. Move them into any spare lot. You needn't even build a house, although you might want a phone. Save and exit to the neighbourhood.

Right, back to your main family. Make a note of the day of the week, and play them in their nice middle-class sim lives for 1 week with aging off. Hopefully in this time the teen will 'bring *the friend* home from school' or you can have your teen intercept them if they walk down the road to get to know them, but that's not strictly necessary. Just see the week through, and when the next Monday (or whenever) rolls around get back into the neighbourhood, get up the cheatbox and turn boolprop on. Back in the house spawn the tombstone and add your troubled teen to the family. Right, now the challenge begins!

He hates everybody. His whole life has been turned upside down and he's NOT in a good mood!! Using Boolprop drag his relationship scores with his parent and your sim family down to -100, both long and short term. It's going to take this kid a long time to trust anyone, and let his guard down again! The only exception here is your family's teen. These guys have been BFF's since forever, so only drag the short term relationship score down all the way, make long term 0. Set all your family's relationship scores with him to 0. However close they had been, adding this troubled lad to the family will shake their lives up and they don't know how to feel about him yet!.

With his difficult home environment this teen has been seriously struggling at school. Boolprop his grade to an E. Reflect his unhappy home life in his need bars - drag them down until they're each just a quarter full. That done, you should be ready to play.

The challenge

Okedoke, let's get started. The aim is for this teen to build up trust and form friendly relationships with his new foster family, learn new skills, work hard but have fun and make sure his needs are always met. Your sims need to show this kid the true meaning of dedication before it's too late. Once your foster teen has joined the family play aging off for one more week, then turn it on again and play until the day before he's due to turn adult. At this point you may want to move him on to Uni or back home, or whatever you like, but that is when the challenge ends.

The rules are:

* You MAY NOT play this teen. He's not a true member of the family after all. Of course you can click on him to see how his needs are doing, what his wants are and how his relationship bars are progressing, but you may not direct him to do anything. The only exception is when getting him to search for a job or apply for scholarships, otherwise, mitts off!

*He must have his own room. You might want to lock your sims bedroom doors so he doesn't get into their beds! He's got boundary issues, what can I say!

*Your sims should be setting him the example of a good work ethic! They should either have jobs, run a (home) business or sell creations to make money. 'Job hopping' is fine, HOWEVER exiting the lot without saving after a bad chance card is very norty and against the rules! This teen needs to learn that sometimes bad things happen, but you have to pick yourself up and move on! Your family teen may also work, although it's not compulsory.

*You may have as many pets as you like. Animals can be very therapeutic to damaged children. BUT you need to make sure you take the very best care of them for obvious reasons!

*Your teen may have contact with his birth parent, but it has to be initiated by the parent of course.

*Romantic relationships between the foster teen and an outsider, or family teen and an outsider are fine - when working out the score being in love or going steady equates to 'BFF'.

*You may use/sell anything in your foster teen's inventory.

*Influencing the foster teen is allowed, encouraged even! As is 'Offer to help with homework'. Of course you can't control him to do it himself, so this is the only way to get his homework done, unless your family teen does it for him! That IS allowed for the challenge, but only sneakily - there's no way the parents would knowingly let them cheat! If a parent walks into the room while they're cheating your family teen has to stop immediately and not return to it that day. No picking up homework and moving it either, it's done where it's put.

*Mr Humble's computer is acceptable, but the gypsy lamp is not. Either sell without rubbing or hide it in an inventory.

*Don't let the child age up! Turn aging off and have them age up/blow out cake candles, then turn aging on again straight away.

*Aspiration rewards etc are all yours for the use of! Also feel free to hire any service sims you desire.

*No vacations - it would give an unfair advantage

Working out your score

I did play this challenge myself but it was some time ago, so sorry if I miss anything obvious out or whatever. Please tell me if I've made an error!

The day before your teens age up, pause the game and work out your score. Still keep an eye on things as you play though, such as counting promotions and grades!

Foster teen relationships:

Each friend is worth +100 points
Each best friend is worth +500 points
Each BFF is worth +1000 points
Each pet friend +100 points
Each pet master/mine +1000 points

Any relationship with his birth parent is worth twice that of other friends

Foster teen skills:

The first 2 skill points in each area +100 points each
The 3rd and subsequent skill points in each area +1000 points each
Talent badge bronze +500 points
Talent badge silver +1000 points
Talent badge gold +2000 points

Foster teen academic achievements:

Each C to B minus +100 points
Each B to A minus +500 points
Each A and A plus +1000 points
Any positive school pop-ups (doing well in drums etc) +1000 points
Each college scholarship +2000 points

Foster teen work ethic:

Each promotion +1000 points
Maxed out teen career +2000 points
Money made from selling teen's paintings/caught fish etc +10 points for each simoleon worth


Other household member's points

These aren't so high value as the foster teen's as they haven't had the same rough start in life to be working against. However, it's important that the parents are there for their own children, set good examples and make sure they reach their own goals too!

Relationships (these include outside friends and other family members, but not with the foster teen) :

Each friend is worth +50 points
Each best friend is worth +100 points
Each BFF is worth +500 points
Each pet friend +50 points
Each pet master/mine +500 points

Within the family a mutual friendship only counts as one. So if your siblings are best friends it's just 100 points, not 200 points

Family members' skills:

The first 2 skill points in each area +50 points each
The 3rd and subsequent skill points in each area +500 points each
Talent badge bronze +100 points
Talent badge silver +500 points
Talent badge gold +1000 points
Parenting/fire safety/physiology etc +500 points for each

Family teen and child academic achievements:

Each A and A plus +500 points
Any positive school pop-ups (doing well in drums etc) +500 points
Private school acceptance +2000 points
Each college scholarship +1000 points


Family work ethic:

Each promotion +500 points
Maxed out teen career +1000 points
Maxed out adult career +3000 points
Money made from selling family's paintings/caught fish etc +5 points for each simoleon worth (don't include home business sales)
Home business +500 points per level
Every simoleon the family and household's worth (minus the £10,000 loan) +1 point


Lifetime aspiration achievement = 3000 points. It should be more really, but I want this challenge to be more about the troubled teen than the adults.

BE WARNED - these situations aren't always plain sailing!

Fire -2000 points
Burglar -2000 points
Fight on the lot, even if it's not between family members (think home business) -2000 points
Cockroaches -2000 points
Demotion, either teen or adult -1000 points
Loss of a skill point -1000 points
Every failing grade (a drop of 2 or more grades from the highest that sim has ever achieved) -2000 points
Refusal of private school placement -2000 points
Get caught sneaking out -2000 points
Negative relations within the family at the end of the challenge (including foster teen) -2000 points each sim who feels it
Get caught doing foster teen's or younger sibling's homework -100 points
Dolls house (or similar) gets smashed -100 points
Bird/fish/womrat dies from neglect -500 points

If the social worker or animal rescue peeps come, you're screwed! Also if a teen runs away from home, or a teen or child dies. Game over in such a case. One parent can snuff it, but not the other. If both parents die that's it. You need to be there for the kids!

Good luck, and let me know what you think! I'm going to play it again myself now just to check it works.
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Mad Poster
#2 Old 25th Jun 2014 at 4:39 AM
This actually looks DIFFERANT! A bit complicated, but interesting. It WILL be a challenge to keep him happy and healthy without controlling him! What's the point in the adopting family also having a child?

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#3 Old 26th Jun 2014 at 6:27 PM
Quote: Originally posted by grammapat
This actually looks DIFFERANT! A bit complicated, but interesting. It WILL be a challenge to keep him happy and healthy without controlling him! What's the point in the adopting family also having a child?


Thanks. The child thing, that was just how I played it myself before I realised it was a challenge. I guess it's a mixture of giving the middle class family their '2.4 kids' and just seeing how the relationship between the child and the foster teen would pan out. And making life a little harder for the parents - with a little one of their own to keep happy, well cared for and educated the time and energy they have to dedicate to the foster teen would be that bit more limited.
Mad Poster
#4 Old 26th Jun 2014 at 10:13 PM
Think I'll try it, with same-sex teen already in the house but no child.

Stand up, speak out. Just not to me..
Instructor
#5 Old 1st Sep 2014 at 11:21 AM
This looks like fun - I think I'll give it a go. (If for no other reason than to make my upper-middle-class family more interesting! XD)
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#6 Old 1st Sep 2014 at 8:38 PM
Well, I played it again after writing it all down and I realised there are a couple of issues! First, you can't boolprop th grade to an E, so either use a hack or play your teen on their own lot for a couple of days (but no skilling even;accidentally') without sending them to school. The second problem was running away from home. My troubled teen ran away all the damn time! Realistic I guess! Maybe let's just say game over if you can't get the kid back, but otherwise, perhaps minus 1000 points or something! It was hard but actually pretty fun when I played it again though, just a bit tricky to keep track of points.
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