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Mad Poster
#26 Old 30th Dec 2017 at 4:34 AM
Looking at real-world apocalyptic events, I'm reminded of an oft-repeated paraphrasing of Darwin: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most reactive to change." So, you can scale that down to a Sim-level, and you might find that some of your "tough guy" Sims are the first to die, thinking themselves invulnerable; you might also find that your "smarter" Sims end up trying to think their way out of a problem for so long that the problem beats down their doors and eats them, for example. Whatever approach you take though, from a storytelling standpoint, it'll flow better if your Sims stay true to their own nature... you can end up with some interesting scenarios that way. (it's not an apocalyptic scenario, but when a Sim in my medieval 'hood who had been being groomed for the monarchy became a vampire in a society that ostracizes vampires, I decided to keep playing her as someone used to assuming things were supposed to be hers, and she ended up running a supernatural underworld WAY more interesting than a simple royalty storyline would have been! You might find similar surprises in your postapocalyptic 'hood)

From an aesthetic standpoint, I fully agree with the people above me commenting on the resiliency of nature, and I would suggest that you look at art from the game "The Last Of Us" to get inspiration... adding to which, that's an easier style to render in-game. You can look at some of my industrial and apocalyptic lots to get a bit of an idea what I'm talking about in the short-run (lots of weeds springing up in the middle of abandoned regions, leaves and dirt mixing with the debris of modern society, etc...), and in the long run, you could expand that idea further- have trees sprouting out of abandoned cars to give the impression of a greater passage of time since the apocalypse, or buildings collapsed with gardens tended in the ruins for food... If you're trying to design forsaken locations, have a story in mind (even just an outline) as to what happened there- it'll make things fit together better, and help create a more satisfying world. The picture attached here is just a vignette that I made a while back, but even there, I have a headcanon that explains why things look the way they do, and it makes much more sense to me that way.

Whatever you do, have fun with it! A big part of why postapocalyptic stories are so fun is because they open up so many original avenues for storytelling!


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Mad Poster
#27 Old 30th Dec 2017 at 6:57 PM
Before you decide what post-apocalyptic Pleasantview looks like, you've got to decide what the apocalypse looks like. I'm looking North-north-east, at Yellowstone. (Can't actually see it, there are a few mountains between here and there, but it's close.) I'm absolutely certain my apocalypse will look markedly different than Hurricane Harvey in Houston.

To me, everything blanketed with volcanic ash, unable to go outside without masks, etc, looks like the aftermath of the apocalypse. I suspect Houstonites think flood debris looks like the aftermath of the apocalypse. Australians might think of environmental devastation by rabbit as being the apocalypse.

So, where's Pleasantview in your world? What's going to destroy it?

Pics from my game: Sunbee's Simblr Sunbee's Livejournal
"English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it." C.J. Cherryh
Scholar
Original Poster
#28 Old 31st Dec 2017 at 10:19 AM
i'd make an aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse

I May Be Life Dumb But I'm Sim Smart(mostly).
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Mad Poster
#29 Old 31st Dec 2017 at 8:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Emerald1234
i'd make an aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse


Then I'd start by looking at pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from immediately post WW-II, if I were you.

Pics from my game: Sunbee's Simblr Sunbee's Livejournal
"English is a marvelous edged weapon if you know how to wield it." C.J. Cherryh
Mad Poster
#30 Old 1st Jan 2018 at 8:15 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Sunbee
Then I'd start by looking at pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from immediately post WW-II, if I were you.


For the initial effect, absolutely... but the further removed you are from the apocalypse (up to a point), the more interesting the storytelling and setting can be... With that in mind, I would also say to look at pictures of those two cities a few years to a few decades later (if you're planning on rebuilding society within your apocalyptic setting), or look at pictures of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone if you're planning on leaving things more in ruins... they're very different aesthetics, and could be very different stories!

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Theorist
#31 Old 1st Jan 2018 at 11:15 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Zarathustra
For the initial effect, absolutely... but the further removed you are from the apocalypse (up to a point), the more interesting the storytelling and setting can be... With that in mind, I would also say to look at pictures of those two cities a few years to a few decades later (if you're planning on rebuilding society within your apocalyptic setting), or look at pictures of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone if you're planning on leaving things more in ruins... they're very different aesthetics, and could be very different stories!


I agree with you that the further away from the Apocalypse, the more interesting, and strange, the setting can become. However I disagree that looking at Hiroshima/Nagasaki in the 50s/60s would be helpful. After all, the survivors of those cities didn't create a post-apocalyptic society, instead normal society was returned to them from outside, and like all areas that came under the influence of the western allies in the Cold War, it soon became prosperous and thriving.
Ultimately the restoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not really different from other cities in Japan, mainland Asia or Europe that had been leveled by "conventional" weaponry during WW II, with the exception of the lingering effects of radiation. So really looking at any place that was involved there would be just as good fo the immediate effects and just as useless once you hit the 50s.

For the long term effects I'd recommend the British movie "Threads". The special effects aren't that great and some details are a bit far-fetched (the complete collapse of language in less than 2 decades after the bomb), but it does offer an idea about society 15 (or so) years after a widespread nuclear war. "The Day After" has the better effects, but it does end only a few days after the war, so it doesn't show the long term effects either.
Field Researcher
#32 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:16 PM
This sounds like a project that I would love to undertake, holy crap. So many good ideas in this thread.

I think one thing I'd start off with is having them all affected by the same negative memory - maybe they all go into aspiration failure first thing? Something like that. Something that affects their memory or mood that could indicate an apocalyptic situation.
Scholar
Original Poster
#33 Old 9th Jan 2018 at 5:19 PM
yeah i can't be bothered to do this but just saying a post apocalyptic uberhood might work,each hood is affected by bombs or whatever but they all turn out differently

I May Be Life Dumb But I'm Sim Smart(mostly).
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