Out with a Bang! Challenge for The Sims 4

Do you create many Elder sims? It seems like a lot of people don’t. They’re past their prime, wrinkly, prone to fatigue, and…well…going to die much sooner than later. So why start a new game as one when you don’t have that much time? The Out with a Bang Challenge is why!

The Out with a Bang Challenge will see you create a single elder sim and try your very best to live out the rest of their days to the very fullest with a very limited amount of time. This challenge is played with SHORT LIFESPAN, meaning your Elder sim may only have a few precious days left to achieve as many dreams and desires as they can. Will your Elder sim be able to achieve deep fulfillment and 5000 satisfaction points? Or will they die without much satisfaction to look back on? Try the challenge out and see how you do!

Challenge Goals, Requirements & Rules

The ultimate goal of the Out with a Bang Challenge is pretty simple: earn as close to – or more than – 5000 satisfaction points before your sim dies. It sounds easy but there are a few aspects that can suddenly make this quite difficult…

The Sims 4 base game is the only requirement! You are able to play this challenge with any mix of additional game packs and the more you have, the more versatility/options you’ll be given when it comes to aspirations and whims.

Making your Elder Sim

1. Create a single, unmarried, childless Elder sim in CAS. They can look however you want, be either gender, be non-human: anything goes!
2. Randomize their traits ONCE! Whatever you get, that’s it! No do-overs. You gotta stick with what you got!
3. Choose a starting aspiration that best matches the rolled traits. For example, if you roll the Creative trait it may be best to pick a skill-based aspiration like Musical Genius or Painter Extraordinaire. You will most likely need to focus on one or maybe two personality traits at a time when picking an aspiration and they could potentially make things very easy or very difficult for your poor aging sim! But don’t worry – you’ll have the ability to change aspirations. This is just the starting point.
4. Move your sim into whatever house/location/etc you think will make them happiest! For example, if you roll the Child of the Islands/Ocean trait, it’s probably best to move your sim to Sulani to assist their wants and your playthrough.
   1. You may not achieve the Mansion Baron, Fabulously Wealthy, or any other aspirations in this process. When you begin the playthrough, your sim should have 0 satisfaction points!
5. Make sure aging is ON and lifespans are set to SHORT. Your sim is dying of a very aggressive terminal illness and doesn’t have much time left!
6. HARD MODE: If you want an extra challenge, turn whims OFF and strictly focus on aspiration goals.

Rules for playing

• NO POTION OF YOUTH. You are prohibited from doing anything to stay Death’s hand besides living a fulfilling life!
• Money cheats and free real estate are allowed so long as they do not fulfill any satisfaction wants, ex: Mansion Baron or Fabulously Wealthy. Feel free to give your Elder sim as much money as they need to live in a swanky house with all the necessary material items they may want to use!
• All other cheats including disabling need decay, altering relationships, completing aspiration levels, etc are strictly prohibited.
• Mods that alter whims, fears, satisfaction points, personality traits, rewards, etc are discouraged but not prohibited. Depending on which game packs you have, there seems to be a lot of people experiencing issues with perpetual fears and irrational whims (including myself). If you find your game balance is thrown because of this and prefer using mods to restore more natural whims, feel free to do so. The point of ‘no mods’ is to try to prevent satisfaction points being earned in an abnormal way but that’s it.
• Placing mood-altering objects is prohibited unless they are obtained organically by your sim during play.

Tips for going out with a bang!

Once you’ve made your Elder sim, moved them into a house, made sure it was all furnished nicely, and everything is otherwise ready to go…get to work because the clock is ticking! With lifespans set to short, you don’t have much time to advance skill build, make tons of friends, or climb a career ladder…so what will you do to ensure your sim is as happy as possible?! Follow their whims and aspirations to see how far they take you!

During your playthrough, you may switch aspirations as you please and complete levels concurrently. Going back/forth between several aspirations is probably the best way to achieve anywhere near the 5000-point range and thus far in my own playthroughs I have been unable to achieve 5000+ without multiple aspirations going concurrently.

Don’t ignore your sim’s personality traits. You might think their traits suck and can be ignored in favour of a conflicting yet higher-scoring aspiration, but you’ll probably end up with a frustrated sim who is in a foul mood a lot of the time! Moodlets can greatly help or hinder, so playing to their personality is key for keeping your sim happy, both with satisfaction points and overall mood.

Your sim may live much longer than you expect…or much shorter! Your sim won’t necessarily drop dead when their ‘days lived’ bar starts to glow and the game warns you that the Grim Reaper is right around the corner. Their personality traits and wants may greatly influence how long they have left and thus how much time you have to help them achieve greater satisfaction.

Out with a Bang! Gallery

I’ve played this challenge twice (technically three times but I didn’t really record the first one as it was such a failure) and had very different experiences with both sims. In this gallery you can see a few screenshots from my attempts and maybe get some insight into how they lived fulfilling – or not so fulfilling – lives!

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How many points did YOU score?

If you try this challenge, please let me know how many points you managed to score! I’d love to hear about how other simmers fared and what your overall experience was like so I can improve this challenge further!