The neighborhood of Port Promise in Evergreen Harbor has a problem. No, it isn’t the fact that the port is no longer active. Nor is it the fact that bustling trade seems to be happening elsewhere although … that could very well be part of the problem. The residents living there see potential or the promise of something better.

So what is the problem you ask?

This … this EYESORE !

(heavily inspired by a youtube video Prinsass Jasmine made about an abandoned factory turned into community space)

Gallery Link: Port Promise Eyesore

For the OurCorner gift exchange, my assigned Buddy is the sweet illusie ~ builder of beautiful Victorian-styled homes and commercial lots (her other builds are SIMtastic, too); reader extraordinaire who is one of the first people I turn to when wanting a suggestion on what to read next; and knows just the right gif to enhance conversations as well as get us all laughing.

Lu’s Buddy Letter had a lot of good suggestions but the following caught my eye & imagination: Community Space for eco town

Having no idea about how to make this type of lot/venue, I searched high and low on Google only to discover there really isn’t a lot of detailed information about how this works. For the build idea itself, Prinsass Jasmine’s video was a veritable mine full of precious gemstones. Using her build as a shell (I graphed out what I thought it was roughly like) and went from there.

Lu got Bree (BreeMiles) and me interested in playing the Globetrotter Challenge. Lo & behold, a future round has our sim going to Evergreen Harbor where they will complete the master maker aspiration and perhaps the optional secondary aspiration. That means a Maker Space is much needed!

Did you know the Community Space is essentially FOUR lots in one? I did (after deciding to make this!) but had no clue as to how it would work when uploading to Gallery, adding to a new game save for testing purposes or even doing the testing itself. I know more now and it is mostly because of trying this and that over being shown by another Simmer.

When uploading to the Gallery, each lot venue (Community Space, Community Garden, Marketplace, Maker Space) needs to be individually uploaded. IMPORTANT Note: Save as New, do not save and overwrite. Yes, I did that … several times.

When downloading into your game save, order of lots IS important because the first one you place is considered the Active Lot (the one you see when visiting the lot). If you want the ability to change from Maker Space to Community Garden (or Community Space to Maker Space) (I did both just to see if it mattered having the Community Space as the “default” lot or not, both changes worked) using the cheat code (instead of voting while playing the game and hoping your vote influences what gets placed) then the following steps are crucial:

• Your sim must live in the same neighborhood as the Community Space if you wish to use these cheats. The online steps for using the cheat code does NOT mention this and of course, I learned it the hard way.
• Open the cheat console in the game.
• Turn on cheats by typing testingcheats true and press the enter key
• Have your sim head over to the public voting board at the Community Space
• Click on the Public Voting Board by holding the shift key
• Select the Instant Enact Community Space Project (cheat) option
• Choose how you want to change it from the options listed

But BEFORE you do the above, be sure to download each lot venue into its “slot” because otherwise you will just have the one you downloaded and the game defaults for the other spaces if using the preexisting Community Space in Evergreen Harbor like I did. Yes, I can say “been there, done that” a lot while fiddling with this gift but it was worth it. This is how I found out that the Gallery upload is only for the individual lot you directly upload and not all of them in one go. Looking at the TYPE should have clued me in since it didn’t have the word Commercial but showed Maker Space (or Community Space or Community Garden or Marketplace). In my weakly stated defense, I tend to upload Residential lots. LOL

Back to the presentation portion, here are some images of interesting things that happened while testing the lot.

Yes! Father Winter came to the rundown lot and immediately began rummaging in the dumpster for whatever. Do his gifts for bad little sims come from here? LOL

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I then took this build and changed it into something else.

Gallery Link: Port Promise Community Garden

Images from testing the lot.

Testing went quick because townies flocked to this lot and tried out many of the activities before I led my sim to them. Thanks!

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Changes were made to the Community Garden to transform it into something else.

Gallery Link: Port Promise Market

Images from testing the lot.

Mary Greenburg tended to run around like a loon, waving her arms as she ran around both inside and outside the building. Never could figure out why but found it quite funny. She also did this at another lot but I can’t recall which one it was nor did I grab a screenshot of it.

Father Winter is observing Ulrike Faust to see if she has the potential to join his workshop. Ulrike doesn’t seem impressed by the man or his mission. LOL

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Changes were made to the Marketplace to transform it into something else.

Gallery Link: Make This Your Space

Images from testing the lot.

I was quite surprised to see Agnes Crumplebottom arrive. She stood behind my sim & had me worried she was going to whip out her bag and hit him but no, she merely wanted him to move so she could get busy with tending the garden.

I noticed the vendor tables are taken over by sims selling whatever they want which changes the aesthetic of creating specific market stalls. I knew they wouldn’t be used the way I wanted but it was fun creating unique places for selling things. The Community Garden, Marketplace and Maker Space all have vendor tables. If you want to limit other sims from using them you could change out the table to create “faux” selling areas or perhaps even make it so that the table is free once your own sim has something worth selling.

Lia Hauta had some sort of mishap, looking like she had participated in a Color Run, but this didn’t seem to phase her one bit.

I did NOT know there are Maker Mentors! She spent her time mentoring Caleb Hawkins (PBHiccup made him & older brother, Marcus, for me during our last gift exchange). They helped my sim test out things the other children & older sims weren’t using.

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BONUS Gift

Back to Lu’s Buddy Letter. I quote “A hot bad guy with lots of tattoos would be great” … I agree, Lu, I agree.

Am not sure if he is what she hoped for but I think he turned out rather well!

Gallery Link: Wilde Child

Am opting not to show him in all his outfits because there are quite a few (extra outfits in several categories) and wanted his choice of tattoos to remain a mystery.

Patrick’s description on Gallery: Patrick Wilde plans to live up to his name! Brainiacs and Bros aren’t his thing but messing with them might be. He was created using the story function in Create-a-Sim and turned out even better than expected.

Patrick’s Backstory (not in description): Patrick enjoyed slinging himself down the slopes until an accident ended his chance at going for the gold. Now he’s thinking of swinging a guitar strap across his back and hitting the bars. Lounges might be too fancy but he’ll walk in with a swagger and a smirk on his face. Being bounced by a bouncer only adds an interesting story to tell others.

His outfits and tattoos might not be known but here is a glimpse into what the story function considered suitable based on the answers I gave to their various questions.

Usually, I try to have the sim pair with the build but not this time. Patrick was NOT fond of the many activities I had him try out at the lots nor was he keen on the music coming from the speakers. It will be interesting to see what he’s like in your game, Lu.

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When the idea for this gift came about, I truly wasn’t sure I could do it justice because I don’t consider myself a builder. I quickly realized how BIG a project this was and decided to “go big or go home”. Bree pointed me in the direction of a mod (BetterBuildBuy) that changed my attitude around regarding debug items and can vouch for my many comments about spending HOURS digging through it to find potential pieces. What she doesn’t know is that I needed to do this for all FOUR lots.

Did that discourage me? No! In fact, I found myself very excited to be building and decorating. The four lots took a total of 6-7 days to be built and fully decorated. This is unheard of. I usually take that amount of time to build/decorate a house. One house that is typically much smaller than these. Then 1 long but happily productive day of testing all four lots and grabbing screenshots. I thought I would need more than a day but the townie sims flocked to each lot and cut my list of things to test down tremendously, thanks! 1 day making Patrick (I actually made him first!). 1 day spent preparing this blog post. So in just under two weeks, this entire shebang was made from start to finish. Whew, what a ride it was too!!!

Do I consider myself a builder now? If I don’t, Mr Addy will wallop me with logic once more if I dare utter those words again. To quote him, “You made this. You ARE a builder.”

Thanks for reading my ramble and very long-winded mini novel for this gift to a dear friend.

Enjoy, xo Addy