The 5th part of my Sims Let’s Play for the PlayStation 2! This is the last part that I filmed last year so now it’s time to get back into the groove and play some more!
Category: Games
Cosy Blue Apartment | Speed Building | Sims 4
A little build video for my Sims Channel! Something I had filmed a while ago but thought I would wait a bit to post because I had posted a lot of build videos to my channel recently.
If you guys wanna download this from the Sims 4 Gallery all you have to do is search ‘SimmingAndSuch’ or #BlueCosyApartment – it is saved as a room build but it shouldn’t be too hard to put the missing walls back in!
Courtney the Slave & Mimi the Slacker | Party Animals | Let’s Play The Sims | PlayStation 2 | Part 4
After a year I have finally edited and posted the fourth episode of my Sims PlayStation 2 Let’s Play!
I started this series last summer and filmed a few episodes and then got lazy and didn’t edit them.
I’ve had this footage for a year and I debated deleting it and just never going back to the series but at the same time, I wanted to finally finish a Let’s Play. That and actually complete the Sims on the PlayStation 2 because I haven’t done that before.
So here we are, back at it. Here’s hoping that this year I can put out more than a few Let’s Play parts a year.
~ Courtney x
Playing Pokemon Go Again
I’ve started playing Pokemon Go again.
It started a few months ago, I started playing it while walking to and from work. It was the best time to play because it meant I could hatch eggs and there were also gyms/pokestops on my route.
So I’m now back on it, checking daily even when I’m not leaving the house (we actually get quite a few Pokemon spawn around the house) and always trying to have the app up in the background when I’m walking anywhere to hatch my eggs.
Today though I have taken it to another level and installed Pokemon Go on my old phone. I thought this would be good because it’s easier to have the app open there when walking so, if I have to check a message I don’t have to close the app to open another one, and it will mean my phone battery isn’t drained because of the game.
I don’t know how often I will carry around both phones because I will keep Pokemon Go on my current phone, I just think if I will be out during the day it might be easier to have it on a separate device.
I have also joined a local group chat for Pokemon Go in the hopes that it will encourage me to participate in more raids. So far I only do raids I can do on my own because I don’t have a group of people to go raiding with. I’m surprised that so many people still play Pokemon Go, but at the same time I know people do because the gyms are always changing etc.
So I’m excited to once again be embarking on my Pokemon Go journey, however long it lasts this time.
If you want to add me as a friend my friend code is below, I will send you gifts when I have them and will do my best to open ones you send me if I have room in my bag.
~ Courtney x
Playing Little Big Planet!
This summer I have decided to finally complete Little Big Planet & Little Big Planet 2.
These games were probably the only ones I ever played on the PlayStation 3. I never personally owned one but my little brother did. So I never really took to PlayStation gaming.
But I was talking to my brother last month about it and he said he would lend me his PlayStation so I could play the games.
So far, I have completed all the levels in Little Big Planet and have started on Little Big Planet 2.
Ideally, I do want to collect all the stickers and items in both games but realistically I know that probably won’t happen. But that won’t stop me from going back and trying.
I’ll let you know if I succeed in my mission or not. But the main thing is I complete all the levels!
~ Courtney x
Rayna James and Juliette Barnes from Nashville CMT | Sims 4 CAS
Continuing with my theme of creating Sims based on actors that I love, I present Rayna James and Juliette Barnes from Nashville CMT!
To download these sims from the gallery just search ‘SimmingAndSuch’ or #NashvilleCMT
The Schuyler Sisters From Hamilton West End | Sims 4
A new create a sim video where I create the Schuyler sisters from the musical Hamilton!
I have loved the Hamilton musical since I first listened to it and I got to see it on the West End in January and it was so amazing. So of course I wanted to create some cool sims to celebrate!
To download the Sims from the Sims 4 Gallery just search ‘SimmingAndSuch’ or #LondonSchuylerSisters
The Gilmore Girls | Sims 4 CAS
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a Create a Sim video so I thought I would jump right back into it by creating the Gilmores!
To download these sims from the gallery all you have to do is search ‘SimmingAndSuch’ or #GilmoreGirls
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp | Nintendo Direct Thoughts
As soon as I heard about the Animal Crossing mobile Nintendo Direct I knew that 140 characters was not going to be enough to express my thoughts and excitement. I also realised that some people would not appreciate a one hour video of me fangirling and talking about Animal Crossing either. So I decided to go for a blog post. This way I can say everything I need to say, you can read it or not and things will make a lot more sense. When I make videos when I’m excited they tend to be all over the place and I talk really fast so can be hard to understand. So here I am trying to be comprehensive and more structured.
I’ve decided to base this off of the way the Nintendo Direct flowed and also throw in additional comments about other things I’ve seen online. Like I said I have a lot of thoughts so, let’s not waste any more time!
Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
First of all – the name. It’s not the best spin-off name. It kind of follows along the lines of Animal Crossing: Let’s Go To The City. Very literal. It would have been nice if they had gone along the lines of New Leaf or Wild World but I don’t know what else they would have called it.
Not that I can really be annoyed at something like the name. If anything everyone will probably just call it Animal Crossing Mobile anyway.
Camp Manager
In this spin-off, we are not going to be mayors. We are taking on the role of Camp Manager. Which makes sense, I mean I hardly expected them to give us a full Animal Crossing game on mobile. So when I saw the concept of decorating your own campsite I thought that would be it, kind of a watered down version of things like the Mario mobile app. And the way you decorate the campsite is the same as you would in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer which I am already very familiar with so I thought that would be okay. Definitely something simple and easy to do for mobile phone.
But finding out that this is only part of what you can do with this app is amazing. If anything, I feel like this is the kind of thing Happy Home Designer should have been because it gives you so much more gameplay than just designing a campsite.
So I am very excited to take on my role of camp manager and to design a campsite – especially if it means it’s not the only thing we get to do.
Helping Villagers
Something that every Animal Crossing player is familiar with. I like the idea of doing quests for villagers in exchange for crafting materials. I also like the new friendship level that they have added to the game. This way you know exactly how friendly you are with a villager and it’s easier to see the friendship progress over time. In the other games, you kind of just guessed how close you were with a villager.
Not sure if your friendship level can decrease with a villager like it does in other games though. I mean it would be interesting if it did so you would have to keep in contact and talk to the villager to keep the friendship level up. Although I don’t know how interested people would be in that feature, but I think I would like it.
Also, I noticed in the video that when the villager shook the fruit tree, it told you a time for when the trees would replenish with fruit which is interesting. In other games, normally fruit would just reappear the next day but it’s good to know the waiting time is a lot less for this mobile game. Although I guess it would have to be to get those materials.
Crafting furniture
Instead of buying all our furniture from Tom Nook, we have to craft our furniture by gathering materials. Something that I think will be very time consuming, as items of furniture take time to craft. Also, I don’t know how many items Cyrus can craft at a time so this is something that could be very frustrating for me.
I have never been the most patient of people, especially right now. I mean I can’t contain my excitement for this mobile game. Every time I look up things about it or think about it, I just get super hyped up. So waiting for furniture to be built is going to be kind of annoying…but I guess that brings us to the next topic.
Leaf Tickets
People are very divided about this. But honestly, how can you expect a mobile app not to have in-app purchases?
I guess it does suck though because it’s not something we ever had in Animal Crossing. You just paid for the price of the game and that was it. But this game, is free to download, so essentially free to play. They gotta make money somewhere…
And of course, Tom Nook is the one to be handling your real life money transactions. That was definitely on purpose. I’ve spent years paying off debt to Tom Nook so it makes sense he would be after real money now.
On a serious note though, I don’t know how to feel about the Leaf Ticket thing. I mean you can use them to have things completed faster and everything but will they become a requirement the further you get in the game?
If so that would be a serious turn off for me. As an avid player of mobile games, I have always refused to make in-app purchases for things such as lives in Candy Crush. So I probably won’t be spending money just to have something built quicker for my Animal Crossing campsite. I would rather pay an up-front price and not have to pay again.
So, as long as you can get plenty of gameplay without the purchase of leaf tickets then it’s fine. But I definitely think it should be left as an optional thing. I don’t like paying real money for virtual currency. It just feels wrong.
However, if they added certain features that you had to pay for it may be different. But I guess we just have to see what happens…
Villagers Move Around?
This isn’t actually talked about in the Nintendo Direct but I noticed it while watching it – the villagers move around? I think this is great because it means you don’t have the same five villagers around. And I was wondering how you attracted more villagers to the campsite.
I’m not sure how many villagers you can have on a campsite at one time either but I know I will be constantly checking my app to see what villagers are around.
Throw Nets and Honey
I have to admit I was pretty excited about these. Not that catching fish or bugs in Animal Crossing has ever been hard, but finding the particular one you need for a quest can be annoying. So this makes things easier, as you can catch large amounts of fish/bugs in one go.
But I’m pretty sure this is something that you have to pay for. So something I think I could probably live without.
I am excited to see if they are used in a new console version of Animal Crossing in the future though. Because not only was I watching the Nintendo Direct and getting excited about the mobile game, I was also watching and getting excited on what they could bring to Animal Crossing for the Nintendo Switch. So I think these would be cool additions to the game. But instead of paying for them you could only use them once a day or something. Would be something to think about.
Play Real Time
This is one of the reasons why I got hooked on playing Animal Crossing so much. Playing in real time means you wanna play every hour of the day to see what changes and things you can do at different times of the day. Obviously, you could just cheat and change the time of your device, but where’s the fun in that? So for sure, playing in real time on mobile means I’ll be playing morning, noon and night.
Not to mention HOLIDAYS! This has always been a huge thing in Animal Crossing for me. I love the holidays in Animal Crossing. They are always super cute. And it was only really with the release of the 3DS game that we got to experience the most holidays. So I am excited to see what they will be like in Pocket Camp, especially because we will get mobile app updates regularly so they can always create new things for all the events in the world.
It’s just one of those extra things that makes Animal Crossing special. So I am super excited to play all year round, and basically forever…
Shopping
I would have been surprised if this was something that was left out of this mobile app. Shopping is a big thing in Animal Crossing. And dressing up your character and customising things is also a big part of it. So I am super glad we have this.
Plus the marketplace and all the camper vans are super cute so I am definitely a fan of this.
Designing Your Camper Van
I was waiting the whole video for this. I needed to know if we could decorate the camper van. It’s a necessity. Like, if you’re going to be driving it around all the time we have to be able to personalise it. So yes. We can. All is well.
Not only that but we have NEW characters! (Honestly surprised that Tom Nook just didn’t get into the vehicle business). But yes, new characters! This is always exciting. I don’t know a lot about them but they upgrade your van.
They also bring loans back into the game, something that we are familiar with because of Tom Nook. But we don’t need leaf tickets for these upgrades. As far as I know, these are strictly bell loans. Which means we can pay them off by selling things in the game. Which has been something I have gotten really good at in Animal Crossing. So I am not worried about some loans if it means I can have a really fancy camper vans.
Friends!
Want to be my friend on Animal Crossing? I’m all for it.
The summer that Animal Crossing: New Leaf came out I made so many new friends. And I don’t have any people in my real life that share my love for Animal Crossing so I need people like that in my life.
So yes, I am open to having all the friends on Animal Crossing and visiting people’s campsites and all the other things we can do with that.
And as soon as I get the game, you can be sure I’ll be posting my friend code online 🙂
Customising Your Character
This is something that they introduced in Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer and I am here for it. Mainly because ever since Wild World, I use the same character and it’s annoying looking up face guides haha. So being able to choose whatever you want your character to look like is great.
It also means we can choose a skin tone which is also great and I approve of that very much. So no complaints here. All is well.
Amenities
I got super excited about these! Mainly because it brings us more animations of villagers interacting with items and it’s super cute. Honestly, the main appeal of Animal Crossing for me is that it is super adorable.
But yes, so amenities are bigger items you can add to the campsite and take a lot longer to build. I don’t know how easy it will be to swap amenities out or how many we can have but I want to be able to have all of them at least once to see the villagers use them. And again, it gets me excited to see what they could bring to Animal Crossing for the Switch.
Controls
The final thing I want to talk about, that wasn’t in the videos is controls! So okay, I know it’s a mobile game, so all the controls are just going to be touching the screen.
But I think this is going to be weird. Mainly because Animal Crossing has always been on console so I’m very used to using buttons for all my Animal Crossing actions. Apart from the occasional use of the DS touch screen.
It will be strange to only use touch screen with the game. Especially when the instinct will be to press A to talk/interact with anyone or anything. And also to use the joystick to move your character. So I think it’ll be interesting to see how that goes. But I also think it will take away a bit of the playing experience just because tapping everything could get in the way of things. But I guess we just see what it’s like. Not that something like this could ever stop me from playing this game.
That brings us to the end of all my thoughts on the Animal Crossing Nintendo Direct. (Way more than 140 characters).
As you can see 99% of this blog post was positive. I really don’t think I could have said a bad thing about this mobile app if I tried. Obviously, as a lover of the Animal Crossing franchise, I was going to be all for anything new Nintendo wanted to bring out to do with it. And this mobile application is definitely worth the wait.
It doesn’t even feel like it’s a mobile app. This is a full Animal Crossing game in its own right. And I can’t wait until I have it. I know they’ve released it early in Australia and it’s killing me because all I want to do is download it right now.
But I will be patient. And I guess I will have to be even more patient and wait to see if they are going to be releasing a new Animal Crossing console game in the future. I just know that they can go above and beyond with Animal Crossing if they brought it to the Switch and that is what I’m really hoping for.
In the meantime, I’ll probably be torturing myself by watching gameplay videos and looking at the Animal Crossing tag on Tumblr. And also playing the other Animal Crossing games to keep me satisfied until the release of the new game. They say it’ll be released late November but how late in November is what I wanna know. An exact date would be ideal but I guess we just see what happens.
If you guys are interested in following me and my adventures in Animal Crossing then feel free to follow my Animal Crossing Tumblr blog! I haven’t been very active recently but I will definitely be posting more when the new Animal Crossing game is released. And as always, find me on Twitter for all my real-time up-to-date fangirling.
~ Courtney x
Stardew Valley First Impressions | My First Year in Pelican Town
At the start of June, my brother asked me what I wanted for my birthday and so I asked him to buy me Stardew Valley. The reason why I asked him to buy it for me as a present was because, one, it was the only thing I could think of that I kind of wanted. And two, because I wasn’t sure if I would like it or not but I thought I would give it a go. So the purchase was made via Steam and I was playing it within five minutes.
The reason why I was unsure of whether I would like the game or not is because the game is heavily influenced by the Harvest Moon series and the one Harvest Moon game I played, I was not a fan of. So it only made sense that if I didn’t like Harvest Moon, I wouldn’t like a game heavily based off of it.
Well, I was wrong.
You start off in a farm which you inherited from your grandfather, it is an overgrown farm so you have to clear the land in order to plant any crops. Which, was the first thing that I thought would turn me off of the game. I tried to watch a Let’s Play of the game to get an idea of it, but when I saw the player start with a huge farm they had to clear, I thought it would be super boring to watch and therefore super boring to play.
However, clearing up the farm didn’t end up being too bad. You just need to clear a little patch at first to get going and then over time you can clear the whole land.
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| Planting my summer crops! |
The farming aspect of the game is actually quite enjoyable, for me anyway. (I think it has something to do with the Farmville addiction I used to have). Every time a new season starts I go straight to the store to get seeds for that season. In the first year, I didn’t do much farming because at the time you had to water each and every crop and it became tedious. For the longest time, I didn’t know that when you upgraded your tools it allowed you to water and hoe more than one piece of land at a time. So that probably would have saved me a lot of time haha.
As the game goes on you can also craft sprinklers which makes it a lot easier to farm, you just have to plant things and let the sprinklers take care of the watering. You can also craft scarecrows to help scare away crows from the farm.
Of course, there are also animals which you can get on the farm which comes with building coops and barns for them, they are also pretty easy to take care of as long as you have long grass on your farm. During winter though you have to keep them indoors and stock up on hay.
Winter was probably the hardest month for me to play through because you can’t grow any crops during the winter unless you have the greenhouse. In the first winter, I hadn’t unlocked it yet so I had to find other things to do. But I definitely missed planting my crops.
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| Meet the villagers! |
Aside from that, you also have a whole town full of people to meet when you first arrive which I struggled with at first. When you start a game and they give you a task like “meet everyone in town” you think it’s going to take about two minutes. It took me about two hours. There are so many people to meet and it’s such a big town so it was a bit of a struggle. Luckily, as the game goes on you begin to recognise villagers and their routines so it’s a lot easier to track them down.
My main problem at the beginning was trying to talk to people who were in their rooms. You can only get into their rooms if you have enough friendship hearts with them. So building relationships in the game is also important.
However, if you are like me, and your focus in the game is anything but talking to villagers, then you can slowly build relationships by giving presents on people’s birthdays. I missed the first few birthdays in the Spring, but other than that I made sure everyone got a present on their birthday.
Although it is beneficial to build relationships with the villagers as they can help you as the game progresses and there are several villagers that you can marry and start a family with in the game. I have not decided who I want to marry yet though, there are a lot of eligible spouses and they all have their own charms about them. So I guess I just see who I end up with.
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| A Linus heart event |
When gaining friendship hearts with villagers you will also get to experience heart events. I didn’t know what they were until I stumbled into one without knowing. They are little cut scenes that you have with the villagers and you get to learn more about them. This adds a lot more depth to the game because even though it’s a cute game on the outside, a lot of the villagers are dealing with real problems. So I do recommend befriending the villagers to learn more about their story.
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| The Feast of the Winter Star (Winter Event) |
You also get to spend time with the villagers during special events. I make sure to go around and talk to everyone at events because they are all in one place. I imagine the special events get boring after the first few times you experience them but the first time around it’s interesting to see what goes on. Every season has two special events, and each is different but take up the whole day which means farming and other ventures have to be put on hold.
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| Completing a room in the community center |
One thing I really got into during my first year in the game was completing the community center bundles. You have to collect certain items and bring them to the community center to restore it. I know there is a different way you can do this where you buy a Joja Mart membership but if you do that, you just have to pay a lot of money to restore the community center. Which, doesn’t seem as fun.
Plus, I feel like you feel more accomplished when you get a certain item needed for a bundle. I have completed three sections of the community center so far, so I just need a few more to go. It can be a little frustrating having to check the community center bundle list every time you pick up a new item, so my solution was to write down the ones I needed on a piece of paper. That way, when I played the game I could always have the sheet in front of me, rather than trying to navigate back and forth from the menu.
When you complete a bundle in the community center you also receive items or unlock special things which will help you in the game, such as the beloved greenhouse that I need to grow crops in the winter.
Another thing which I really enjoyed in my first year of the game was going into the mines. It was the thing I would do when it rained because that’s when I didn’t lose any energy watering crops. The mines are procedurally generated each time you enter, meaning each floor is different each time. You make your way through mining for ore to turn into bars which help craft items. You also have to be wary of monsters lurking in there too.
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| Reaching the bottom of the mines |
One of the tasks you get in the game is to reach the bottom of the mines, it’s not that difficult, however, the further you go down the mines the more you have to be careful of losing all your health/energy and passing out. If you pass out, you lose items, money and “forget” previous levels in the mine which you have to revisit. I was usually good at making it down there without passing out, but towards the end, it happened a few times and it was so frustrating because I was so close to a checkpoint.
By checkpoint, I mean that every five levels in the mine was an elevator, and when you unlocked that elevator you could travel directly to that level in the mine the next time you went there. I didn’t know this was a thing for a while so every time I went into the mines I started at level one, which meant I hardly got past level 10 before I had to leave before I ran out of energy or health. It’s good to know little things like that.
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| Trying to catch that fish! |
I also was really determined to get the hang of fishing in the game. It was difficult when I first started because it’s not something I had experienced before. Basically, when you go fishing you have to keep the fish within the green bar to catch it. Sounds easy, but not when the fish is moving and never staying in one place haha.
Usually, when I go fishing in Animal Crossing it’s super easy, you just gotta press a button when the bobber goes down. So, fishing in this game is a bit of a challenge. But I think it makes it fun. My advice is to use your mouse when catching fish and just slowly click and release it and you should be able to catch most fish with ease. I still have no chance of catching fish that jump crazily up and down the bar but, one day I’m sure I will get them. I hope haha.
After I played the game for the first time, I found myself looking up videos about it on YouTube to find out useful information about starting a new game. The game has been out for a year, and so there are lots of useful videos and resources out there to help. I still always play the game with the wikia page up in case I need to know something. It really helps, especially with villager locations and finding out what the best thing is to give someone on their birthday.
You can also download mods which can allow you to basically cheat or just little ones that can enhance gameplay and change appearance of things in-game. I am familiar with using mods and things like that because of playing Sims, I can’t play Sims without some nice custom content clothing. So when I found out there were mods to make things in Stardew Valley cuter, I was all over that. I only started using mods recently, as I thought I would play my first year in the game without any mods. So I could experience it without any help.
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| I used mods to change the appearance of my farm buildings, cows, horse and hairstyle |
I now use mods mostly to change the appearance of things. But I also use a UI mod which gives you more information in the game, I mainly got it so I would know what area scarecrows and sprinklers cover. I didn’t realise scarecrows covered such a big area in the game, but I still overlap a few areas because I want to protect my crops.
There are lots of other mods out there that I don’t even know how to begin to get into. I don’t want to mod the game too much because I do think it can take away from playing it. Although I know a lot of people prefer it that way. At the start, I did consider downloading a fishing mod because there are loads out there that make fishing a lot easier, but I was determined to be able to catch the fish on my own. So I guess mods are really just a player’s preference.
It’s recommended that you back up your files before you mod so you can always switch them back. Modding in this game is different to modding in the Sims. With the Sims, you just need to have a mods folder, but game mods for Stardew Valley require you to replace game files. So be careful, and make sure you follow install instructions on your desired mod.
I think that wraps up everything that I wanted to share about Stardew Valley now. I knew I had a lot to say but I didn’t realise just how much until I started to write this blog post haha. I just wanted to share my thoughts in case it would help other people. Although, like I said, I have only completed my first year so I might not be the best person to get advice from, but this is just what I have experienced so far in the game.
I am excited to see what other things the game has in store for me as I continue to play. I also look forward to playing in the other farm layouts you can choose from when you start the game. I didn’t mention it earlier but when you start the game, you can choose a farm layout that focuses on building a particular skill. But because it was my first time playing the game, I decided to go with the default farm. Although the other farms look kind of cool too.
Anyway, I’m sure I have more things to say about Stardew Valley but I will leave it here for now.
If you guys are interested in more updates of how my Stardew Valley life is going you can follow me on Twitter or Tumblr. You can also add me on Steam, my username is fangirl1901.
~ Courtney x
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