Personality Vs Lifestyle
My Sims addiction started eight years ago. Two of my siblings play the game as well, and sometimes subconsciously we act like the Sims, all three of us. So, this is why I have this notion about the Sims being a game about Lifestyle.
When creating a Sim, you are asked to give them a name, a skin color, shape of head, weight, clothing, facial features, and lastly their horoscope and aspiration.
Age ranges from Toddler, Child, Teenager, Young Adult (if you have the University pack), Adult, and Old.
Toddlers and children aspire to Grow Up. Once they’re teenagers an aspiration window pops up, providing a suggestion of an aspiration for your Sim according to how they’ve been living their life, skills and inheritance.
The initial idea of The Sims was created after Will Wright decided to transform the joy of designing a game into the hands of people. A game about people made for people. Including all possible aspects of the way people live their lives according to their jobs and financial status, their personalities and what polishes it.
The Sims 2- Personality
Personality is a quantified way of measuring a Sim's behavioral characteristics. There are five personality traits (Sloppy/Neat, Shy/Outgoing, Lazy/Active, Serious/Playful and Grouchy/Nice), which players can control by allocating 'points'; for example, a Sim can be active, lazy or somewhere in between the two extremes. These traits determine how fast a Sim learns skills, the rate at which specific needs decay, the types of interactions a Sim will autonomously engage in, the likelihood of interactions and the likelihood of bringing home a friend from school or work. All Sims communicate in a language known as "simlish". Simlish is a "language" made up of gibberish words, with meaning implied only through tone of voice and other paralinguistic cues.
The Sims 3- Personality
Personality configuration for Sims has also been made more complex, with the original 'percentage bar'-style personality points replaced by a combination of traits, similar to those in the personals section of newspapers. Toddlers have two traits, and a new one is added for each new life stage, until they reach young adulthood—so they will have 3 as a child, 4 as a teen, then 5 as a young adult, which are the five traits they will stay with for the rest of their lives.Create-A-Sim now features over 80 unique traits to choose from. Some of these are Evil, Slob, Good Sense of Humor, Charismatic, Loner, Computer Whiz, Vegetarian, Frugal, Clumsy, Athletic, Hot Headed, Lucky, Insane and Flirty. It is not possible to give a Sim traits that contradict each other (such as Brave and Cowardly). The player can also edit many aspects of a Sims' personality, such as favorite hobby, color, music genre and food.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_3#Sims.27_personalities
Bill Moggridge, Designing Interactions, P.363
