When The Sims 3 was announced we were just planning to get new computers, planning to move house and starting new jobs. Even though we had so much going on in our lives, I was still looking forward to the new sims game a lot. A few days before it was due to come out, Five promised to check the games store. But when he got home, he told me they were not selling it yet. I believed him. So I turned to my computer to reply on a Dutch Sims forum, being all disappointed I wouldn’t have it yet.

But secretly Five had put a package on the chair behind me. Which I didn’t notice at all. Until he could not contain his laughter and pointed at it. I will just say, I let out a high pitched squeal-giggle. Unwrapping this gift, after he had dashed my hopes, made me feel like a kid at christmas. It was the special edition, and it came with … cheap stickers. Never mind that, I then proceeded to install the game!

Installing and starting the game up, with Five next to me, in our new apartment, was a special moment. It ran beautifully on my new computer (which incidentally was put together by Spike). And the first two sims we made were versions of ourselves. We were immediately impressed with the sims creation. And the building. Even if there were only a few items available and the game felt like half a game sometimes, it still was a lot of fun to play with.

Odin (you may remember him from the Disaster Family) came to stay with us for a weekend, and after watching Death Train with Five, he created a sim of himself. Later he added an evil twin as well. I did not mind giving up my computer and game for an evening. No, really!

It did become clear that making stories with TS3 would have to be very simple, or we would have to wait for more stuff and mods to come out. But that did not matter, I was having too much fun building and playing. And getting to know your game before you use it as a story tool is important too.

But before long, we felt the need to create a full story, with sims based on members of our forum at Randomby. And so the RandomSims were born.