I recently read a series of articles about four guys wanting to build a town in Texas. The articles were about research done regarding successful towns and what they did right. That started me playing The Sims again, a game where you choose residents and build them houses and try to keep them happy.
I’m building an entire city block surrounded by a pedestrian mall, a side street on one side, a sidewalk along the side opposite the street, and a block of undeveloped land behind the block I’m developing.
(Sorry picture is not clickable. WordPress is not cooperating.)
Along the side street I built a 2-story duplex, four rooms and a bath on each level, with the left half having living areas downstairs and four bedrooms up. Four housemates live there. The other half has been converted into a small hotel with a reception area, a breakfast nook, and six bedrooms.
Around the corner, on the mall, I’m currently building a small workout facility with two bathrooms with showers, a few workout machines, and a juice bar. Next door is a music store that will sell instruments and stereos. Each of those will have an apartment above it with one bedroom, a great room and a bath. No one lives in those apartments for now.
Around the corner from those, on the sidewalk, is another house built like half of the duplex. It will be converted into a bookstore with a children’s nook and a coffee shop on the main floor with bookcases both downstairs and up.
Since the housemates each own one of the four businesses they all wander freely in and out of all of them. The residents are very happy there.
If I build across the mall from it, there will be an art gallery and a pub facing the mall. I’m enjoying the challenge of building all this with only the stuff provided by the game.
Now, if I could just build it for real. 🙂
TTYL,
Linda
