My Sims 4: Discover University tale begins on a cold night earlier this year, mid-lockdown, when I really should have been doing college work. Naturally, this means I was doing anything but college work. Nothing fuels me to get creative with my time more than procrastination. On this night, the culprit was an old friend of mine perched on my computer desktop – the Sims.
Purchased in the heat of a sale a couple of months prior, it lay there, patiently waiting to be played. If you didn’t spend your childhood hunched over a burning laptop trying to keep an imaginary family of four alive, then maybe you haven’t played the Sims. It’s that type of game that invites a week-long, sleep-depriving binge before you finally neglect it for the rest of the year. However, the lure of its addictive nature is always waiting around the corner.
That night had been one of those nights, where I was easily swept up by its call of nostalgia and escapism. I started up the game in a furtive attempt to experience a semblance of university life amidst a repetitive whirlwind of Zoom calls and breakout rooms. When you’re trying to gleam reality from a simulation game, I reckon you’ve already lost. Once the experience was over, however, I realized just how close the game was to reality, and I hated it.
I tried to set myself a challenge. My Sim was entering “university” with virtually no funds, and would have to get a job to be able to pay off loans. Big, big mistake. However, my Sim would persevere through a miserable and measly university experience.
The university aspect of the game is surprisingly difficult. It’s virtually impossible to do everything. There are classes, homework for those classes, followed by studying for those classes, topped off with a timetable of essays and exams at the end of the year. This immediately becomes the bane of your Sim’s existence. But if you want your Sim to take part in any other activities, you’ll need to devote time to them too. Social life? Societies? Good luck.
I started up the game in a furtive attempt to experience a semblance of university life amidst a repetitive whirlwind of Zoom calls and breakout room
That’s not to mention the aspect of keeping up a job. My Sim got a barista gig to pay his way through college.This meant an early 6am to 10am shift. Most of the time, he’d get back home at 4am from the local uni hotspot to get a measly two hours of sleep before waking up once more to make cappuccinos. After work, he’d have class, homework and then a study stint in the library. And so, the cycle repeated like some beautifully crafted divine punishment.
So, sleep was evidently an issue, but not nearly as much as preventing my Sim from starving or repelling potential friends with horrific body odours.The canteen only opened for free food at 10am, so, any other time, my cash-strapped Sim had to resort to petty theft. He’d sneak the remains of a barbecue left on a picnic bench from some party-goers or scavenge his poor roommates’ leftover birthday cake from the dorm common area. It was a dog-eat-dog world and my Sim was not holding back.
He wasn’t the only one suffering. The dorm he lived in would be swarmed with spoiled food and unconscious young adults suffering from the same lack of sleep. There would also be random school mascots traipsing around the place. Combined with a cacophony of his roommates practicing their various instruments, it was like a terrifyingly bad Hans Zimmer score to a horror film.
By the end of my binge, my poor Sim was knee deep in an affair with an immoral professor from the rival university while also pursuing romantic relationships with his entire dorm. It’s a miracle he wasn’t caught out. Although, I suppose by this point he’d developed some keen survival instincts throughout his endeavours to keep afloat.
The university aspect of the game is surprisingly difficult. It’s virtually impossible to do everything
Despite my renewed dedication to getting my Sim back on track after being put on academic probation, by the end of the semester, he had somehow failed all his classes and was expelled from university. He was reduced to shambles, and I couldn’t even figure out how to move him back in with his parents. So, he was left in an empty lot with virtually nothing to his name. He’d spent his hard-earned barista money on a microwave for his dorm (yes, he had to buy his own). Homeless and degree-less, I left the game, and my Sim, feeling utterly depleted and disappointed.
Perhaps my Sim’s experience represents slightly extreme circumstances, but I’d argue that it perfectly manufactured the sense of chaos that goes with the college experience. So, as Michelmas semester draws to a close and sleepless delirium becomes the new spectre of the BLU complex, just remember that someone, in some realm of existence, might just be wondering if they can still get a refund for this mess.
