I'm a great game god. Let me tell you a story.
At current, my Sims in The Sims 3 live in a world of my design.
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They live in a house of my design, they are made by me, I have literally crafted everything about their lives.
But an interesting situation arose recently: I had a sim who asked his friend to dump his girlfriend for him, which he did. Said friend then asked my sim to move in!
Since his house sucked, I said yes. And the moving screen pops up and it has the lady the other sim was in a relationship with. That was unexpected- they lived together.
And we get to the lot, and it's a lot I built, two tiny homes on one lot like a duplex. So I lock the doors so that she still lives on the lot, but in the ugly half meant for a family, and we live in the pretty half meant for a bachelor. I leave her alone and DO NOT control her, at all. She's a neighbor on the same lot.
I put the mouse over her icon in the new guy's relationship thing and it says "ex wife". wooooooooops I didnt know they were married.
Then I see her taking out the trash and she's walking funny. She's in her third trimester.
This is my world. I made the houses. I made half the sims, I made the neighborhoods. But I didn't control what went on inside it, and this is the first time I've truly seen how amazing it is to be in control of everything, yet let it go on as it pleases.
She had the baby and I named it bastardo.
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She's all recently divorced and having contractions in her cheapo apartment. meanwhile her ex husband and his new friend are playing video games in their underwear and listening to music by the pool.
She was, by all means, royalled owned.
Since other sims live on the lot she went to work without thinking about the left-alone baby. Her AI told her other sims lived there to care for it, so she did not worry- but my sims did not have access to her apartment. Her baby started to starve. He was taken by the social worker, and she was crushed. What's worse- she grew to an elder. Elders cannot get pregnant. That was her last chance at a child.
I decided that whe sh edied, I'd expand our tiny apartment into hers, making it into one house.
She started cooking grilled cheese but was tired and went to bed.
A fire started.
And spread...
She tried to put it out(apparently fires dont spread over fences, even tiny ones?)
Despite that she decided to wander between the flames...
Where she died not of being set on fire, but of starvation.
Then the grim reaper came.
She has the Unlucky trait. The grim reaper likes seeing her misfortune SO HE LET HER LIVE.
I was aghast. This was amazing.
She died of electrocution and the reaper let her live again.
After this, I don't know if I can ever do a one-family lot ever again. I like controlling my sims, but the fact that this side-stor played out simply because another sim was on the lot who I didn't take any control over is amazing. I want to see it more.
I think this is what makes it a true god game. I have utter and absolute control over absolutely everything- yet I have the choice to exact said control or not. And for my amusement, I may or I may not. It's the culmination of all things that make a god game:
Creation.
Control.
Omnipotence.
Power.
And it's just so amazing to see things I made in a house I made in a neighborhood I made in a world I made, living and interacting with other sims I made, and sometimes letting them do what they please.
You can do similar things in other games, but I've never felt it get this intense.
Similarly I had a sim who I started as a teen when the world adventures expansion came out, and because I lead him through his entire life straight up to death, going on adventures all the time, earning an enormous hoby raiding tombs, I was truly sad when he was gone, because it was like a pet. It was such a god-like experience that I started thinking of him as a pet, and when he died, it was pretty sad.
God games are amazing.
By the way, she has since died of starvation at work, where she was promptly brought back to life, before dying of old age, where she was not.
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Took over her house. :p
(This post was a Kotaku reader entry from AchromaticMagus, republished from the comments section of The God I've Been)