The Sims 3 Primer Manual Guide

Before you can move in and start living your virtual life, you need to create your very first Sim (or Sims, up to eight, if you so desire)! This little guy or gal will depend on you for guidance throughout their life, and that guidance begins now, in the Create-a-Sim mode, where you can mold them into the exact type of person you want them to be. However, if creating a Sim isn’t quite your thing, you can select one of several pre-made Sims by clicking the large “Pre-made Sims” button along the bottom toolbar (the one with the six silhouettes inside). Alternatively, you can also have one created at random by clicking the bottom button of the left toolbar.

The Basic section is where you change the very fundamentals of who your Sim is, such as their name, skin tone, and physical body size. The two remaining options, Gender and Age, are the only ones that impact the choices available to you during the game. For instance, only adults can get jobs and fall in love. Your age also impacts how many traits you can assign; adults and above can be assigned five traits, while fewer traits can be assigned to younger Sims. But age isn’t constant, as your Sims do grow older–you can check when their birthday is via the “Simology” panel.

As mentioned, Personality is the only other category of the Create-a-Sim process that actually impacts how the game is played, and as such, is the one of most importance. This is where you decide your Sim’s traits, or in other words, what makes them who they are. These strongly impact how your Sim goes about their life, how they socialize, their skill set, and what they desire. Each Sim can be assigned between 2-5 traits, dependent on age. The older they are, the more traits that can be assigned from the get-go. However, as long as you keep your younger Sims happy, you’ll be able to assign new traits as they grow and enter new stages of their life. In addition, Sims might even pick up other’s traits simply by interacting with them!

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