A Few Challenges To Make The Sims 3 A More Interesting Game

Sometimes you want to make The Sims more intereesting or add difficulty to it, there are several challenges created by players to help with that.
Elyse and Marlon
The Sims 3 offers so much gameplay! Here my sims Elyse and Marlon are getting married. 

The Sims 3, initially released in 2009 with numerous expansion and stuff packs to follow, has many ways to enhance the gameplay. In this case, the enhancement comes from giving yourself challenges. This can be something that both new and veteran players can take part in. There are so many challenges to choose from, I have picked out four specific and one generalized challenge to inform you about.

Here are the 5 challenges to make The Sims 3 a more interesting game:

1. Legacy Challenge

Legacy Roll
This site is handy to help with figuring out how to play your legacy. 

This challenge involves creating the family legacy for up to 10 generations, with one founder and limited funds. From there, your goal is to achieve great fortune and create a name for your family. The fortune that you have gathered must be retained for at least 10 generations.

It can be done in a number of ways. There are traditional rules listed on Modthesims and Tumblr. There is also the random legacy where you roll a bunch of dice to figure out of your sim will get a partner or stay single, the number of children they will have, and if those children are biological or adopted or both. You can also find out which career if any, that your sims will take part in.

This challenge will take quite a long time to accomplish, but with good management of your characters, you will be able to collect lots of points by the time you complete this challenge.

2. Rags to Riches Challenges  

Sims 3 Tent
Photo Credit: Sims Fandom Wiki

This challenge can certainly be more difficult than the Legacy challenge. This one you will start with nothing but a home lot and exactly zero simoleons. This challenge is posted to Tumblr as well.

You have one sim and all they have is a backpack (which is gotten through the university life expansion pack), a sleeping bag/ or tent and 100 simoleons in their account. Getting that down to 100 simoleons is the only time you are allowed to use cheats in this challenge. Your sim can then earn their money in any way they want, other than actually getting a paid job.

The main goal of this challenge is to take your sim from broke and homeless to having a beautiful house, with plenty of money and food, without them ever having to work a job. You can set other goals along the way, such as reaching your sims lifetime wish, or earning a certain amount of money, or raising a child with very little money.

3. Apocalypse Challenge

Meteor
Photo Credit: Sims Fandom WIki

This challenge is similar to the rags to riches challenge in the way it starts and can be comparable to the Legacy challenge, but it is a lot more complicated with a huge number of restrictions. The Apocalypse Challenge is a difficult, multi-generational challenge that begins with restricting nearly everything your sims can do.

First, you need to start in a completely empty world, no sims, no homes, businesses. There can be nothing at all. You start with either one or two founders depending on the type of apocalypse challenge you chose to focus on.

Secondly decide on which path you want to take, for example, what is the first business you will add, or will you wait and add another family to your world. There are different roles for sims to fill such as Teacher, Medic, Pastor and others. Those are mostly static roles meant for roleplaying and gives you specific goals to work towards within that singular role. The rules are quite complicated and a bit difficult to explain. There is a Facebook group named after the challenge that helps players to understand the challenge better.  

It’s a generational challenge but again, much more complicated rules. The challenging part of the challenge can be quite fun.  

4. 100 Baby Challenge 

Elyse and Baby
My Sim Elyse with her newborn Feruza.

This challenge is played across all the Sims titles and is covered by various The Sims content creators on vlogs, blogs, forum threads and YouTube. The goal of this challenge is pretty much self-explanatory; your sim needs to have 100 babies. It can be done over several generations but 100 babies are the goal. No cheats, no mods, and your main sim cannot have a job. The only sim in your household that can have an actual job of any kind is any children who have aged up to teens. Then they can get part-time jobs.

School is also an important factor in this challenge. Children and Teens need to get an A in school and get on the honor roll. That can make school and a job difficult to manage together.

This challenge does not necessarily mean your sim has to have biological children. It can be turned into a 100 baby adoption challenge. The rules are pretty similar, except for the adoption part of course.

5. Various CAS Challenges

Elyse
Finishing up my sim Elyse in CAS.

Create-a-Sim is where every sims player winds up, if not actually starts in. Creating your sim, their age, gender, size, weight, eye color, and clothing choices. The Sims 3 even allows you to choose their astrological sign, favorite food, favorite music style, and favorite color.

There are so many challenges for CAS where you need to create a specific sim or an entire family. It could be trait-based, color-based, and many other focuses. The challenge could be to make a specific princess or prince. It could be a challenge to make a sim based on word interpretation.



It is all good fun and these ones are so numerous that you could do almost anything. The rules are made up by other players and you can even tweak them yourself. If you want to get the most out of this game, it is better to start with a single challenge that you like and try to complete it. Just remember, this is to make the game more challenging and more fun at the same time!

An avid writer, who likes to write in many different styles. Right now Ronnie goes by they/them pronouns and identify as Two-Spirit.

No Saves yet. Share it with your friends.

Write Your Diary

Get Free Access To Our Publishing Resources

Independent creators, thought-leaders, experts and individuals with unique perspectives use our free publishing tools to express themselves and create new ideas.

Start Writing