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Welcome to Issue 12 of SMag. As the days become longer and the weather becomes warmer, everyone’s celebrating the return of summer! Summer is my favourite season and it seemed silly to not make an issue dedicated to all things summer. We’ve got some great party spots but also places where you can get in touch with nature this season. Everyone has worked really hard on their contributions yet again, and for that I say thank you! We’re always looking for new team members so if you’re interested, drop me an email. I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as I’ve enjoyed making it! G EORG E B Editor
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06 Camp Pearson 14 Ways to use Half Walls 22 Ask Dan: Ultraviolet Garden 30 Quick Faves 38 Quick Tip 40 Let’s Get Away! 52 Eye On Mods 56 The Sims 4 Spa Day 62 Life’s a Beach 70 Not Nando’s by Alex 78 TheEnglishSimmer
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Welcome to Camp Pearson! Gone are the days of being carted off to camp by your parents - this year, you’re doing things your own way with a bunch of friends. This beautiful, curvy trail lined with candles and flowers (#firehazard) leads you to your own personal campground. 8
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The whole campsite revolves around group activities. The camp is designed for four people, but can easily fit six people if you need to! Small tents surround one side of the campfire, leaving the other side for a picnic table and grill. 10
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Half walls are back in The Sims 4 and they’re better than ever - plus, they’re free! You can now pick from 5 different heights of wall and obviously, that means 5 times as many possibilities in your builds! We’ve wrapped up our top three uses of them.
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Liven up your boring old flat roofs with a roof trim! We’d recommend using the shortest height for this, but of course it’s up to you. Using a different wall covering in a different colour works really well with roof trims - of course, it depends on the style of building you’re working with.
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My personal favourite, you can use half walls to make a simple, modern fence. The wall can be really versatile and take on a variety of looks depending on the covering - plaster, brick and panelling all work really well. Experiment with breaking up the walls with some hedges or glass fencing!
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The use that we’re all familiar with, half walls can open up your living space and make it seem a lot bigger. Combine that with the bonus that half walls now have slots for objects and you’re golden! Books, plants and lights all look good on half walls, and they give you a lot more storage space!
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CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO
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CLICK HERE TO WATCH A VIDEO
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quick tips Did you know that you can set up your Spa venue to have special events such as yoga classes? With The Sims 4 Spa Day Game Pack, you can build spa venues for your Sims with objects such as massage tables and yoga mats. To hold yoga classes on your venue, you need to lay out the Instructor’s Yoga Mat, found under Spa Objects. It needs a large area to work, so be sure to plan ahead!
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Welcome to this beautiful tropical resort...in the middle of Willow Creek? Budgie2Budgie on Tumblr did an amazing job at taking a swimming pool lot by Ansett4Sims and turning it into a tropical hotel, complete with rooms for you to stay in! What else could you need? 43
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Spend your long summer evenings lounging by the pool with a bottle of beer and a good book. Everybody deserves a holiday every once in a while, even your Sims! This resort is sure to bring the utmost relaxation to your Sims. With a bit of work and The Sims 4 Spa Day, this could be turned into a cool day spa! 45
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I absolutely adore this lot - it’s a shame it isn’t up for download really. It has such a beautiful summertime vibe to it! The resort has a large tiki bar and a swimming pool outside.
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The rooms are also fit for a king! They all look out over the swimming pool complex, and are lavishly furnished with traditional island styles. Crank up the air conditioning - it feels as if you’re off in a tropical paradise!
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1 Modular Plants III by plasticbox | 2 Modular Hanging Plants by plasticbox | 3 5 Hanging Lights
3 Plaid cushion by martinessimblr | 4 Tea and Books by honeysims |
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6 Hanging Lamp by honeysims | 7 Gloss Jar Candles by oimori-mera
Eye on Mods by Martymor
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The Sims 4 Spa Day is the second game pack for The Sims 4. Game packs are an interesting concept - a middle ground between the huge expansion packs and the ever-shrinking stuff packs. It’s a seemingly difficult balance to get right, yet so far, the team over at The Sims Studio have managed to get it right. 57
The Sims 4 Spa Day caught my interest early on - it was something extra your Sims could do to fill their time and it introduced some new interesting gameplay dynamics. The promise of new wellness activities at the Spa such as meditation and yoga really sold the pack for me. The best thing about all of these new 58
features is that they aren’t exclusive to the Spa venue. Sims can still practise yoga, meditate and even get massages back on their home lot (or on any lot for that matter). All of these activities tie in with the new Wellness skill which, like traditional skills in the game, has ten levels.
Each of these layers will, as usual, unlock something new, such as mud baths, or just new social interactions. The skill is all about focusing the mind and body. As you move up through the levels of the skill, Sims will start to enjoy Wellness activities more and more. Whereas an inexperienced Sim might get bored whilst meditating, a Wellness expert will actually take fun
and more positive moodlets from it! The best thing, in my eyes, about the activities such as Yoga and using the sauna is that they can leave your Sim with very powerful moodlets. Yoga is an all round great thing for your Sims to do - it helps them lose weight and tone their muscles, it increases the Wellness skill and it can even 59
I’d definitely recommend this pack to anyone that wants to try something new with their game!
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leave your Sims with special Inspired, Energized or Focused moodlets depending on which routine your Sims practice. You can also take yoga classes at the Spa venue, which is a nice added touch. The pack, despite being gameplay-focused, has a lot of interesting Build/Buy content as well. There’s a lot of content that fits in perfectly in most places, and not just the Spa. As well as the new windows, wallpapers and furniture, there’s also a lot of new interactive content. The introduction of incense holders is a great touch for homes and spa venues alike, as well as liquid diet bars and new fruity drinks. There’s amazing value for money in this pack. For £14.99, not only do you get all of the new gameplay and build content, you also get four unique pre-made venues, and a whole host of great new CAS content as well. I’d definitely recommend this pack to anyone that wants to try something new with their game! The Sims 4 Spa Day Game Pack is currently £14.99 on Origin, and it’s also avaliable on other websites and in certain stores. Click here to buy it on Origin!
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Get your objects ready to go to the beach. Click the packing crate and select “Enable Packing”. Now click on each of the objects you want to take with you and select “Pack in Crate”. When you are done, pack the crate into your Sim’s inventory. Go to the beach area you’ve chosen, click on “Place in World” on the crate.
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I feel very proud to see how the community brings this Mod to shine and all I wanted was to make others creative and inspire them!
Be sure to check out LumiaLoverSims:
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Get everything on the beach! Open the crate, then put it back in your Sim’s inventory, making sure that the crate window stays open. Send your Sim to a spot where you want to place an object, and click on “Place in World” for your chosen object. To pack up, take the crate out of your inventory, click the object, and select “Pack in crate”.
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Ah. Not-Nando’s. What do you think when you hear the name of Britain’s most talked about restaurant? Maybe you think about the banter? The cheekiness? The great Not-Peri-Peri PortugueseMozambican Chicken? 73
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Well, now you and your Sims can experience the rich interiors and great food (well, depending on if your Sim can work the BBQ!). This great summer hangout is the perfect ‘Bar’, with music and lots of seating: and of course, the grill! 75
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And on a fine Summer’s eve, why not enjoy a tasty treat or quenching drink outside on the deck... Download this lot using the Origin ID AlexFloptastex! 77
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AWESIMLY
ENGLISH We speak to The English Simmer
Hi everyone! It’s The English Simmer here, which you already know if you’ve watched my videos but if you haven’t then hello to you too. I’m Mollie and I play and love The Sims and upload videos onto the interwebs for people watch exactly how I play.
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I’d have breakfast, lunch and dinner in front of that game (which probably wasn’t the best idea) - I couldn’t let go of it.
When did you first play The Sims? A: I first started playing The Sims back when I was around 7 years old which was two years after the game originally came out. My older brother brought it home from his friends and I would watch him play for hours on end until my parents decided that I could play too. I’d have breakfast, lunch and tea in front of that game (which probably wasn’t the best idea) but I just couldn’t let go of it. Of all of your video households, which is your favourite? A: I’ve I’ve been making Let’s Plays for a year and a half now and I’ve done quite a lot throughout that period. It’s really hard to choose a distinct favourite as I love them all for their own reasons but I’ll name a few. I really loved Generations as that was a family I fell for. I was attached to them and also really felt as if I grew in confidence so much through that Let’s Play so I feel extremely proud of it. My Sims 4 Let’s Play was another where I played a number of generations and really just became a lover of each individual sim. I think having a connection with your sims really makes the game so much more enjoyable because you can really delve into their mindset. Have you ever dabbled with building? A: I have but I must say, I’m not great. But that is the great thing about the gallery in The Sims 4! You can browse all these incredible builds made by such talented creators in the community and just plop them into your town. 81
Why do you love The Sims? A: I’ve honestly always loved the diversity of The Sims. There is no set way to play the game and there are certainly no limits to your imagination. You might be a storyteller, you might be a builder, you might just want to stack up those simoleons using motherlode and be the richest sim in your neighbourhood. It’s completely up to you! I mean who hasn’t played out their fantasy life on The Sims before? I know I’ve done it plenty of times, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Here’s the money question...which is better - The Sims 3 or 4? A: This is exactly like making a mother choose her favourite child. It’s a very mean question. I think overall I’d have to say Sims 3. It really shaped the future of The Sims and made it such a memorable game for so many people across the world. If you could make one pack for The Sims 4 what would it be? A: I am really hoping for another citybased expansion pack in The Sims 4. I’ve always loved having apartments and the nightlife of a city in my game because you can create really diverse sims for that setting.
Not quite a city EP - but Get Together is out in November! 82
What made you want to begin YouTube? A: YouTube was certainly a big part of my teenage years and to this day I watch a lot of videos, ranging from gaming to vlogging and comedy channels. I always had this want to create my own content, I just didn’t know what exactly. And then back in 2012, I found the likes of Quxxn and Lifesimmer and how they created such entertaining content with a game I loved. I’ve also always enjoyed stories from a young age. So with a mix of all those things, I decided to set up my own channel and wanted to get my stories out there for people to watch and hopefully enjoy. Being able to entertain people by doing something you love is a great feeling and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. What advice would you give to budding YouTubers? A: I get asked this question a lot and my biggest piece of advice is to enjoy your own content. Be yourself and be happy doing it. If you enjoy what you do, then it’s likely that others will enjoy watching and really think about it before you start. Although YouTube is a hobby and is a lot of fun, it does need a lot of time dedicated to it which I don’t think people realise at first. Social media is a major advantage to meet friends in the area you want to explore so I’d say talk to those people before you start too. But I would wholeheartedly encourage anyone to start creating content if they want to, it was one of the best decisions I ever made!
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THE TEAM
GEORGE BISHOP - Editor in Chief Alex - Chief builder Martymor - Ask Dan Will - Builder Fernando - Builder Arthur - Content creator
JOIN US
To join the team, start by applying to the editor using the e-mail george@smagazineofficial.co.uk
LEGAL
SMag is not endorsed or funded by Electronic Arts, or it’s licensors, in any way. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Creations featured in this magazine are all available for free and we do not gain anything by sharing any lots. The lots shared in this publication are not used for commercial gain by SMag, or the creator of the lot. All creations inside this issue are shared with the belief that the original creator would not object to the sharing of their creation. If you are a creator and you do not wish for us to share your creations, please tell the editor via email. Visit us online simnation.tv/smagazine
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