Strangerville Mystery - Afterword

Well, I hope you enjoyed your visit to Strangerville.

I'm pretty sure that was my shortest "full length" story to date.

The Sims 4: Strangerville is an unusual expansion for the game, in that it is the only one I know of with a storyline-based adventure as the central theme of the pack. Most of the Sims game is much more free form, the stories being something we, as players, bring to it.

All in all, I found the adventure of Strangerville to be more fun than I expected. 

For a long time, I simply wasn't interested in Strangerville. The whole alien conspiracy vibe wasn't my cup of tea. I eventually did pick it up on sale, intending to use it for the stuff it came with (clothes, furniture, etc.). Then, an idea for a way to use the story snuck into my mind... 

What was Lucius doing when Vlad attacked at the start of Book 1? Now we know. 

(I actually had a whole scene I was going to put at the end of Faust bringing Vlad the news that Lucius had fallen and the time to strike had come. I cut it because I realized it didn't make any sense with the rest of the story. The whole reason I wrote this story, and I cut it.)

Anyway, I didn't want Lucius to be the point of view character. It kind of spoils the mystery of him. I needed someone else, but I didn't want to introduce a completely new character. After some thought, I decided Molly would be perfect.

Molly was an unexpected supporting character, a pre-made sim from the High School Years expansion who stumbled into teen Gwen and Cas's inner circle almost by accident. I felt like she deserved a chance to shine. The contrast between the solidly mundane Molly and the magical Lucius made them a great partnership. Molly being canonically a lesbian meant I didn't need to worry about the possibility of romance between them, keeping their relationship one of friends and partners in mystery.

Despite not wanting to introduce new characters, I realized that Molly and Lucius needed someone local to hook them into the mystery. The Sigworth family, a set of premade sims from Strangerville itself, stepped into that role. I played them for a bit, to walk in their shoes, and quickly discovered the joy of young Christie. I think we may see more of her in a future story.

The last bit that I'm particularly proud of, and that's all me, was bringing Lucius and the Mother Plant together in the context of Irish mythology. Regular readers will already know that I've struggled with "getting sci fi into my fantasy" at times... but this just clicked for me. Having already established that the Spellcasters in the Wyrd'verse are essentially elves, it wasn't a big step to link them to the Tuatha de Dannan and the Mother to the Formoiri. 

I enjoyed writing Strangerville Mystery and, again, I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Now, please forgive me, but I want to leave you with a more serious thought - the world isn't always good, but the simplest people can be heroes. Just by being good, by acting with kindness, compassion and friendship, we make our little corner of the world better. 

Onward