Create a Sim

If you decide to create a new Sim after starting Ambitions, you will discover a handful of changes to the Create a Sim toolkit. There are many new options, spanning cosmetic upgrades like tattoos to all-new traits such as Dramatic and Savvy Sculptor.

Cosmetic Changes

When you first enter the Create a Sim tool, you meet a pre-built Sim, just waiting for you. You can choose this pre-set Sim and dig right into the personality or you can use this Sim like modeling clay.

You can also play around with the Sim Bin, a collection of pre-made Sims that can be called into the Create a Sim "dressing room" and changed to your liking.

Perhaps you dig that Sim's hairstyle but want a different color. Or you are struck by the face of a Sim but just aren't sold on a certain aspect, like the chin.

Chances are, though, that you will want to make more than just one or two small tweaks. You will want to design a Sim from the toes up (or the hair down).

From the first screen of the Create a Sim toolkit, you have five tabs of options and potential changes. Here are the five tabs and their functions:

Basics: This tab lets you name your Sim and change its gender, skin tone, and age.
Hair: Use this tab to change your Sim's hairstyle, which includes adding headgear.
Looks: Go here to change the general appearance of your Sim's head and face, including making adjustments to chin, nose, eyes, and cheeks.
Clothes: Select your Sim's basic wardrobe from this tab, including everyday wear, athletic garb, and formal clothes.
Personality: This tab lets you assign specific traits to your Sim, choose personal favorites (food, music, and color), and select a Lifetime Wish.

Ambitions adds many new options to these tabs. There are new clothes, new hairstyles, and much more, so be sure to experiment. Any new cosmetic option in Ambitions is marked with a:

Ambitions also allows you to adjust the opacity of make-up. Now, you can use a slider bar to make make-up more or less apparent on your Sim's face, such as lightening or darkening eye shadow.

Tattoos

The biggest Create a Sim addition is the arrival of tattoos. You may add tattoos right in Create a Sim.

The Create a Sim tattoo applicator is also the same set-up used when your Sim either applies tattoos themselves or seeks them out from a trained tattoo artist at the local salon .

To add a tattoo to your Sim, choose the Looks tab.

When you select the new Tattoo tab (at the bottom of the menu, directly under Make-Up), your Sim appears in front of the mirror with not much on. This gives you a near-full view of your Sim's body so you can apply the tattoo exactly where you want.

You may apply a tattoo to four places on your Sim: back, arm, chest, and ankle. Within each body location, you can choose from a few different spots.

For example, on the back, you can pick the shoulders, small of the back, or right in the center.

Below the body part selector, browser through the field of available tattoos. There are many choices, from tribal art to a magic gnome.

Once you select the tattoo, you can adjust its colors. Some tattoos have just a single color, while others have multiple fields to alter.

You can mix-and-match tattoos through the Advanced button. Here, you can also adjust the opacity of the tattoo as well as its size.

Relationships

Ambitions also offers new relationships to give your Sims before leaving the Create a Sim tool. The new relationships are: girlfriend, boyfriend, and fiance. These new relationships are available between young adult, adult, and elder Sims, but not children.

Once this relationship has been set, Sims will already be in these arrangements right when you move in. This is a good way to set up a budding family or shortcut Elder Sims into happy relationships without spending precious days in courtship.

Traits

When you create a Sim (or when a Sim not yet an adult ages up) you assign up to five traits. Traits affect so much, so choose carefully. Six new traits are added to Create a Sim with Ambitions.

Not all of these new traits are directly related to new skills or careers that are part of Ambitions. Some, such as Eco-Friendly and Dramatic, are designed to further flesh out personalities. Savvy Sculptor, as you can imagine, is definitely tied to the Sculpting skill.

Born Salesperson

Description: Not only do Born Salespeople often sell their wares for more money than other Sims, they know the importance of a good reputation and can quickly build one at the consignment store.

Benefits: These Sims generally sell their stuff at the consignment store for more money. The more items they sell at the consignment store, the better their reputation, which in turn leads to higher sales and better prices.

Shortcomings: None

Unique Features: Excellent trait choice for Sims who make their living by creating items to sell, such as painters and sculptors.

Dramatic

Description: Everyday situations in life deeply stir the imagination, emotions, and reactions of Dramatic Sims.

Benefits: Dramatic Sims enjoy extra mood boosts when good things happen to them. They respond with great enthusiasm to major, positive life events like getting engaged/married, having a child, or getting a promotion at work.

Shortcomings: If Dramatic Sims have to undertake a menial task, like taking out the trash, they whine and get a mood hit. Dramatic Sims have a greater chance of just breaking up with a partner during the course of an argument and are likely to outright slap a Sim who insults them, which causes major relationship decay.

Unique Features: Dramatic Sims respond to complaints from other Sims with a yawn. They have new socials, including Whine About Life, Pretend to Faint, and Tell Dramatic Story. After performing the Pretend to Faint social, Dramatic Sims get a special positive moodlet: Thespian.

Eccentric

Description: Eccentric Sims have a natural talent for inventing crazy gizmos and whatchamacallits.

Benefits: Eccentric Sims develop the Inventing skill much faster. They learn new blueprints for inventions much sooner, and also speedily create replicas of previously discovered inventions.

Shortcomings: None

Unique Features: None

Eco-Friendly

Description: Eco-Friendly Sims prefer a lifestyle of energy conservation, recycling, and sustainable eating.

Benefits: Eco-Friendly Sims gain many positive moodlets from making environmentally conscious decisions such as using an expensive washing machine (Saving Water) or gardening (Replenishing the Earth). Carpooling to work earns the positive Carpooling moodlet. Using a clothesline to dry clothes results in the Saving Electricity moodlet.

Shortcomings: Gets negative moodlets for potentially wasteful activities. Using the cheap washing machine, for example, results in the Wasting Water moodlet.

Unique Features: If they own one, Eco-Friendly Sims ride a bike when traveling alone instead of using a taxi or family car. All foodstuffs Eco-Friendly Sims create are organic. Eco-Friendly Sims have new socials that include Talk About Recycling, Talk About Going Green, Talk About Composting, and Talk About Renewable Energy. They can take a quicker shower to save water, which results in the positive Saving Water moodlet. Eco-Friendly Sims will have wishes related to getting rid of cars if the family owns one or buying a bike if the family does not.

Perceptive

Description: Perceptive Sims make keen investigators. Their ability to investigate and stake out potential criminals is unsurpassed!

Benefits: If your Sim is going to be a private eye, this trait makes that career much easier and rewarding. Perceptive Sims earn more Simoleons for completed assignments and have a greater chance of ferreting out crime on a stakeout. Perceptive Sims also quicker to develop the Logic skill or learn the traits of other Sims faster when socializing.

Shortcomings: None

Unique Features: The Perceptive trait cannot be used at the same time as Absent-Minded.

Savvy Sculptor

Description: Savvy Sculptors know the ins and outs of sculpting. These Sims make the best sculptures around.

Benefits: Savvy Sculptors develop the Sculpting skill much faster and have a handful of special sculptures that only the Savvy Sculptor knows. This sentence reads better as: Savvy Sculptures never shatter a sculpture block while working, and they do not accidentally behead topiary sculptures.

Shortcomings: None

Unique Features: Introduces the Talk About Sculpting social.

New Lifetime Wishes

Lifetime Wishes are determined by your Sim's selected traits. In addition to the Lifetime Wishes of The Sims 3, Ambitions introduces seven new Lifetime Wishes.

The easiest way to access a specific Lifetime Wish is to select one or two traits that are directly related to it.

The Brave trait is likely to rope the Firefighter Super Hero Lifetime Wish into your five possibilities at the conclusion of Create a Sim.

The Savvy Sculptor trait will certainly cause the Descendant of da Vinci Lifetime Wish to bubble to the top of the list.

Selecting a Lifetime Wish in Create a Sim

Though you may have an idea for your Sim's life trajectory, be aware that like life on this side of the screen, things just...happen.

You may decide to create a Brave Sim with every intention of having a successful career as a Firefighter or Ghost Hunter, but what if you discover that sculpting is right up your (and your Sim's) alley?

Of course, the solution to this is to have multiple Sims in a household or families in different towns. That way, you can chase down all sorts of Lifetime Wishes and experience the most of what Ambitions offers.

Firefighter Super Hero

Save 30 lives on the job in the Firefighter profession

The selfless act of saving another Sim's life is one of the most exhilarating and rewarding accomplishments your Sim can imagine. Only through rigorous training to bulk up the body will your Sim have the fortitude and stamina to aid others. A sharp mind, brave heart, and the ability to stay calm under pressure will be beneficial in the unending struggle of Sim versus disaster.

Paranormal Profiteer

Reach level 10 in the Ghost Hunter profession

Whether they're specters, spirits, spooks, or shades, putting stray ghosts to rest is a great feeling. The complexity of interpreting paranormal patterns of activity will require dedicated study and attention to detail. Your Sim must gather experience in all things logical to have any chance of understanding the complexities of the spirit world.

Pervasive Private Eye

Solve 35 cases on the job in the Investigator profession

Late-night stakeouts, dusting for prints, hacking computers, snooping for clues; the life of a private investigator is one of long hours, dangerous intrigues, and baffling mysteries. Sound logic and ample fortitude are required to excel in this fast-paced world of criminal analysis. Put on your best disguise, grab your magnifying glass, and drop by the neighborhood Police Department to get started. For Sims following the path of the Pervasive Private Eye, there is nothing more satisfying than putting together the clues to solve a mystery.

Descendant of da Vinci

Master the Inventing skill

Master the Painting skill

Master the Sculpting skill

It is said that a jack of all trades is master of none, but your Sim proves that there can be exceptions. No endeavor is out of reach for a Sim who's a brilliant artist with an eye for painting, the dexterity for sculpting, and the genius for invention. Shun the offerings of the outside world and instead spend the days contemplating the canvas, and the nights wooing images buried deep in stones. Why leave just one legacy when you can leave behind dozens?

Home Design Hotshot

Earn 100 top scores for jobs in the Architectural Design profession

Home is where the heart is, and a well-designed room leaves an impression that lasts a lifetime.

Brush up your Painting skills, study the latest techniques for reupholstering furniture, and familiarize yourself with popular patterns and fabrics for rugs and floor tiles.

Only through an obsessive attention to detail, good taste, and learning to listen to and respect your clients' wishes will your Sim be able to deliver the perfect home remodel or room addition.

Fashion Phenomenon

Reach level 10 in the Stylist profession

If your Sim yearns to make others more beautiful, to transform ugly ducklings into suave swans, then a career in the Stylist profession is the only natural course. Trendy taste for make-up, hairstyles, and fabric patterns are a must for any Sim aspiring to reach the end of the fashion runway.

Monster Maker

Create 3 monsters

For some Sims, the ultimate pastime is the unending search for new types of life. Whether crafted through mystical, laborical, or convergent methods, occult creations are wondrous achievements for Sims who prefer to dabble in the unknown. Some may call them "monsters," but to their creators they are just another member of the family.

Possession is Nine-Tenths of the Law

Possess §50,000 worth of stolen goods

While other Sims were learning that hard work over long hours can be turned into Simoleons, your Sim learned that borrowing without asking leads to the same result without the sweat and tears. Whether objects were snatched accidentally while visiting the park, or borrowed when an acquaintance wasn't looking, their value is in the eye of the beholder. One Sim's trash is another Sim's treasure. And if your Sim happens to klepto real treasure, well, all the better...

Wishes

When your Sims experience all the new things Ambitions offers, they come up with wishes directly related to them. A Sim who's trying out the Sculpting skill, for example, is likely to wish to work in stone.

A Firefighter will desire to improve the fire engine down at the station. As these wishes occur to your Sims, you may either promise or dismiss them. Wishes are a good way to advance your Sim at work or at home.

Pursuing a wish related to the Inventing skill will likely help develop that skill.

The new wishes of Ambitions are split across three different categories: career, skill, and object.

Career wishes are most likely to spring from a Sim in that specific job path. Skill-related wishes are likely to occur to Sims in the process of developing that particular skill.

Some of the new objects in Ambitions inspire new wishes as well, such as the desire to play some Gnubb (a backyard game). These new wishes mingle with the existing wishes from The Sims 3.

Career Wishes

Skill-Related Wishes

Object-Related Wishes

New Moodlets

By now, you understand how the mood system works—your overall mood is determined by a series of smaller, fleeting emotions called moodlets.

There are three types of moodlets: positive, negative, and neutral. Strive to do things that give your Sims positive moodlets so they can keep banking Lifetime Happiness points.

Moodlets

Lifetime Rewards

When your Sims' spirits are high or they satisfy wishes large and small, they earn Lifetime Happiness points. These points measure fulfillment. The more you have, the happier your Sim. But these points are not just for show.

You can exchange Lifetime Happiness points for Lifetime Rewards, which are special perks and cool objects that will undoubtedly help your Sim.

Use this list of Lifetime Rewards to see what's possible for Sims who are truly blessed with a player like you. The more wishes you fulfill and the happier you keep your Sims, the more of these rewards they can possess.