How to Use this Guide

Have you always dreamed of making it big on stage? Then get ready to venture into the exciting world of The Sims 3 Showtime and live the dream as a Singer, Magician, Acrobat, or DJ. Experience the rise to stardom as your Sim performs on stage from one venue to the next.

The brand new town of Starlight Shores offers a variety of new venues and objects to hone your Sims’ talents and skills. Will they rise to fame? Or go down in flames? Their destiny rests in your hands. And for the first time, Showtime introduces optional social features, including SimPort, an all-new feature that lets you send your Sims on tour to a friend’s game!

There, your Sim can perform at your friend’s venue in front of your friend’s Sims! Showtime also includes a new Achievement system. Earn rewards for achieving goals and accomplishing special challenges that can be tracked and shared online. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and put on the show of your dreams!

How to Use this Guide

Welcome to the official game guide for The Sims 3 Showtime. This serves as your guide through the exciting new performance careers and swanky new venues offered in Showtime. Everything you need to know about the new expansion pack is covered in detail within the following sections. Here’s a quick summary of what you’ll find inside this guide.

New Simology

Showtime adds a variety of new features including new traits and Lifetime Wishes closely tied to the three new careers. This chapter will help you get up to speed on all the new features, including performances, stage setup, and even how to find Genies. The new SimPort feature is also explained, helping you send and host Sims on tour. All new wishes, moodlets, opportunities, socials, and Lifetime Rewards are also listed in this chapter.

New Venues & Real Estate

The legendary Los Sueños Strip in Starlight Shores is known for its eclectic mix of venues, offering performing Sims the chance to take the stage in front of a live audience. This chapter offers an in-depth look at every venue, offering performance tips as well as additional activities available at each club. This chapter also offers advice on investing in real estate in Starlight Shores, describing the benefits of partnerships and ownership.

Tour of Starlight Shores

Whether you’re just visiting or planing a move, this chapter serves as the comprehensive guide to Showtime’s new town, Starlight Shores. Here you’ll find a detailed look at every place of employment, business, community spot, and park, as well as a listing for every home in this ideal town of fun-loving Sims. Once you’ve established yourself as a resident, go exploring to hunt down a wide range of collectibles, including glow bugs that come out at night. Using the provided maps, you’ll never have to guess where to find each randomly appearing fish, insect, mineral, or seed.

Careers

Eager to hit the stage as a Singer, Magician, or Acrobat? Then look no further than this chapter detailing each career as well as the new DJ hobby you can turn into a fun (and lucrative) side job. Your Sims’ on-stage actions have an impact on every performance as does the way you design the stage. Here you can learn everything you need to put on a great show. The pay scales for each venue type are also included, helping you determine which gigs pay the most.

New Objects

Like all expansion packs, Showtime adds a variety of new objects your Sims can purchase to beautify their homes (and stages). In this chapter we spotlight some of the coolest objects available including the Buck & Chuck Bronco—a mechanical bull that will have your Sims channeling their inner cowboy or cowgirl. This chapter is also home to the Object Catalog, a comprehensive listing of every new object, including prices, deprecation values, and any cool benefits.

Cheats

Below, we’ve provided some information about the available cheats. But don’t think of these cheats as… well… cheating. Think of these as tools that let you tell your story your way. Don’t cheat yourself out of the opportunity to use these commands to spice up and personalize your game.

To access the command console, press [shift]+[ctrl]+C and input the text of the desired command (it appears in the blue bar on the top of the screen). For some cheats to work, you may have to type TestingCheatsEnabled true first. Type Help for a list of all the currently available commands. To exit the command console, press [enter] or [esc].

Popular Cheats

Help

• help
• help <cheatname>

Various cheats are available, depending on your game update and which expansion packs you have installed. To find out what cheats are available in your game, enter the cheat menu and type help. This lists all the currently available cheats. To find out more information about a specific cheat, type help <cheatname>.

Money Cheats

• kaching
• motherlode

The money cheats (kaching and motherlode) are a great way to skip some of the initial struggle. Sure, some young families have to work hard and scrimp to get by, but that’s not the only option. I could pretend to be poor… ahem… but perhaps I’d rather pretend to be rich! Filthy stinking rich! Maybe I want a mansion with a moat, and a fast sports car, and a fat roll of cash to flash. Or maybe I just want to make some really neat houses, or focus on a skill, and I don’t want to have to wait for my Sim to amass enough money the old-fashioned way.

There are lots of “valid” reasons for extra cash to come someone’s way. I like to think that many of my Sims have trust funds or made a killing in tech stocks. A big cash infusion could be an inheritance or lottery winnings. Smaller cash infusions are similarly explainable. Perhaps your Sim took an advance on a credit card, won a door prize, or did a job under the table. Criminal Sims have obvious explanations for unearned cash, but anyone could have done a little extra side work or taken on an extra project.

Obviously, if you choose a Lifetime Wish that involves cash, such as Swimming In Cash or Life of Luxury, then use money cheats to reach that goal, you’re just pushing the “I Win” button. You can cheat at solitaire too but… why? But if you have a story to tell, there’s no reason to let money, or the lack thereof, stand in your way.

Real Estate Cheats

• freeRealEstate

The freeRealEstate cheat is especially useful if you’re editing your town and don’t want to be constrained to only a few small houses when placing your pre-made Sim neighbors. You may not even plan to actively play those Sims; they’re just window dressing. So why not put them wherever you like?

Reset

• resetSim <firstname> <lastname>
• resetSim *

In any computer game, glitches can happen. If your Sim ever gets stuck somewhere, don’t panic. You might not have to lose your progress since your last save. Try ResetSim <firstname> <lastname> to reset your Sim back to their home lot. If you don’t know who is stuck, use resetSim * to reset all Sims.

Frame Rate

• framerate on/off

If you wonder how well your computer is rendering the game, you can turn on the frame rate counter with framerate on. When the little numbers on the right become annoying, you can turn it back off with framerate off.

Miscellaneous Cheats

Joke Please

• jokePlease

Prints a random joke to the console.

Move Objects

• moveObjects [on|off]

Removes footprint limitation for all object placement in Buy Mode and Build Mode. Removes limitations placed on hand tool for when objects are in use or for objects that normally are not movable. Is known to cause issues with game elements, routing, hidden object generation and manipulation, etc. Note that using this cheat allows you to move and delete objects that normally cannot be manipulated such as Sims. If you delete these objects, there is no way to get them back, so be careful!

Constrain Floor Elevation

• constrainFloorElevation [true|false]

Allows all terrain adjustments regardless of objects, Sims, and other structures on them. Walls, floors, and objects will move with the terrain, allowing you to create sloped walls and floored hills. However, placing new walls/floors will still flatten terrain, and placing objects will still require the terrain to be flat initially if the objects normally require it.

Disable Snapping to Slots

• disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt [on|off]

When on, objects will not snap to slots while holding ALT. Useful for placing objects such as chairs near tables without them snapping, or placing counters near other counters, etc.

Headline Effects

• hideHeadlineEffects [on|off]

Hides all Sim overhead effects such as thought balloons and speech balloons.

Fade Objects

• fadeObjects [on|off]

Toggles whether objects fade when the camera gets close to them. Does not apply to Sims.

Slow Motion

• slowMotionViz <level>

Puts the visuals of the game in slow motion. Entering a “level” value is optional. Valid values range from 0 = normal speed to 8 = slowest.

Unlock Outfits

• unlockOutfits [on|off]

Includes career outfits and service Sim outfits as options in Create a Sim. The cheat must be entered before going into CAS.

Enable Llamas

• EnableLlamas [on|off]