"What the actual fuck..." I repeated in a drowsy voice
I couldn’t believe it. Nor could I understand how it happened to me. Did I become some sort of cyborg ? Was I always one ? In any case, I could now see a sims-like HUD in my field of vision. As I looked back in the corner of it, I brushed the minimizing icon and everything reverted into place. No more UI overlaying the view of my poorly decorated bedroom.
I got up and walked to the kitchen to have breakfast. I could not resist the urge to brush again on that little icon-like thing in the corner of my eyes and opened it back. There were so many options. One of them showed me how much money the household was supposed to have. Since I lived on my own and had a full time job, I always knew how much money I had on my bank, yet, when I saw the number, I couldn't help myself but to double check with my phone as I realized the numbers matched exactly.
Then, testing things, I thought "what happens if just change the number and add a zero?". After lingering for a second, I went for it and added a zero, changing the 200 bucks and change I had saved into 2000. After saving my changes I quickly went to my phone and reloaded the whole thing. I felt like it took ages for the page to load but eventually it did. I couldn't believe my eyes as I noticed how the number was just there.
"This is gonna change my life" I thought as I held my hand against my barely-screaming mouth. For the longest time I had been living alone in this small, dark, and damp apartment that you could only get into through a sketchy alley, but this was my opportunity to succeed in life. I didn't have to work anymore as some low-paid waiter at a bar, not when I could just keep on adding zeros to my money and change my life for the better.
That was when it struck me though, "what else can I change then?". Apparently I had an option to change the color of my furniture to which, to my delight and horror, just changed immediately in the blink of an eye when I tried it on my sofa.
There were many further options to change my miserable apartment. I walked back to my bedroom and changed my twin bed to a king-size bed. To no avail : a red warning popped up in the middle of my field of vision saying “Not enough room”. As I tried with a queen-size bed, this time, it appeared into place, taking most of my small bedroom. As impressed as I was, I couldn’t help but notice the red money signs that also appeared in the HUD. It seems like nothing was free. Or, well… I just had to keep piling up zeros to my bank account, I guessed. As I was about to do this, I noticed an other set of parameters - or options, really. I selected the ‘Household Members’ menu. Rather obviously, only my sad, ugly face showed up as an icon. I neglected the ” + ” sign next to it and opened my ‘sim’ menu. So far, the system had been working just like any previous version of The Sims, when one is on full edit mode - and possibly using quite a many cheats.
The CAS was in no way different. I saw a little avatar of myself waving and whistling, balancing his arms around waiting for me to do something. As I selected my ugly face with a loud sigh, it zoomed in. It was like looking at myself in a mirror. Or rather not : the hideous mole above my left eyebrow did not appear on the right side of the sims, as a mirror would make it seem, but on it’s left side - my right. I clicked on the mole, and a whole menu of ‘Details’ and a submenu of ‘skin details’. I unselected my mole and some other blemishes, replacing them with a set of freckles. A slidebar provided me for the intensity of these and I kept them rather light. I already looked much better with cleat skin. Well, except for my hawk nose. I tried a very average, straight nose on, but it made me looked bland. I played a bit with the options to settle for a roman nose with a slightly prominent bridge. As I turned my sim, I liked the profile it gave me. I then went to match my face to it, selecting one of the square face shape. Once again I played around to adjust my jaw and chin.
I looked flat in my hazel eyes and a moment later they were a steel blue colour under my thick eyebrows. It is then that I realized how much I already changed. My mouth and forehead being the only untouched spot. I liked how my mouth now looked a bit small on my face, and after a moment of hesitation realized that the bushy eyebrows were, in the end, the part of my face I always had liked the most, oddly enough. As I selected the ” - ” sign to unzoom, a little loading wheel shortly appeared before zooming out. Though the sim was wearing the exam same clothes as I, an old t-shirt and a pair of briefs, I would barely recognize myself. I selected the t-shirt and the menus for “top” clothes opened. I quickly surveyed through and stopped with a chuckle as I saw a leather harness amongst the tanktop category. As I selected it, my sim was now wearing it, showcasing my average body and, mostly, my beer belly. In moments, it was reduced to the soft padding I had when I graduated high school. I’m not ready yet to commit to a more athletic lifestyle, just a restore of sorts.
I noticed the skin option for the body had popped-up as I did that. I hover past the scars and skin details part of the menu and selected the body hair section. I was shocked to see how complete it was with a range of options in textures, length, density and intensity. And there were again cursors, and even a paintbrush tool, to customize further. First I selected the curly hair option, and my avatar was now sporting tightly curled-hair instead of these sad, drooping strands that I irregularly trim. I then removed the hair from my back and shoulders. I might come back later to adjust more of that. There is the ‘skin color’ menu that interests me way more. I selected my skin color, and a few options appeared, including a ‘light-dark’ cursor. I moved it close to the darkest to observe my now ebony-skin sim.
I reveled in this, as one of my favorite quirks playing The Sims had always been to give my characters appearances that I was unlikely to see in the street. The piercing blue eyes on this magnificient skin was only the start, as I selected my sim’s hair and quickly changed my mop of hair to a neon green headful of short dreadlocks. This looked absolutely awesome, if not a bit too much. I tested a few other colours on the built-in colour wheel and finally opted for a light-ginger, somewhat close to strawberry blond I’d guess.
As I zoomed out again, the avatar still sported the leather harness. It did not look all that great with my gray boxer shorts. I went in the ‘Full Body’ menu to choose a silken bathrobe with assorted briefs. I selected a nice teal on the colour wheel and after seeing the autosave icon once again, decided to go look at myself in the mirror.
It it as if I was stuck. My body was not responding. In a bit of panic, I closed the CAS and my mobility resumed. Did I actually pause the universe, or was I simply paralysed and would it be totally weird had someone walked on me? The face in my mirror was gorgeous, exactly like in the HUD except, well, chiral. This was so terribly cool and exciting.
Speaking of, it seemed like my average 5 incher (well, just a hair under that, but no one needs to know) was now raising to attention.