After that hard day, Alice wanted to sleep in a bed tonight. But it was getting close to curfew. The only way she would be able to get into a bed and stay there for a full night would be if she was invited to, rather than merely taking one without permission.
Zedadias wasn’t home, so she couldn’t go there. Instead, she went back to Anita’s, and her school friend was happy to invite her back inside. Alice begs Anita to let her stay for the night as well.
But she says no. Anita’s a ‘loner’, and she just doesn’t know Alice well enough to be comfortable with that. Alice looks crestfallen.
Anita goes back inside to watch TV with her family. Alice starts to follow, but then stumbles, closes her eyes for a moment, and drops backwards onto the hard ground.
The sad form lying outside their open front door goes entirely unnoticed.
Next: Shoulder
Alice and Kev 
Just read them all! This is really fantastic, writing, pictures, ideas, all of it! Thanks for doing such a rich story…
I love your blog. This story is great, very creative and suprisingly entertaining. Truly showcasing the diverse world of Sim.
Wow, even after playing the game for days, I hadn’t realized quite how expressive these guys are. I love this.
That poor, selfless girl. Hopefully things turn around for her someday.
Dear Sir,
you showed us – with your blog – how mere computergames can be something like an artform. I draw my hat – this could be the beginning of a new kind of novel. Bravo!
me to im hooked to this sotry, and hopefully i could make one half as interesting
aawwww poor dear.. when is she going to find a place that allows her to move in? hope to read more soon.. keep it up 😀
I\’ve just finished reading from the beginning and I\’m hooked, the poor girl just can\’t catch a break, poor love.
I\’m fascinated to see whether the game will give her a Hollywood style happy ending or dish out more pain to the poor girl.
I\’ll be trying this experiment in game myself, but very well done Robin for a unique and fascinating blog.
This should be published, win awards etc.
Never have I been so gripped by a story, never have i so eagerly anticipated the next fine installment.
Never has anyone been able to use a video game and get such a thought provoking story out of it.
I take my hat off to you, and hope that you carry on for a long time.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Good job keep it up I can’t wait to hear more.
You could win big!!!! Big I tell you BIG!!!!! You are an amazing writer!!! I can’t wait till tomorrow for the next update!!!! Keep writing!!!!!
So very sad. Even Sims characters appear to be hard hearted.
Did Kev die or something?
I know he’s mean and all but he’s still part of the story too!!!
No, he’s still in, you can feel it.
Maybe Kev found another ghostly company for the night?
Lol i love your writings and narrations. Makes the game very unique! Hope things turn around for Alice.
I love this story! I’m really hoping I get Sims 3 on my birthday, which is in a week. I think I’ll try something with Alice and Kev. This story has really taught me how lucky and spoiled I am…
I can’t wait for the next installment!
~Kate 🙂
If you look closley at the last shot you can see a checkerd water tower wich is only avalible after you download riverview. I have been trying to download it for days. How do you do it?
It’s available for free from the sims website.
this is the best blog ever! I’m getting the sims 3 game in 2 wks and I can’t waiy just because of this story! keep It up!
I must say that “This is the best Sims’s Story I ever read”.I created only the perfect Sims and live the “perfect life” I never have.Your “Imperfect” Story amazed me. And make me rethink that “It just ok to let it go naturally like the real life are because sometime be a perfectionist make me bore very much”
“Will keep follow your work and wish the world value people with “Guts” like you more”
Second picture: she looks like she’s ready to shed a tear
OMG! So sad1 Why do you only write one entry a day? i want MORE!
because he probably has a job that he gets paid for
fantastic story.
Thank you for this beautiful blog.
This is a great story & the pictures are amzing too!Please continue!
This is a great blog. Makes me want to play The Sims again.
I stopped playing Sims 2 due to a lack of time. The last expansion I got was Pets.
wow, that was VERY interesting. i can’t wait to see the next addition. poor Alice! a wretch for a father and a life of homelessness! i can’t see how she was able to even make it to teenager-hood!
man, things just keep goin down hill for my girl Alice!
this story has got me hooked. I even joined a sponsor community with socialvibe and diabetes for my friend Amanda!
SHOUT OUT!: YOU CAN FIGHT IT AMANDA! GO GIRL!
Anyways, don’t worry Alice even Sims have a purpose in life and it may get better from here on out, plus Anita is a “lonely” person anyway. YOU don’t need friends like that dear sim!
Poor love.
—Grey Sky
Yes Grey is my actual name! and yes….Sky is my actual last name lmao! Grey because my eyes are pure Grey and Sky well…..blame my african american ancestors! lol.
peace out! thx for another winner Robin!
This really is superb.
Amazing project, thank you so much for sharing it.
Meh, I’m getting a bit bored with this. Every post is just “I did some shit and took pics. *pic* She is so sad! *pic 2* She looks close to tears. TO BE CONTINUED.”
Hey Rob, you’re famous! Well done. 😉
— Pat (from State)
Hey Pat! Thanks!
I just love this story! It inspired me to try a homeless family of my own. And it’s no bed of roses, too! No wonder poor Alice’s mood is in the toilet most of the time.
I want more KEV!
… actually, I might get the game and make me my very own pet Kev.
And the blog has reached Brazil! Very interesting concept, I really enjoy the story, let’s see how it unfolds!
I thoroughly enjoy this bit of story telling. Unexpectedly, this mere video game, told in the form of a picture book, certainly does arouse emotion. The characters you’ve mixed, and their being at odds, really compliment this work. I salute you, Sir/Madam!
It’s amazing how you actually start rooting for these characters as if they are real. Great blog.
Wow! Great story! I read the whole think yesterday, and can’t wait for tomorrow’s update. I downloaded Alice (kid) and Kev, and wrote in my sims 3 website blog about my experiences and how they differednfrom yours. Here’s a link:
http://www.thesims3.com/mypage/bex_oalen/myblog
I made sure to leave a link to this page in the blog.
loved the whole story!!! I feel soo bad for her!
I just spent my time reading this from beginning to end, and it’s simultaneously fascinating and heartbreaking. I really hope Alice gets a better life soon, because that poor girl really, really needs it.
Again. There has rarely been such a critique on the human condition in a modern world with such a simple, yet moving tale. Laughs and tears-all can be found here.
~sigh~ I long for a computer that can run Sims3 now, as well as the motivation to do something for people in similar situations…
Truly a moving story.
your new fan,
*~t3h C.
This is a perfect illustration of how emotional a simple story can be. What a fantastic job of writing. I’ll be following along.
Keep going with this! very well done!
I’m favoriting your site right now. This is a fantastic, sad, heart-breaking story.
Wow, I saw this up on Kotaku and just read it from beginning to end. Its such an amazing story, so much more depth then TV. It makes me want to play the sims 3 more.
I can’t wait for the next part of this story. Keep up the good work ^.^
Seems like video gaming is finally maturing enough to see some of that “art” that’s been predicted for so long. And it turns out that the artist isn’t the game itself; it’s the player, specifically, the story the player constructs around the experience. And thanks to you, Rob, we now can enjoy the art that you created. Thanks!
I was suspecting a little sadism at first when I started reading how you created two absolut wretches to play with. Now that feeling is gone, and I can see this is not really about “that”. Keep up the good work.
Admit it, Robin, Weinstein just bought the movie rights.
Let me add my encouragement to the list. I’ve never written a Sims blog, though it crossed my mind with the newest game just released. It’s great to see such a story being woven from the game — I’ve got you subscribed and am looking forward to more! Keep it up! 🙂
Wow,
I love it
I’m really nervous to see the next part
Hope it comes fast
I actually didn’t know your people could be homeless
That’s so cool ^^
I just finished reading the whole Alice and Kex story, and I’m completely hooked. I’ll definitely be back to see what happens. It’s been a long time since I played a Sims game, but I’m gonna get this from the amazon link you have here!
aweseome … poor girl though … ea should seriously pay you for all that viral marketing ^^
hooked.
I love this story so much 🙂
I can’t wait one what’s coming up, I feel bad for poor Alice..And Kev is hilarious!
I was so pleased to come across this site via my RSS feeds this afternoon! I was completely unable to stop reading about Alice and Kev.
Compelling, I can’t wait for more!
I know how she feels… Not the homelessness but the fact that I have the ultimate real-life “inappropriate” trait, a social death sentence known as AUTISM. I am verbal, so people expect me to be normal, but almost no one who meets me likes me because I just don’t know how to act.
I love this story, I can relate to Alice and her desire to be accepted. Please continue- it’s amazing.
I have autism, too, and am also said by many to be normal just because I can talk. It can be very socially challenging and sometimes depressing. It is a real life burden sometimes, just as is shown through this story, and by using a different situation. Note to Robin: this is the best Sims story I have ever read. Keep it up! I may try to make my own blog story from the Sims. I won’t copy any ideas, don’t worry. :).
Only just tuned in – how brilliant! Can’t wait for tomorrows one, might have to buy Sims 3 myself!
There is no variety of awesome that this isn’t.
This is really good. I can’t wait until my exams are over and I can get this game 🙂
this is brilliant!
wonderful wonderful blog! can’t wait for the next segnent.
Goldangit! Now I’m hooked. Poor Alice…
I wish I could get the game, but I don’t currently have a computer updated enough to play it. Love the story. Can’t wait to finally play it myself. *crosses fingers* Hope that I can get it all worked out very soon.
The last picture- the door opened like, reversed, the knob side is stil on the hinges, but the non- knob side isn’t…..weird.
Wow, this is a great series! Can’t wait for the next chapter!
I really really REALLY want The Sims 3 now, dang it =[
i love this. i will buy this game because of your experiment! i had no idea sims had come so far…wow.
Oh gosh, I hope her and this Anita girl get closer, so Alice has an advantage. I wish you would post more than one a day, though. Hahaha. I just can’t wait to see what will happen next!
Oh Alice. Poor gal. I hope there’s a “compassion” trait and that *someone* in the town has it!
Okay, this is interesting to read but people are suddenly hailing and getting way to excited about this. Its a guy taking pictures and explaining the story, one that doesn’t even make sense due to the fact that if you try this, it doesn’t even slightly go like this. Basically all you can do if you’re homeless is rummage, go in any house that is open, sleep and they won’t even tell you to get out as long as its night.
Plus, the best parts of this were at the beginning, who gives a shit what Alice is doing? Nobody cares about her, get Kev to fuck more shit up. Nobody wants to follow the priss when you have an insane man except lawful idiots who think this is supposed to be a testament to old people everywhere.
This story is remarkably inspiring… wtf? I never thought the sims could do that.
Thanks for this, it’s a truly great story. Thanks for sharing.
Intense story right there. You’re a veryy good writer (ever thought about writing a book?) This story is very…AMAZING. I love how you sometimes add some funny humor into the story.
TWO THUMBS UP!! =)
By the way: This is my favorite Sims story I have heard in a very long time.
I love this. Please continue. I have subcribed to your RSS.
I hope you will give the story a happy ending.
Everyone:
I have a very good friend who is homeless, and I have known many homeless people. My friend comes from a broken home. He never knew a normal, well-adjusted life. Ever. No one taught him how to get by, or how to cope with the world around him. After several years of nobly trying to hold his family together, he fell through the cracks when his sister pressured and manipulated his mother into teaming up against him. One day, they decided he couldn’t stay in the house, so he was reduced to sleeping in the back yard.
No one had a spare room for him, including me. When I moved a few years after that, I was able to let him stay with me for weeks at a time, but by then the harshness of living on the streets had changed him. He had no peace of mind, no permanent refuge. If he was in any one place for too long, he got restless. I think he felt that something would eventually go wrong wherever he was, so he chose to stay on the move. The world haunts him.
He sleeps in woods or under bridges, trying to find a reasonable spot where he won’t be disturb anyone, or be disturbed. He has no shelter, though. The homeless are plagued by the vulnerability of having to sleep with no shelter. There is no real safety for them, and they know it, and, often enough, this leads to paranoia. It has led to this with my friend. Over the years, I had no choice but to watch paranoia creep into his mind. It is easy to see why.
He’s insulted by strangers, treated like trash, or like a criminal. Sometimes the few belongings he has are disturbed or stolen when he tries to hide them and keep them safe. If not that, once in a while all his stuff gets soaked by rain, anyway. Once, when he was sleeping under a bridge, a guy, not homeless, walked up and started talking to him in a vague yet menacing way. He avoided that bridge for a while. One day while waiting for a bus, he was suckerpunched from behind by a guy wearing some big ring, almost knocked out, his scalp cut. When he turned around, his attacker’s friend had a gun leveled at his head. Luckily, he wasn’t shot. The police have harassed him and he refuses to talk about one incident in particular. God knows what happened.
Robin: Despite all this, my friend still manages to find a job once in a while. When he comes to visit, he offers to share almost anything he gets to eat or drink. He always wants to help somehow. Despite all his suffering, he remains a generous human being.
How could a character cause you to re-evaluate your own life? Because it reminds you, deeply, of something very real, utterly brilliant, and awe-inspiring: the potential within us all to persevere, love, and overcome. Because it is true.
Admiratio, thank you so much for sharing that. That’s moved me to tears.
You are very welcome. People are amazing. As I read your stories, I finally had to tell you my friend’s story. Take care, and it’s good to know another person who really has a heart.
Perhaps you should have let him sleep on your floor if you didn’t have a spare room. Maybe things would have turned out differently for him, maybe not. I think all too often we don’t really see how bad it is for other people when we are not in that situation. Your floor would have been grateully received.
In saying that, when I was really young in my first flat, I had a friend with nowhere to go. I took her in and she stole from me. No I never did learn the lesson. I took other people in after that who, thankfully didn’t steal from me and they actually appreciated my help. I didn’t have much but I shared what I had.
With all due respect, carefully read what I said again before you assume anything and try to give me advice. The guy was practically a roommate for years. Thanks.
Alice and Zedadias should get married, and she can have an adorable baby, and give the baby her teddy bear. I love Alice, she’s so sweet!
This is brilliant. People say a game cannot be art? Well apparantly in the proper hands it certainly is.
Amazing.
This is pretty much the most poignant and compelling Sims story I’ve ever read!
Funny, sad, brilliant – a very well told and observed story that just goes to prove you can develop emotional attachments to even game generated characters. And that’s the big unanswered question here – why do we care? Because the simulation eerily reflects real life? Or because there is chance the author/god can intervene and make sure everything turns out ok? I’m looking foward to more of this story, but I wonder – what can happen here? In RL I get the feeling that Kev would end up in jail, dead or drug addicted, and for poor Alice, she’d either be murdered or end up in the porn industry… [is there an add on for those possibilities?] Keep up the great work!
Well done sir. I haven’t played The Sims since the first installation of the game. This makes me want to go out and purchase the game just to see what adventures can be had. Great work, I hope you keep up on the blog posting new adventures. I will visit frequently to see what more is to come.
What a fantastic story. Well done.
She’s supine, not prone. Prone is laying on your stomach.
I didn’t know this, thank you.
that was a great story! and its so sad!!! Cant wait to read more..
Downloaded Alice and Kev…couldn’t resist. I made a single sim with a small house right across the street from Kev’s pond with the intention of having her help out Alice.
…and my sim died tinkering with the trash compactor. Okay…
Made another single sim, try two.
This one (Lynn is her name) has been very good with Alice. It’s amazing how much better Alice is doing eating a meal every night.
To all of you who responded to Robin’s blog by helping out someone real, I applaud you. I settled for helping the fictional Alice, but it still felt great to see her not be so miserable.
I think this is an extremely brilliant idea, enhanced particularly through your narrative. I personally think you should try and get more of these charities to personally link back or find some form of promotion for this. This simulation of homelessness while being endlessly humorous, raises very real life issues and I think this would be a excellent medium for discourse.
Well I’m a game designer and from my point of view, the game is a brilliant masterpiece. It really allows the players to fully utilize and develop their own sense of story writing.
In real life we hardly get a chance to see the life of another let alone handle our own life. This game lets us understand a little more about the possibilities that other might face and there might be people who are like the character you created out there some where away from our sights.
People are supporting the character as if it were a real person because we have an emotion called compassion. If it is given to be a real person it would remind us about what we heard or seen before and there for act to help in real life. It allows you to see the merits and disadvantages of real life and younger generations that are hooked into games can use this as an example for character building. Good example for kids and great fun for lots of people out there.
I’m a fan =D
I have only one word to describe this. Excellence.
LOL!!
This blog was noticed by Kotaku!!:D
And keep up the ood work…
Man, this makes me want to buy Sims 3..
Sorry…
Keep up the good work!!
This is an amazing story. You have done a wonderful job. Please keep updating! Kev can be so funny at times, then so cruel. Poor Alice. She had 100 Simolions and she chose to donate the money. Take her to an apple tree to get something to eat, and the gym for a shower, ok? She deserves some consistancy, even if it is only a shower and some apples.
This is some crazy stuff, wonderful work. I wonder though, is the game’s character personalities really that nuanced or are we injecting our own sense of humanity in them thinking that they must be “thinking” the same thing – like Alice giving to charity. I believe it was as simple as a product of her “good” trait that pushed her to give. There isn’t really a nominal sense of selfishness like we all have as people so charity became an easy call. However, I read some great comments from people feeling that she was motivated to give because she felt she didn’t deserve good things. I thought that in particular was a great answer. It certainly makes sense from a human perspective, but it could just as likely be that they just aren’t that complicated. Either way, it makes for great thought and discussion topics. Keep it up; I’m going to get people on the fence about this game to read it.
i just started reading this today. I love it and am so addicted. Brilliant idea. I am going to do it myself.
You literally made me go shopping for new computer parts to run the Sims 3. Incredible blog, you should get some type of money or free swag from EA haha.
I am just asking beacuse i have fallen in love with the charcters alice and kev,How do you take what happens to them into words ,I know emotion happens but how do you take emotion,Into words?I find it amazing and terrific.
Great writing, and a very interesting concept. I can’t wait to read more – at once hilarious and heartbreaking, and tough to stop reading once I got going.
Great work!
I’m going to keep this simple..
I love you. You are amazing, and an inspiration. High five.
Amazing. I’ve just read through them all and I’ve become so quickly invested in what happens to Alice. The things the SIMs come up with for themselves are intriguing and the shots you’ve chosen and story you weave around it all are very evocative. Awesome work. Incredibly touching.
awesome story telling, I had played sims 3 the day after it came out, I save a couple of images but not as good as this, I kind of share her story except that I am a guy and no…. kev was never in my lfe, but so far so good,
CANT WAIT TILL the end, you have a thing for story telling
This is outstanding stuff. I have subscribed to the RSS feed, please keep going. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m considering getting the Sims 3 now.
This is one heartwarming story. Can you make a Zededias and an Anita household, too? I’d like to try my hand at playing this same game you are…
Wow really good. I just read them all as well. Really touching story and I never thought to do anything like this. I always try to make my sims perfect but it seems fun to make them crazy! keep up the good work!
I hope that Anita will come out and wake her up so that she can go inside and sleep. I so badly want her to sleep in a nice warm bed.
I know its stupid but it almost made me cry 😦
Excellent work… i mean it
I subscribed to your feed the very second i reached the end of the story. I’m amazed, honestly! Never thought of playing Sims this way as I always played w/o the free will checkbox.
Great job! We want more! 😀
Hello Rob, Im so hooked to your blog. I’ve enjoyed the sims in the past, but you’ve taken this to a whole new level. I almost feel that the characters here are real. Great job!
So much effort involved in making this blog. Kudos. Also the software makers should pay you for this kind of publicity.
I was homeless for years, and, uh, this isn’t really very realistic. (Of course not, it’s just a video game, right?) And the way “normal people” reading this blog have been getting their vicarious dramatic jollies from the mundane problems of a couple of only slightly unusual people is kinda creepy.
I’ve never even been close to homeless, but it’s pretty weird how people have so much “compassion” for a pair of fictional characters, but I’m sure a lot of them have completely ignored actual people who are homeless.
This blog is awesome, I found it via Boing Boing, keep up the good work!.
After reading thru I noticed there was one free food source you weren’t exploiting! In center park there are picnic baskets laid out on the grass where your sim can eat till she’s stuffed.
Also if you can get her to get a point in gardening (from someone else’s bookshelf? from the library?) a tomato, apple and lettuce seed will appear in her inventory which she can plant on her lot and grow for food. Reading this has given me ideas about where to go next with my sims, Thankyou for all the work & I look forward to reading more!
I wonder if EA Play is taking note of this experiment? Beyond being a great read, it suggests some fine tuning, that the Appropriateness is rarely countered by compassion and pity.
Actually, that happened with Kev, I suppose… but why doesn’t it ever seem to happen to Alice when she’s being rejected? The best she can hope for is the person or family not knowing what to do about her and leaving her where she lies.
Hi Robin and all!
I’ve been tracking this story since I saw it the first day on TS3 launcher News Feed! Wow, what an amazing story done with a brilliant game. You’re to be commended Robin. I downloaded your lot and Kev and Alice (btw EA has it as “Kev and Alex” *chuckle*). Mine turned out quite different. Some things were the same, like Kev waking up after a nap and wanting to shoo Alice away. How sad and what a bum!
As he was walking through town he was kicking every garbage can over and rummaging through others. He was thoroughly disgusted by this activity however. He joined the Criminal career track but made a lousy thief! Seems his constant bad mood didn’t even make him a good thief!
Poor Alice, by day she hung around the park to make friends and have fun. It was also a good place for her to be able to relieve herself, and take a shower at the pool across the street. But sleep deprivation kept getting the best of the poor thing. She did meet the youngest Landgraab son, and they became friends.
That’s where I left it to get back to my regularly-scheduled Sim family.
Very well done again Robin. Look forward to more!
Regards, Deryk
PS: I wanted to cry when she fell asleep on her friends sidewalk, and no one in the world cared, except most of us Simmers!
> Appropriateness is rarely countered by compassion and pity.
That’s just realistic.
I have been reading all of your posts from the beginning until this one in one sitting. Now I have settled down with coffee and a snack to finish the rest and THEN start my own Sims (just got the game today.) I wish I could download Zedadias! I think I will keep reading until a) Alice grows up and marries Zedadias or b) my hopes are dashed completely. Either way I want Alice to have a happy ending! (I don’t care so much about Kev, hope he’s having a nice time with his ghost friend, though.)
The last picture is just utterly heartbreaking.
simply amazing
Noticed how Anita looks like Susan Boyle?
mmhmmmm
Poor Alice…
;__;
I feel so bad for her! Everyone’s turning her down! If I was a sim, I’d even take her in as my daughter! 😮
poor alice !!!!!!
I feel bad for certain characters from stories like this, but I also feel the same way for real people too., I’m sure others on here feel the same way. Just because we are expressing a lot of emotion for made up people, it does not mean we are heartless when it comes to real homeless.
*annoyed*