Back in the days of The Sims 1, little old me once had a brilliant idea- was it possible to create a household that’s more like how I lived in than what how the Americans do? Let’s make a lot of multiple semi-detached houses, have the household technically be two different families and have them live together in their separate, but attached, houses?
The Sims, the original game released in 2000, is a fascinating, quirky “dollhouse game” or a life simulator, but its scope is clear- it’s a representation of the American suburbia. Trying to replicate the close neighbourly bond that are familiar to a typical Malaysian housing area, the terrace homes in a Taman, was just impossible to recreate in The Sims 1. You can’t lock doors. The household limit of eight Sims maximum isn’t enough to simulate a couple of large families. And lots are spread out far and wide which is typical to the suburbs in the US, but not how it is here in Malaysia, or most parts of Southeast Asia even.
The Sims 4 For Rent, the 15th expansion for this still-updating game, adds new gameplay in the form of house rental and the dynamics of being a tenant and/or a property owner. But not only that, the expansion wraps the new gameplay additions with a concentrated effort to put in more Southeast Asia culture and themes into the game with new Build Mode items and the new world, Tomarang.
That little idea I had when playing The Sims 1 as a kid? I can now do that with The Sims 4 For Rent.
The new gameplay might need another balance pass and a round of bug fixes, but the overall idea of this expansion pack is something I had wanted for so, so long. And most of the executions here are right on the money.
Not A Kampung Boy
I can’t speak on behalf of all Southeast Asians when it comes to the pack’s authenticity. My experience is limited to growing up in various Malay-Muslim-centric neighbourhood across various states in the Malay peninsula. A rather narrow perspective, really. But the beauty of Southeast Asian culture is so many elements of are shared or intertwined due to our shared heritage. We can argue all day which country is supposed to be the home of beef rendang, satay, bihun and various other food dishes. But having any of these represented in some way is still a win for all of us.
I’m glad the developers take extra care with the new dishes introduced by adding very specific text descriptions. I’d argue Thailand has the better satay but here, it’s the Malaysian Satay that gets represented, with flavour text specifically describing how this variant is cooked and served. Can’t complain, we do love our satay.
Back To The Village
I’m really happy to see the new Build Mode items being on point. The new Tomarangi stairs, windows (with stained glasses! and wooden covers that sway outwards!), and new pole with that big, concrete base, are exactly what I needed to better faithfully recreate my family’s kampung (village) house.
The developers’ take on a kampung house, the lot the Cahyaputri household are living in, is also decent too. Traditional Malay (and likely Indonesian, because both countries and culture shared a heritage) kampung houses are built one floor up, where you take the stairs first to get to the front door. And with the progress of time marches, many folks have decided to make use of the empty space on the floor below by making new rooms, usually made out of brick walls with the exterior being bare concrete, contrasting the modern additions with the traditional wooden houses.
It’s the little things that made me seen and appreciated, and hopefully a good bunch of SEA Simmers feel the same as well.
For Rent adds some new kitchen appliances in the form of an electric kettle and a pressure cooker. It’s widely known that Americans just don’t use kettles, let alone electric kettles, but its depiction in The Sims 4 For Rent shows how versetile it is and why it’s in the homes of many, many folks outside of that particular nation. Sims can boil water, which takes a while, and after that can make coffee, tea or hot cocoa out of it. No need to pick between a tea brewer or an espresso machine, a kettle can do it all. Gameplay-wise, as it is, kettles are overpowered.
The pressure cooker lets you cook some of the new foods being added with the expansion. It too requires some hands-off time as you let the machine cook for a while on its own, though the cooker plays little jingle once it’s ready to have the built-up steam be let out and ready to serve.
I like that they added the air conditioners in the game. Southeast Asia homes can sometimes be seen sporting those big, rectangular white boxes mounted on the outside walls- a nice way to keep cool for those who can afford it (though not necessarily environmental-friendly).
That exterior unit is perfectly depicted, but the unit inside is just a disappointing rectangular vent in the same size of the exterior unit. That’s not how most home air-con units looks like.
When the Snowy Escape expansion launched, which themed around East Asia for its Build Mode items, it was missing one thing that most homes in Asia has- squat toilets. But now it’s here in For Rent. Sims have a new animation when they have to use these, though I personally find it weird that in the pre-built houses all of them are placed directly on the floor.
In my neck of the woods, so to speak, squat toilets are placed on a raised foundation and I’m happy to report that you can have a functional squat toilet that’s slightly raised from the floor, at the cost of the game thinking it’s a different room altogether which does bring some nuisance in Build Mode. But nothing that can’t be worked around.
One of the new reward items is a makeshift charcoal grill, unlocked for getting gold in the new Potluck party. At first I felt that the developer team had just to add something as a reward and they picked the new grill. And then recently I went to my neighbourhood’s Potluck dinner and guess what, the star of the show there was a grill that literally looked like the one in this new expansion. It hit close to home that I first thought.
Rent Is Due
The big gameplay addition introduced with The Sims 4 For Rent is the new Residential Rental lots. This allows a lot to be split up into a maximum six different households to live in the same lot (though a cheat in the PC version of the game can bypass this limit). So in theory, you can have 48 Sims be on the same lot.
Any Sim can be a Tenant, paying rent to live in a Residential Rental unit, or be a Property Owner (i.e. a landlord or landlady, but without the evil connotations associated with the two words). Tenants have to pay rent and agree to adhere to any restrictions made under the lease agreement, which can include no parties and… no ghosts allowed. Property Owners must ensure the Rental unit rating goes up, to a maximum of five stars, by regularly doing maintenance and equipping the unit with nice furniture.
A Property Owner can live in the same Residential Rental lot, so you can have them basically renting out a portion of their home to someone else. Or they can live off-property and function in the same way as other business buildings like Retail buildings (from Get To Work expansion) and Restaurants (from Dining Out Game Pack).
In a lot of ways, the Residential Rental lots function and behave similarly to apartment buildings. Paying rent to a Property Owner is not new, though this time any Sim you create and control can be one. Tenants can behave unruly like how apartment neighbours can be inconsiderate by playing loud music in the night. And Residential Rental units that are not part of your controlled Sim’s household is blanked out, requiring a loading screen to load in and out of what’s basically the same lot, similar to how apartments on the same floor behaves.
It may be a familiar idea, but Residential Rental lots gives the power to the players to make their own apartment suite should they wish to. Most of the lots in Tomarang depicts houses that are split into different units, but you can create a whole apartment complex, or a row of terrace houses all fitted into the same lot.
However, existing apartments will remain as is with this expansion installed. No gameplay change was made for that system.
How small can a Residential Rental unit be? Apparently there’s no minimum size, so you can rent out a 1×1 room with nothing in it if you feel dastardly. Though putting in a bare minimum of a sleeping bed will require a 2×3 space. But with the six units cap without cheats, you can’t make a proper depiction of “coffin rooms” where scumbags that call themselves landlords and landladies partitioned out normal homes to fit in as many tenants as they can inhumanely fit. Though I won’t be surprised when someone successfully depicts the horrors of room rental within The Sims 4. I mean, I tried.
(That said, “coffin rooms” are something Malaysia has trouble dealing with.)
The idea of including Residential Rental lots and setting the theme for this expansion to be Southeast Asia is to depict the closeness of neighbourhood living that this part of the world has. Residential homes, even modern houses, are more tightly packed than the American suburbs and that leads to more dynamic interactions between neighbours and households, for better or worse.
That said, some fundamental issues with the base game really halts the momentum of fun navigating these many households all living under one roof. You can easily switch households thanks to a free update, sure, but every time you load into a new household to control a different set of Sims, the AI behaviour resets, and the Sims you previously controlled usually will drop anything they’ve been doing- especially the things you specifically make them do- to go do their usual AI routines.
You can never have full control of all the household living in the Residential Rental unit. And this may be a personal gripe, but losing view of parts of a lot that you usually have full view of because it’s a separate unit, and those walls don’t have all the doors rendered, really bothers me.
Fun New Traits
I love the idea of the new trait, Nosy. Nosy Sims are essentially busy-bodys who are too invested on other peoples’ lives. The portrayal here is a little bit comicky in a fun way, as Nosy Sims can spy on people by pulling out a binoculars to peep another Sim doing something, rummage the trash can and mailbox outside, or even just breaking in to another Sims’ home when no one’s home, invading the home to find juicy secrets. These secrets are randomly attached to a Sim when discovered, it’s all whimsical things like a Sim having sleepwalking nightmares that they are trapped in a pool with no ladders to climb out of or a weird penchant for collecting socks. And Nosy Sims can confront the Sim they know these secrets to either let them know the secret’s safe, or blackmail.
For Simmers wanting for some new dastardly interactions, the Nosy trait is fun. Though I expected that involves more of direct social interactions. Nosy Sims giving unwarranted advice and directly pry for secrets are cool, but what if their busy-bodyness ended up spreading rumours and indirectly affecting someone’s emotions?
The Child Of The Village trait is a mouthful name, but it makes sense in my native tongue of Malay, “Budak Kampung”, which is a common phrase in these parts. Sims with these traits will want to keep in touch to their roots, their roots being of Tomarangi descent, and they’ll be happy if they can do the Tomarangi introduction – a take on Thai’s traditional greeting of saying “Sawadee kap” while putting the palms of the hands in front of their head- or visiting the night market or talking to local Tomarangis. It’s a fascinating trait in that it ties so closely together to a specific Residential World. Having this trait and living outside of Tomarang can be a challenge as the Sim regularly feels embarrassed or sad that they’ve becoming out of touch with their culture that they identify so strongly with.
But not all traits are tied really closely to the setting, like Cringe. Cringe Sims are just the worst/best. They abide to the sage saying of “I may be cringe but I am free”. They can make pun jokes, will laugh at just about anything, randomly dab or do a Blic Bloc (The Sims’s take on TikTok) dance in the public and are, get this, immune to death by laughter. I haven’t tested if Sims can die of cringe, should they be surrounded by Cringe Sims who can’t stop making the worst/best puns and quoting memes, but this is such a fun trait to have. The idea of an old uncle or auntie being up to date with the latest trends since they check their FYP every day is scary, but real.
Verdict
The Sims 4 For Rent is another good expansion pack. It won’t magically turn The Sims 4 into a great game if you’re still convinced this game is now bloated with too many paid content packs (it is too much). But for those deep into this rabbit hole already, the new systems are fun to play around with, and the new world, Build Mode items and traits can spice up the gameplay. You don’t have to be into a very specific interest (like how Horse Adventures was) to get the most out of this pack.
The gameplay systems aren’t as robust as it seemed to be, but now that it’s been more than a month out, the bugs have seems to sorted out.
If you are from Southeast Asia, or of SEA heritage, the depiction of our culture here is respectful. Trying to collate a whole region filled with rich culture, merging the similarities while still keeping parts that uniquely of a specific nation in tact, likely wasn’t easy. And I find that the little bits of the culture I specifically am familiar with is represented well. Though there’s always room to add more, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to SEA culture. But this serves as a good start of a conversation on how, and what, can The Sims do to represent Southeast Asia more.
On that note, I am putting forward two suggestions: a Sim naming convention that uses patronyms and the addition of lacquer mother of pearl wall arts.
Reviewed on PC. Review code provided by the publisher.