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the_acme_catalog
As promised, here are some more replacements for your various speech bubbles! This time up, we have Free Time hobbies, Apartment Life stories, and Pets interests. This, combined with the first set of replacements, should cover most of the speech bubbles that don’t require redoing the images for Wants and Fears and such.
Some of the images are reused from the first group of replacements, but most are new. I just had some failures of inspiration at times, so I doubled up. You guys don’t mind, though, do you?
All image files use clipart gleaned from the Internet that are free to use, and the text files are my own creation. To my eyes, at least, they do get a bit blurry close-up, I don’t think there’s much I can do about that with what I have for images. Hopefully, they go over better with a less critical audience!
Once more, a big, big thanks to Sunni of PBK who worked with me on figuring this out!
Apartment Life Stories
So, Miss Socialite walks up to you, hopefully wearing one of Morganna’s great DR outfits, and wants to chat. What do you say, after you’ve gone through the Kiss, Kiss, Darling routine? You tell her a story, of course! Here are replacement graphics for the five “Tell Story” choices that Apartment Life gives you.
Arts
Okay, so it’s really more of an Arts & Crafts, I use the same images for that hobby later. We have an artist’s palette, an upright loom of Saxon make, a pot on a wheel, a spinning wheel, and a spool and needle.
Computers
Ah! What is this foul machine? The way it works is like, well, magic! Yes, instead of computers, your techie Sims will discuss the arcane ways of sorcery. Which actually fits right in with Morganna’s defaults for the Techie group! We have a crystal ball, a lamp, a black cat, a wizard, and a wizard’s hat.
Fame
Ever wonder why your Sims discuss money when you click on the Fame option? Well, the pie menu says Fame, but the file it directs to says Economy, and is full of money images. I have stuck with the Fortune theme here, as it is hard to find clip art of medieval Fame. We have stacks of coins, bars of gold, a jewel, more stacks of coins, and a treasure chest.
Mechanics
For your medieval Gearhead Sims (Yes, I’m shamelessly pushing Morganna’s defaults, they are awesome!), we have for discussion a square (with a little plumb bob on the side for leveling), a workbench, a mallet with nails, a blacksmithy, and an anvil. These will show up again for the Tinkering hobby, too.
Sports
As usual, I’ve substituted Warfare for Sports. I took images from the Sports interest and the Sports hobby to make the Sports story set, because honestly, how many images of swords do you need? We have a catapult, a bow and arrow, crossed swords, a mace, and a knight.
So, that’s that. Hopefully, you will now want to actually use this social feature in your game. I know I’ve never bothered with it before! Just place in your downloads folder. Apartment Life, of course, is required.
Pets’ Pet Interests
Okay, seriously, do we ever see our pets “chatting” with each other? Okay, not really, but these images do come up when they sleep, so replaced they must be! I’ve also replaced the images for when pets beg for food, as shown above.
Pets
This one was the catch-all of images in the pet interests. Originally, there was a trashcan, a pet bed, a goldfish, a squirrel and a dog collar. So I replaced them with a leaf pile, a pet basket, a chicken, a pheasant, and a rope for walking your pet with.
Scary Things
I thought of what would constitute scary things for a medieval animal, and mostly came up with bigger animals. So we have a bear, a cage, a wolf, a wagon wheel, and a bull.
Food
This one wasn’t hard, just had to find some pictures of raw meat! We have pork chops, a fish, a loin rack, a drumstick, and a ham shank.
Playtime
Another one where I did an image-for-image substitution, we still have a ball of yarn, a bone, a mouse, a ball and a stick, but more medieval looking.
Sleeping
Places your pet may find comfy to sleep on. A canopied bed, a rug, a sofa/bench, a chair, and some pillows.
Outside
This one I left alone, as the outdoors is pretty much the same no matter what your era.
As for the last 3 interest groups, Weather, Toys, and Animals, they use the human interest images of the same name, so if you have part one of this project, you are all set.
Once again, these just go in your download folder like anything else. Pets is required.
Free Time Hobbies
And now the part you’ve all been waiting for, replacement hobbies! I had to make a few of them up as I went, hopefully you’ll like the results.
Arts & Crafts
Look familiar? Yup, I just rearranged the icons. You can feel free to add in your own, if you prefer. But once more, here are the spool with needle, pot on a potter’s wheel, upright loom, artist’s palette, and spinning wheel.
Cuisine
With the first upload’s Food section, I went for kind of a bread and cheese route, so for this one, I decided to go more carnivorous. We have a drumstick, a ham shank, a roasting pig on a spit, a roast beef, and a fish frying over a fire.
Film & Literature
Of course, Film must be changed for Theater, instead! So we have some stage curtains, an actor mid-speech, the Theater masks, a quill with ink, and a book.
Fitness
A big thanks to heget at PBK for helping me see “fitness” as more than just “exercise”. I’ve rechristened this category as Well-being, and have included some of the fads and superstitions of the time relating to health and happiness. Astrology was considered a fundamental part of health, as was prayer. The other images are guesses on my part, but I think they fit. We have a telescope, some garlic, a washtub (yes, they did bathe, often!), a basket of veggies, and hands folded in prayer.
Games
There are all sorts of games, of course, but I ended up with five images of board games for this category. From left to right, we have Backgammon, Nine Men’s Morris, Chess, Checkers, and Fox and Geese, all popular in medieval times.
Music & Dance
The file said “Music,” so I forgot that in game it’s “Music and Dance.” Well, we’ll just imagine these instruments make music to dance by, as well. We have a recorder, a mandolin, a harp, a zither (yup, that’s what a zither looks like) and a drum.
Nature
Ah, the great outdoors! Still the same joys now as then, just different materials in the toys we bring with us! We have here a flower, a campfire, a canvas tent, an owl, and a fishing rod.
Science
I knew right away what I wanted to use in place of Science, and that was Alchemy, its mystical forefather. The study of, among other things, how to turn lead into gold, and create the Philosopher’s Stone, purported to give eternal life. We have pictured here an alembic, a pile of gold coins, an overturned flask, a set of scales, and another alembic.
Sports
Once more we have Sports replaced with Warfare, and games of war. The images include crossed axes, a mace, a helmet, a bow and arrow, and crossed swords.
Tinkering
And finally, some tools for Tinkering with. Once more, the images are an anvil, a square, a blacksmithy, a workbench, and a mallet and nails.
As before, just place the file in your download folder. Free Time is required.
The Optional Tricky Part!
I didn’t go quite as crazy with renaming everything this time, but there are still some files for changing the names of hobbies and such. I didn’t change the level titles, as I ran out of inspiration, but I did change hobby titles, descriptions, and unlockables where needed.
Hobby Titles
The only changes I made were Theater & Literature for Film & Literature, Alchemy for Science, Warfare for Sports and Well-being for Fitness. The rest are the same.
Unlockables
The same category changes here, just inserted into the levels of unlockables. I did not alter computer references like Blogging or Browsing the Web, or any of the special actions, like Go Jogging or Make Protein Shakes. Unfortunately, Theater & Literature was a bit too big to fit in the line for Browse Web, so that one is cut off, but you know the levels by now, don’t you? And I just love that now we have an option to Instruct in Warfare, for our grizzled veterans trying to shape up the new recruits!
Descriptions
In addition to the categories above, I also changed any description of a hobby that seemed anachronistic, for instance removing “photographers” from the Arts & Crafts description.
Why is this the tricky part?
Because all these files are in a package called “Live.package,” and they go in the top Download folder. But you probably already have a file called Live.package in your top directory. It’s changing all your townie names to something more suitable for your game. So we need to do some quick editing with SimPe.
Now, if you don’t have a naming mod, or any other mod that calls itself Live.package, you have no problem. You can simply download the file below and put it in your Download folder (but not a subfolder).
For those of us who can’t stand life with Sims named Goopy, but still want my updated titles and descriptions, it’s a fairly quick edit in SimPe to merge the two files together. PLEASE, be smart and back up your files first, though. I am not responsible for messing up your naming mod. If you can’t use SimPe, or have some other reason for not doing it yourself, send me a polite PM, and I’ll probably be nice and do it for you. (No, seriously, I will!)
1. Extract my file to somewhere other than your Download folder.
2. Open this new Live file with SimPe.
3. Use the Extract function to extract all the file elements. (Shift click will select them all)
4. Close my file.
5. Open your existing Live file with SimPe.
6. Use the Add function to add all the lists to your file. (Again, use shift click to do it all at once)
7. Save your existing file.
Of course, while you’re in there, you are welcome to change any and all of the names, yourself. Go crazy, have fun. Just remember to Commit and Save, and DON’T change the numbers. If you wish to change one that isn’t included, again, send me a PM and I’ll tell you where to find it!
If, for some reason, you grow tired of my little titles, you can easily remove them from your file, as well:
1. Open the Live.package in SimPe
2. Select the file or files you wish to be rid of
3. Use the Delete function to delete the selected file
4. Repeat for any other file you no longer want (This will delete it permanently, so back up your file!)
5. Save your file
And there you have it! Those are all the speech bubbles I plan to replace. There are others, but some, like the Bon Voyage vacation discussions, would be specific to each person’s vacation hood themes, and hard to make universal, or there are other reasons I did not touch them. If you have any questions or problems, please, let me know. As always, you are free to use this as a base for your own versions, if you so choose.
Enjoy!
