My TS4 challege: Update

Since it was published I've done a few smaller updates to my custom TS4 challenge article, but it was getting to a point where I was changing so many things that I felt that it was time for a standalone update.

[Edit (2022): The Making Money scenario was utterly disappointing for me so I have, yet again, updated this post to customize this challenge even more and it's now so big I'm scared to read the whole thing. Also, there is a Runaway from Home mod now :)]

For those who are not aware, for a while now (as far back as TS2 at least) the simmers community has been coming up with several different challenges to make your Sims games more... well, challenging. These are meant to challenge you to break the monotony of routine and play the game in ways that you normally wouldn't, in order to break the boredom that can come after having the same play style for a long time. Since I'm a fan of such challenges, I decided to create my own, by combining together elements of several of my favorite challenges.

Right now, this is the summary of all the challenges I'm currently using and some of the changes I made to each one (the full breakdown can be found here):

Instead of just aiming to save to buy our final house right off the bat, I decided to also incorporate the Tiny Living challenge when creating our very first house from scratch.
The Rags to Riches challenge has a bunch of family-oriented challenges that I don't think fit what I plan for my sim's future. Instead, I decided to take advantage of the foster family mod to come up with an alternative challenge that suited my needs.
In the Homeless challenge, you're supposed to get a house and keep up with rent before having a job. To me, it made more sense that you would first get a job to save money for a house. Also, it's a homeless challenge... Getting a house right from the start kinda defeats the purpose for me, I wanted that to be more of a gradual process.
The Runaway Teen challenge encourages you to have your teen skip school. While I understand the roleplaying reasons for it, I actually think that school hours are an increased time for me and, roleplaying-wise if you're trying to lay low and not draw attention to yourself, the best thing you can do is try to keep living your life as normally as possible. If all of a sudden you stop going to class, that's exactly what will make the school community suspicious and start meddling where they shouldn't.
Another challenge that caught my attention was the Orphan Challenge but, from a storytelling/ roleplaying perspective, it had some inconsistencies (if you're "an orphan but not a runaway", why do you need to start from 0 building your house and buying everything in it? Wouldn't you already be living at your parents' old house?). However, the idea of having your teen start with a younger sibling that they need to take care of seemed like a nice way to sprinkle in a little extra challenge to this mix. However, since I was already starting with a pet for the extra challenge (I have the shrub toilet, which makes the pets get sick and have to go to the vet all the time), I decided to use the Raise Them Right challenge approach instead: get my sim pregnant a bit later down the line (or foster a kid) and just raise the kid from the Baby stage instead of Toddler/Child (especially since that's what I'll be using the foster family mod for).

The world

When I initially made this challenge, my goal was to turn Newcrest into a self-contained world by having in it all the venue types that my sim would ever need (cheap motel, cinema, daycare, landfill (the starting lot), laundromat, middle school, restaurant, and spa, as well as a bonus aquapark, gaming arcade, and medieval village for leisure purposes). The result that had was that, for all these years, I barely had my sims interact with the other worlds. In order to force myself to diversify my play style, I decided to not have in Newcrest any venues that I had access to in other worlds. So, once again, I've completely changed the lots I'm using. They are now as follows:

Bridgeview: cheap motel*, graveyard (from Happy Haunt), toddler playground
Ridgeline Drive: cinema, daycare, laundromat
Llama Lagoon: gaming arcade, clinic (from Private Practice**), police station

* I decided to keep this lot even though, unlike the daycare, gaming arcade, and laundromat (which I also kept) I didn't really need them because everything else in this world now seemed too fancy for this type of challenge so I decided that the other ones would be the "good neighborhoods" and this one would be the "bad neighborhood", but it felt weird to have just the graveyard in it and nothing else. This wasn't a gameplay decision as much as it was a storytelling decision. The cinema I didn't really need for any purpose (gameplay or storytelling) but it still seemed like a fun lot to keep around for diversity since none of the other worlds has one. I didn't have any stores (like grocery stores or toy stores) because I also don't usually play with Retail or with owning my own business. Baby steps. 😜

** I have both Private Practice and Healthcare Redux installed. While they are compatible, I'm not sure if having mods that add similar content (although in completely different ways) would be confusing for me so I'm not sure yet if I'll keep both mods or choose to get rid of one of them but, if I end up going with only HCR, I can still use the clinic for the Realistic Childbirth Mod.

my customized Newcrest

My biggest problem was deciding on which type of lot my homeless sim would live, so I ended up looking up and trying several of them. Should I move them into an empty lot, a park, or something else?

You are free to sleep on the benches and cook on the grills that are around the world, but you're not allowed to have them in your home lot from the get-go of the challenge. The rules of these challenges give you a "move your sim into a completely empty lot vibe" but, personally, I find that a bit unrealistic (homeless people sleep in parks, underground parking lots, cemeteries, near monuments, and wherever else they can in the cities, they don't just "exist" in a vacant plot of land). I kept thinking that, if it was me, I'd try to settle in a park, where I'd have not only benches available but also access to public bathrooms. However, not having a toilet in your lot at the beginning is part of the challenge.

I also considered having my sim live in the back of a community lot (by turning the lot type to Residential but then using a mod to lock the door for my sim, so that she couldn't actually use the stuff inside), but then I decided I wanted my community lots to actually be usable by the community.

In any case, having benches or picnic tables and grills in my lot from the beginning didn't feel like cheating when my lot was built only a couple feet away from an area that had them as well. I figured it would be okay to move my homeless sim into some sort maybe with a pond and wanted to go with this one but I didn't have any 40x30 lots left so I decided to put one of the 20x15 lots to use and went with this one instead. It doesn't have any benches or grills but... it's located right next to the Toddler Playground, which has benches and a public bathroom. I'll take it.

As for the furniture you can buy later on, here's some cool CC in case you also want to give this challenge a try:

Abandoned City also has a bunch of rusty sets you can download.

Looks restrictions & challenges

Most Sims challenges begin in CAS (Create-a-Sim) so the first thing I did was come up with my homeless concept. I wanted her to be dirty and to wear very simple - and, if possible, tattered and/or dirty - clothes, a reliable warm coat (homeless people usually invest in coats of blankets 'cause it's freezing at night when you don't have a roof over your head) and a loyal companion (it's not uncommon for the homeless to have dogs, and I hadn't messed around with the Pets expansion yet).

So, for the purposes of this challenge, the first thing I did (as the mods-obsessed simmer that I am) was to download some dirty-looking clothes such as this set (pants as pajamas & shirt as the main top for most outfits), this dress (formal, party), this loincloth (swimwear), busted sneakers and dirty sneakers (athletic, hot weather), and dirty boots and a warm jacket (cold weather). To add to the dirty look, I also had an upper-body and dirty bare feet. Since I'd be playing with a dog I also got a TS3>TS4 conversion of the homeless pet set.

Here are a few extra clothes for these challenges, in case you're interested:

I wanted to recreate the "runaway homeless child" challenge I came up with for The Sims 3, but it turns out you can't have a child living by themselves in The Sims 4, so I had to make my lonely sim a Teen as her minimum age instead.

The rules from the Homeless challenge say that buying some new clothes and getting a new haircut costs $500. As an additional challenge, I decided that you can't buy new clothes unless you own a dresser where to store them (if you have folded clothes or wall-mounted dressers, you can use this neat tutorial to make your own functional walk-in closet -- this tutorial can also be used to make pantries; alternatively, you can use this script mod to change the behavior of Maxis' dressers instead), which means you need to have the house permit before you change your looks.

example of a functional closet

Money restrictions & challenges

All the 3 challenges mentioned above have one thing in common: you're supposed to start with nothing and climb your way up (go "from zero to hero" sort of thing) so, after having your sims already in their home lot, you're supposed to change their money to $0. If you have the UI Cheats Extension, this can be easily done by right-clicking your sims simoleon amount, typing 0, and setting their funds to that amount in the mod's console (you can use the same method to give/take more money from the mini-challenges).

You're not allowed to have a job until later on, so you need to rely on alternative ways to make money (sell collectibles and frogs found around the world, dumpster-dive, sell paintings, play/perform for tips, etc). In one of my test saves, I played around with the idea of selling crafted furniture as well but, after a while, having the huge recycler and fabricator on my mostly empty lot was breaking my immersion of the challenge. Alternatively, I am considering simply having these in a community lot instead.

Speaking of test saves, my sim won the lottery in one of them and it was utter chaos. While it was fun to move to my dream house, redecorate it, and play in it for a while, it killed the challenge. so no more playing in the lottery as well.

I also considered not selling things directly from the inventory (from the From Dumpster to Deluxe challenge) as well - I could instead sell my stuff at the Flea Market or start my own yard sale, which is apparently a thing you can do since City Living I never knew about. The problem with that is, as per my own rules, acquiring the table to do my own yard sales would cost not only the price of the actual table ($400) but also an extra $250 for the "sales permit" I'd have to pay the Townhall. That's a whopping total of 650 simoleons, which will take forever to get to early on in the game (which means my dog would've died from starvation by then). The other problem with this approach is that the Flea Market doesn't happen that often, which means my inventory would always be filled with crap that would just sit there wasting space because I wouldn't be able to sell it, and that would start triggering my anxiety. When it comes to selling on retail, it seems that in order to sell on retail your sim actually needs to own and run a retail store to be able to sell stuff. It's not like you can just download a shopping mall from the gallery, put it down, and then have your sims sell to the shopkeepers or something. I have no intention of running my own business so selling via retail is also not an option. Selling directly from the inventory it is... (for roleplaying purposes, I will only sell stuff when my sim visits the second-hand shop).

School/job restrictions & challenges

The Runaway Teen says you should skip class, but I disagree. School time, homework, projects... they all add an increased challenge to me. For that reason, and the reasons provided in the intro of this article, I decided to let my teen attend school.

The rules of the Homeless challenge state that you can't get a job until you buy some new clothes, get a hairstyle... and own your own house. That felt a bit odd to me so I changed the rule to "no full-time jobs" instead. Their "domestic worker" mini-challenge also hit me as being something odd. You can't get a steady part-time job, but you can volunteer to randomly clean the houses of people you've just met in exchange for some spare coin? That seemed weird enough on its own and felt even weirder when paired with the Runaway Teen challenge. So, I decided to replace that with simply getting an Odd Job (which requires having at least a $200 phone).

Since joining the Scouts counts as an after-school activity and not really as a job and you don't earn any money by being a scout, I decided to have my sim join the Scouts just for the extra fun and to give her a roleplaying alibi for being at the park all the time.

As for getting a regular job, I decided that my sim couldn't have a regular part-time job until she had new clothes, lived on her new shack lot, and had a building permit (and maxed Scouting first). And that she couldn't get a regular full-time job until she aged into a young adult and moved into her dream house. I have also lowered the minimum skill level required to get a job from 3 to 2 since I have a mod that makes it harder to level up your skills.

my homeless simself and her dog, Misha

Socialization restrictions & challenges

The Runaway Teen adds an extra challenge regarding who your sim can interact with: only children and teenagers. The roleplaying reasoning behind avoiding young adults, adults, and elders is that they will report you to the authorities.

As per the "the community wants to help" option from the Homeless challenge, if you can befriend 5 sims, the community will build you "an ugly shack with the cheapest furniture available: a fridge, counters, toilet, sink, shower, dining table and chairs, sofa and a couple of single beds. NO stoves, skill objects, TVs, computers, fancy decorations etc". To match the Runaway Teen, I decided that I'd have to befriend specifically 5 teens since children are way less likely to have the means to help put together the shelter. For my shack-shelter, I used the Homeless Joe's Paradise from the gallery and I decided that, as an additional challenge, my sim could save up the $7220 needed to actually move there and make it their new permanent lot.

I decided that there was a group of adults my sim could interact with - the stall merchants around the world and at festivals. Why? Because if instead of buying something yourself you always ask a friend to go there and purchase it for you, people start to get suspicious.

Another decision I made was that, after my sim had their phone and could finally accept calls and messages, they were free to accept going out or visiting someone, but they could never accept having friends (or classmates) over to their lot until they actually had a proper house (aka, their dream home, not the Joe house), in order for other sims not to find out they are homeless. The exception here would be the 5 teens who will help build the shack ('cause how would they help you without knowing?)

The Rags to Riches adds additional challenges such as getting a boyfriend/girlfriend, getting married and starting your own family. As much as I liked the extra challenge, I had no plans of getting my sim married; however, I did want to try to play with some kids (babies, toddlers, or children) in the lot as well, for the extra challenge - but I didn't want to simply adopt them, 'cause I didn't want them to become part of my family. As such, I decided to use the foster family mod instead The plan is to foster a cat or kitten while my sim is still a teen and later on start to foster children as well.

modified "starter house Fresh"

Extra restrictions & challenges

The phone: The Runaway Teen states that you're not allowed to have a phone and suggests leaving it in silence mode. I disagree. Let's keep some consistency with our theme here and try to "live life as normally as possible" in order to not raise suspicion (I don't know many teens these days who don't have a phone). So, will keep our phone in silence at the beginning... until we buy ourselves a phone.

Different phones will have extra costs and, while phones with more and better functionalities can be quite useful, they can also be rather expensive.

$100: the phone can be used to make/receive calls, send/receive text messages, and plan social events
$200: the phone can also be used to play games, take photos, and access the notebook
$300: the phone can also be used to access the internet (add to Simstagram story, check social media timeline, check total followers, check scholarship applications, find a job/odd job, buy a retail store/vet clinic restaurant, show bills information, purchase gifts, browse Plopsy, Simstagram pet)

The dog: Adding a dog to the family was a good way to make my sim feel a bit less lonely, but it proved to be an extra challenge as well. Not only the very first simoleons my sim made went towards buying pet stuff, but I also had to endure the regular expenses of refilling the bowl with fresh food, as well as the vet expenses every time the dog got sick (which, thanks to the bush, was quite often).

The lot: In order to start building/buying furniture on your lot, you need to first get a building permit (-$500). However, I decided that my sim wouldn't buy any major furniture. Instead, they would move into the community-made shack and use their building permit to add just get some extra basic furniture that they couldn't carry on themselves, such as a laundry washtub and clothesline.

Rags to Riches has some extra requirements for the lot. One of them is for it to have a swimming pool. My sim's dream house is in a 20x15 lot - I don't have room to spare for a pool! Plus, pools can actually be dangerous when you have toddlers and tiny puppies/kittens crawling around. As such, I decided to replace this requirement by having a training area for the dogs in the back and a playground for the kids in the front instead. In any case, I might move it to a bigger lot later down the line, so that I can actually have enough space at the back to add the swimming pool.

Optional challenges

Get a sales permit (-$250) to allow you to sell your photos, as well as stuff that you've made (using an Easel, Fabricator, Knitting Basket, Woodworking Table, etc.).
Furnish/decorate your house only with items that you've made yourself (on the Fabricator and/or the Woodworking table) or that you found while dumpster diving
This is supposed to be a challenge but, let's be honest, it's way too easy to make money in TS4. As such, mods to make the gameplay harder (e.g.: 50% reduced salary (+ update addon), entrance fee on community lots, lower payments, SNB - Bills) are not only recommended but also highly encouraged.
On that note, if you want to make your overall gameplay (not just the money making) harder, you can check these as well: gameplay overhaul, less skill boost from moods, MC command center, miscarriage chance & abortion, parenthood hard mode, rejection letter from uni possible (or this version), skill decay, slower rock digging, slower painting, slower songwriting, slower writing, tiny home nerfs, university costs more

Additional rules

You can't sell fish, fruit, mushrooms, vegetables, or any other edibles you gather around the world (you must use them as a food source until you finish building your house) but you can sell frogs, fossils, etc.
If the item you find while dumpster diving is broken you must either pay to replace it, break it down in the recycling machine, salvage it for parts (if applicable), or have your sim repair it. If you can’t afford to replace or recycle it, you can't sell it. Unwanted furniture must be recycled in the Recycling Machine.
If you're playing the furnishing optional challenge, you can't use the Kleptomaniac trait to obtain furniture. You must find it in a dumpster or craft it yourself.

Some ways you can make money before having a job:

Beg for money
Buy a camera (-$85)
Buy a Fabricator ($)
Buy a guitar (-$600) and play for tips
Buy the Come and Get it Street Store table (-$400) - allows you to sell stuff you collect around The world
Buy a Knitting Basket (-$85)
Buy a Recycling Machine (-$)
Buy The Street Gallery object (-$400) - allows you to sell your paintings
Buy a Woodworking Table ($)
Sell collectibles during the Flea Market event

Breakdown of challenge goals

(aka, my version of what I expected the Making Money scenario to be like)

And here is the updated step-by-step goals list of my custom "tiny living runaway homeless pregnant teen" challenge (without any of the optional rules):

Join the Scouts
Buy a cardboard pet bed (-$1)
Buy a food/water bowl (-$30)
Buy an outhouse (-$50) - or build your own
Buy a sleeping bag (-$80)
Buy an easel (-$40)
Buy a bonfire (-$450)
Buy a tent (-$95 to -$420)
Earn 5 points in two skills (+$100) - repeatable
Buy a dog bathtub (-$100)
Setup the garbage collection service (-$68)
Buy a grill (-$95)
Get a laundry wash tub (-$100)
Get a clothes-rack (-$75)
Buy second-hand clothes (-$150) - allows you to apply for Odd Jobs
Do Odd Jobs for money, as needed
Open a bank account (-$20)
"Buy" a phone (-$100)
Activate the cellphone service (-$70)
Get a building permit (-$500)
Build a room (living room, or kids' room)
Setup the water service (-$115)
Get a haircut (-$50)
Buy a yoga mat (-$125)
"Unlock" a better phone (-$200)
Setup internet service (-$75)
Buy better clothes (-$450) - allows you to apply for a Part-Time job
Buy a bike (-$100)
Build an extra room (living room or kids' room)
Setup the power service (-$205)
Buy a laptop (-$1.000)
Build an extra room (kitchen or bedroom)
Setup the cable TV service (-$68)
Buy a TV
"Unlock" the smartphone (-$300)
Befriend 7 teenagers or 5 teenagers and 3 kids
Build an extra room (kitchen or bedroom)
Setup the premium cable TV service (-$68)
Get a part-time job as a babysitter (after maxing the Scouting path)
Earn 10 points in a skill (+$300) - repeatable
Finish building the house
Enroll as a foster family for pets & adopt a cat/kitty
Go to the university
Age into a young adult
Get your sim pregnant or have her enroll as a foster family for kids*
Foster and successfully raise a kid (with good grades/traits, etc)

* Aside from just task-oriented goals, from a storytelling point of view the goal is to get this sim pregnant and have the baby while she is still a teen (if you're not taking the foster family path, that is, if you are, you don't need to get them pregnant), and when she ages into a young adult and the offspring ages into a toddler, have her get a part-time job to pay for tuition and enroll university (as she will need some better education if she wants to get a decent job to provide for her kid). She can either attend class from home or choose to go to residential housing instead, but she can't join a dorm. The full benefits of going to and exploring college will be reserved for her kid once they are of age themselves.