This is a sub-page of The Sims (Windows)/Oddities.

The forgotten remnants of The Sims‍ '​ prerelease stages haunt Sim Lane, if one looks closely.

Pink Flamingo

.]] Even as a gimmicky interaction, something of a placebo effect happens when Sims kick Pink Flamingos. Although none of the Sims' eight needs (also known as "motives") are increased when Sims do so, the interaction triggers a script (flamingo::tweak kick inc) made out of a single primitive command that increases the kicker's Mood score by 20%. As a result, players are able to see the addition of a green stripe (or, for depressed Sims, one less red stripe) to the Sims's average "Mood" score in the Control Panel as the interaction ends.

It's important to understand that Mood is a motive ID that constantly updates itself based on the average value of the characters' eight needs in different weights. Consequently, this 20% increase lasts no more than two seconds before Mood abruptly reverts to its pre-kick value — this is because the absence of any genuine motive gains from kicking the Pink Flamingo subsequently undoes the boost.

While this oddity might seem pointless in the context of gameplay, looking back at the exact same Pink Flamingo kicking tree in early prototypes of the game provides a simple explanation: Mood's character data id originally belonged to Stress, a deprecated motive. Then it becomes evident that, when the Pink Flamingo was first implemented into the game, its original concept was to be something that relieved the Sims' stress as they kicked it.

Smiley.bmp

Smiley.bmp, a placeholder design of the Friendship icon seen in pre-release builds and January 1999 prototype, can be reactivated in the Select-A-Family menu. Strangely, it is a photograph of a real person — probably a developer. In the final product, one's able to activate it by holding ⇧ Shift as they click on the Select or Create Family button on the Neighborhood Screen.

8 Sim Lane

8 Sim Lane, when viewed through the map_edit cheat code or in its isolated thumbnail, has notably rougher edges, consistent with its design in earlier renditions of the neighborhood menu. However, in the neighborhood’s final version, that specific area appears much more flattened out.

Intro Video

The intro video for the Base game up until the Vacation expansion is a compressed and edited version of the E3 1999 teaser. Being this old, it contains a lot of footage from various builds.

A rather haphazardly edited version of the video was used in the Unleashed expansion, with new scenes added to show off new features, before it was removed entirely in the following Superstar expansion.

Versions#

• Base game–Vacation version
• Unleashed version

ross and sam Prefixes

In the directories that contain the Sim animations, six files are prefixed with ross and sam - such as ross-walking-loop, the animation for the default Sim walk.

These are incidental references to much older development builds of the game - a safe guess would be the Steering Committee demo, compiled nearly two years prior to The Sims‍ '​ first release, as two of the three characters that star in its tutorial scenarios are characters that go by the names Ross and Samantha, one of the few Sims that were created for the game back then.

Jazz

In various BHAV and string resources for the stereo object's file, "Jazz" is often mentioned. But that's because it is the early name for what the final build calls the Latin radio station.

Early Object Sprites

Certain global game events, like the carpool arrivals and phone calls, are handled by controller objects that are invisible during gameplay. Initially implemented in July 1998¹, nearly two years before the game's release, these objects feature dummy sprites in their resource IDs so they could be moved easily whenever needed during development. In fact, the graphics originally belong to older iterations of objects commonly seen in pre-release media.

Unknown Faces

of the game.]] 30 September 1999 14ː18

In November 1998, dynamic bitmap character thumbnails were integrated into the game's GUI. Alongside this, the developers introduced fail-safe graphics, UnknownRel.bmp and UnknownFace.bmp, to be used when character thumbnails are absent or corrupted². This effect still works in the final game, and is known as the Upside-down Lady Syndrome by fans.³⁴. These fail-safe graphics are, in fact, vertically flipped thumbnails of pre-release Sims—The Duchess and Sigmund Silver—that are otherwise completely absent from the final game. Interestingly, UnknownFace.bmp features facial expressions because, earlier in development, character thumbnails had dedicated slots to display different emotional states (happy, neutral, and sad), dynamically reflecting a Sim's mood.

Setup Leftovers

There are many oddities in one of the setup's background images, specifically the Base Game's 377.bmp image. Someone resembling Betty Newbie is seen insulting a person with a talk balloon, when no balloon accompanies insulting in the final game. It's also showing a Sim talking about an unused conversation, specifically, one depicting a falling missile.

This Falling Missile topic is found in pre-release media.

100th Day Easter Egg

Some of the bitmap images that appear during the 100th Day Easter Egg, more specifically those associated with the Charles London and Eric Bowman trivia, are snapshots from slightly older versions of the game than the final release.

team_ericb#

• The wooden sign, at the image's bottom-left, is in a very early state. The game's manual has a similar screenshot in higher quality, so we can infer that the signs reads THE SIMS. It's much smaller, and uses a plainer font than the final game's stylized logo.
• The pre-made Goth household is missing.
• The View Web Pages button, at the image's upper-right corner, has an earlier Ethernet cable icon.
• Pre-made houses use an early, saturated blue roof design instead of the final's greyish color. Similarly, the mansion's roof, at the image's upper-right corner, has a redder hue than its final, orangeish counterpart.

team_charles#

Indistinct text is seen above the Friends counter. Because of a similar image in the manual, we can safely infer that the text is the family's last name. This space is void of text in the final game.

Early Localization

The original US release supports US English and Spanish languages only. However, it has all the resources needed for all regions, and contains preliminary translations for 14 languages. Among these are: Thai, Traditional Chinese and Dutch.

Some ID's (e.g. Japanese) contain English strings for an unfinished version of the staff roll, close to near-final builds. Some of the localization team are not mentioned, and some core team members are credited in a humorous way, though not as heavily as in the even older credits roll.The Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Polish and Swedish ID's for these early strings were actually translated and, later, used.

SIMULATION GOD ENGINEER
Jamie Doornbos

GRAPHICS GURU ENGINEER
Eric Bowman

ENGINEERING
Patrick J. Barrett III
Don Hopkins
David Oester
Trevor Perrin
Alex Zvenigorodsky

SIMULATOR ENGINEER
Jamie Doornbos

GRAPHICS ENGINEER
Eric Bowman

ENGINEERS
Patrick J. Barrett III
Don Hopkins
David Oester
Trevor Perrin
Alex Zvenigorodsky 

LOCALIZATION TESTING
Gregory Touilliez, Alvaro Corral,
Dirk Vojtilo, Natasja Hagemeier,
Giulio Marchionni, Sami Valkama

Early Lot Names

The ability to name and describe lots wasn't implemented until the Hot Date expansion, but the original base game has a few house files with internal names that match those of the scenario houses in the Steering Committee Demo build. You would then think these particular houses started off in development as clones off of the old scenario houses.

References

References#