The Sims Castaway Stories

The Sims Castaway Stories is the third and final instalment of the The Sims Stories sub-series, being based off the spin-off games and using the mainline Sims 2 engine with some expansion elements sprinkled in. Also, the game's title has the word "stories" in the plural, yet there's only one story about surviving on an island. Go figure.

It's also known for utilizing more advanced features from the same engine, such as realistic water/pond textures, medium-sized maps and road-less lots. As of a result, several attempts have been made to port it to the original Sims 2 game.

Use SimPE: The simple DBPF-Package Editor and any text editor to research game files.

Unused TexturesStuff wasn't fit for the Castaway life. Unused GraphicsNow that's a first! TS2 Test ObjectsThe islands' beach secret of...unseen debug and prototype objects of Sims 2 expansions?! The Sims 2 LeftoversStuff that was left behind in civilization. Stories Games LeftoversLeftovers from another story.

Internal Names#

• The filename for the opening movie is called intro_eng_audio.movie, despite it being the only available movie across all Locale files. It's possible that there were once different versions of the file (likely to go with the changed logos, as Life Stories had done it), but were removed since the intro itself doesn't have any English-language writing, which makes it suitable for localizations.

Unused Objects#

They're named with "CS____" and arranged via OBJD (Object Data). Leftovers and test objects will not be covered in this section.

Instance	File Name	Object Name	Price	Image	Description	Notes
0x000041AB	CS - Career - Bookcase	Books First for Learning: A Bookshelf of Education	$0		Books First, the revolutionary new education system sweeping the community is now ready to enter the homes of working educators with A Bookshelf of Education. Knowledge can be obtained for any discipline via the Golden Book of Cornelius von Schtoop. Taking the first step to a life of learning is like the first step in a candy store-delicious.	The bookshelf is straight from Seasons, but is identified as a scrapped Career Reward for the game rather than a leftover, hence the filename. It's fully functional when modded in. The textures are directly reused, implying that the bookshelf may not have gotten far in development.

Unused Text#

Objects.package#

During the development of The Sims Castaway Stories, the object The Forlorn Tiki was created by copying the decorative Pink Flamingo statue from The Sims 2 base game. The developers used the existing object as a base and reworked it into a new one — Forlorn Tiki Idol.

Below are the technical details and a comparison of catalog strings that reflect this transformation process.

That's where it was found:

Strings comparison:

Texture Oddities#

While not in the same enigma as the mainline counterpart and the previous Stories games, the neighborhood view screen contains an earlier version of Felicity Island, notably using earlier rocks.

Missing Second Story#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Are there any more traces or hints relating to this? If so, explain further and possibly take images. Check what will happen on Wanmami lots if you change its UID to 2.12

In Wanmami Island file (N002_Neighborhood.package), the ID number of the neighborhood within the UID field is marked as 3 where it points towards Wanmami Island being the third neighborhood internally, rather than the second. In comparison, Felicity Island is marked as 1 while the How To Play Neighborhood doesn't have an ID number.

By analogy of having a second story in the other games of The Sims Stories series, the second island was likely supposed to have its own story with a different protagonist, likely that of a male Sim due to other games of The Sims Stories series having secondary male protagonists.

David Bennett is a likely option due to being harder for him to find a couple on the Felicity island during the story because of the low attraction between him and the natives. By comparison, Jessica Knight, the girl protagonist, has the 4th (highest) level of attraction with one native immediately upon first meeting him: Ahio Heimata.

However, if the UID of Wanmami Island is changed to 2, unusual things will happen in the island, signifying remnants of a cut story mode:

• Sims perform many actions similar to Debug - Super Duper Hug. And this action is translated as a normal action "to be in a friendly hug". This hints at possible story scripts and action that no longer exist.³

• Events in Lerner family.⁴⁵ Immediately, Candy Valance came to the lot. However, Candy was not only hovering around Walter, but she was also dropping compliments to Daniela. Of interest on their property, Daniela and Walter are constantly flirting, hugging and kissing. Immediately upon entering their lot, Walter kissed his wife passionately, which is pretty unusual behaviour in game. This is also a hints at possible story scripts.

• In the Valley Village Lot, an Orangutan blocks off one of the exit portals. If they're given a banana, they disappear.⁶

References#