The Sims 3 Guide to Roaring Heights World

Town Maps for Collectibles, Screenshots and The Boardwalk's Amusement Park/Roller Coaster

The Sims 3 Roaring Heights Town Guide Sections Jump To: Pictures Boardwalk Rollercoaster Fixer-Upper Car Maps

Click to Enlarge and see a beautiful view of the Town of Roaring Heights

The Sims 3 Roaring Heights is a World released by EA on December 12, 2013. The World was released in tandem with a new special set/lot called The Boardwalk, which comes with parts to allow you to Build your own Rollercoaster. At this time, Roaring Heights also comes with the Classically Cool Fixer-Upper Car, which your Sim can work on to raise their Handiness skill while improving the car's engine and appearance. This Guide will focus on both the World's collectible locations and provide maps, while also looking at any interesting new lots and means for Sims to have fun. You can purchase all this new content by following these links: Roaring Heights, The Boardwalk, and the Classically Cool Fixer-Upper Car. Both require Simpoints. This Guide will show enough pictures and details about the new bundle that will let you decide if you want to let your Sims live in this new Town by coughing up the money.

Roaring Heights Town Theme

Roaring Heights is a town that pays tribute to the Roaring Twenties in the United States, populated with Sims wearing period-specific clothing and featuring enough unique outfits to give your own Sims this vintage look. Playing in the town after experiencing Into the Future, it is quite fitting that EA lets us now go back to enjoy the past. With the Skyscrapers and classic architecture on all pre-built homes, it feels like playing in 1920s New York, with beachside amusement park and a booming downtown area. What feels out of place are the modern cars on the roads; Seeing SUVs and sports cars driving around messes with the experience, but this is The Sims we're talking about, so if we have Aliens, Unicorns, and Vampires running around, we can deal with this. What is disappointing is that we are only given one classic car, which is the Fixer-Upper and other Sims may be driving vehicles from the Future. It is almost like your Sims are living in a town that never evolved to modern fashion and instead stuck with their old clothing, whilst keeping the classic architecture but using modern technology.

Pictures of the Town of Roaring Heights

Roaring Heights features some great looking art deco architecture. Since one of the things people will be looking for in a new World from the Sims Store is new scenery to enjoy while playing, here are a series of screenshots showing off various areas of Roaring Heights. You may click any of these pictures to see a larger, more detailed version.

Roaring Heights Town City Hall

Town Bistro and Science Center

Roaring Heights' Lighthouse

Town Hospital

A view of the Beachfront

Roaring Heights Town Center at Night

A bridge and the town's Stadium

Town Theater

Clothing

In the new clothing department, you won't find many means of making custom looks for there are not tops/bottoms for each clothing category, but mainly outfits. Thankfully, males and females of all ages get clothes from this classic time period for Everyday/Formal/etc. Women have very conservative bathing suits and men can dress up as through they're businessmen from the period.

An example of Male Adult Clothing

An example of Female Adult Clothing

You will want to edit the town to place lots from other Worlds and Expansions to fully enjoy this experience, so do read the section on the Boardwalk even if you don't buy it along with Roaring Heights for a little info on doing that if you don't know how.

The Boardwalk

A picture of The Boardwalk placed in Roaring Heights

Place the Boardwalk by going into Edit Town

Placing the Boardwalk

The Boardwalk is a special Store lot that comes bundled with the parts you'll need to build a Rollercoaster, which is a suggested purchase along with Roaring Heights but not required to enjoy the town. You can place the Boardwalk in any of your towns, and also build the Rollercoaster there. Playing in Roaring Heights, you'll need to place it yourself to enjoy the pre-built amusement park. It requires a 64x64 lot, which is provided near the beach as seen in the screenshot above. To place it yourself, go to Edit Town from the (...) menu and Click on Show Community Lots from the Edit Town interface. Select The Boardwalk and place it where I suggest (it is a boardwalk, so belongs near the beach!). If you like, you can find another spot for the new lot. Ultimately, the coolest feature of this new lot is that you get all the pieces you need to build a Rollercoaster, as it is not a single piece, but rather a bunch of parts laid out to create the coaster that EA designed on the lot.

An overhead view of the Boardwalk

Rollercoasters can loop - no worries on physics

The Boardwalk Lot Features

There are two Rollercoasters on the Boardwalk, one wooden, the other metallic in appearance. The blue metallic-looking one is much less extreme and seems like a kiddie coaster, while the other features a huge vertical drop that leads to a loop. Both give Sims a 2h +10 moodlet for riding, but it costs money to ride.

Dead Man's Drop looks frightening

The rest of the lot features games to play like pinball machines, pool, foozball, a place to eat hot dogs and otherwise socialize and have fun with the family. Though it appears to feature a carousel (merry-go-round) from the shapes of the rooftops, there is no such attraction. Overall, the Boardwalk fits well in Roaring Heights and enhances the theming of the town... but as stated, the real reason to buy this is to get to build Sims your own rollercoasters, which can be made on a home lot or a special lot you make in Edit town. You can make a much bigger coaster than what is premade with the Boardwalk when you take away the space used by hangout areas and the fact that they fit two in one 64x64 lot - but you wouldn't want to do this on a smaller lot, so must find or place one in the town to make your own.

Building Rollercoasters - The Sky High Rollercoaster

Roller Coasters from The Boardwalk can ramp

You get these parts if you purchase the Boardwalk lot from The Sims 3 Store. If you want to build your own Rollercoaster with the Sky High Rollercoaster parts provided, I suggest you go into Edit Town and select a big lot. Change the lot type to Community Lot and select Visitors Allowed or Big Park from the list of lot types. You can certainly do it on your home lot, but this will save you lots of space because of the size of Rollercoasters. Once this is done, click build/buy on the lot.

You can find all the parts you need to build the Rollercoaster under Buy Mode/Sort by Function > Entertainment > Miscellaneous. Make this easier by using the filter box on the right to show only store content. Each piece costs $50-$150 if you are building it at home and the price can really add up for big coasters. While I will not do a full tutorial on building rollercoasters, you should know some basic information to get started. Know that if you are doing this from Edit Town you will have to visit the lot with your Sim to be able to check for a completed track (by clicking the track). It should be easy enough to see for yourself that everything lines up if you look carefully. The following pointers should help you build your own:

A Rollercoaster Loading Zone and Cart should be placed early, but plan carefully!

DO NOT USE MOVEOBJECTS ON TO CONNECT TRACKS - Plan carefully instead

You could waste hours. All Rollercoaster Track must connect naturally!

Loading Zone - select this piece to allow you to place the Rollercoaster Car. This is where all rollercoasters must start. You should place it near the edge of the lot if you want a big coaster. From there, you do not need to worry about physics like you would in a game like Rollercoaster Tycoon. Coaster Carts do not have to have enough momentum to make it over a loop. This is a simplified version of what some of us have experienced in those wonderful amusement park games.

Coaster Cart - You need this for Sims to ride. You may place up to two carts on the Loading Zone.

Plan Carefully - If you want a giant coaster, you will want to make your opening track near a corner of a huge lot (64x64 recommended) so that you can have plenty of room to complete the track. If it does not make a full circuit, Sims cannot ride.

Supports are not necessary once in place and can be deleted to give you more room.

Going High - One, Two, and Three Story Supports - These are necessary to help you elevate your Coaster Track, but can be deleted once the track is in place to allow you to have more room to go under other sections of track. You must place them in the perfect location in order for the Up and Down Ramp to appear and fit. In order to get them to ramp upward, you'll need the following item:

Up and Down Ramp - You need to place this on a support. You can place the support to get the ramp to appear as in the screenshot above, then adjust the ramp so that it lines up with your track, then move the support just under it. This is a little tedious, because the system requires you to make lots of little adjustments, but the end result is worth it. You can also count how many boxes away the track is from connecting to help you make the track appear in the right spot, by moving the support back a few tiles. You need to place a support about 6 tiles away for the Up/Down ramp to work. To make a high coaster, you'd start with a one story support, place a ramp, two story support, second ramp, and finally a third story support. You can place a curve in there somewhere if you like, then make the ramp go back upward.

Constructing Turns and Straights is easy.

You may also use longer supports specifically designed for them.

Turns and Straights - Thankfully, placing straights and turns on your track is easy once you have the elevation you desire. You will still need supports of the appropriate height to allow you to attach them; put them a couple tiles from the edge of your track to make this possible. The system will hook the track up (almost) automatically, just make minor adjustments to make sure the rails are perfectly aligned.

Rolling Down - The Up and Down ramp can obviously be used to send your Coaster back downward to make the ride more exciting, as Rollercoasters tend to do. Aside from simple curves, rises and drops, there are other things you can do to make your Rollercoaster more interesting: