In my previous two walkthroughs, my focus was on what was going on, but I didn’t really focus on emotions. In this post, I’ll recount the emotional journey that Lady Cheshire had on one evening early in the challenge, back when she was still living on her own, and on the lawn. The purpose is to give you some under-the-hood details about how emotions work and how they interact with moodlets.

How Emotions Work:

Emotions are driven by moodlets. Any Sims 3 veteran will recognize moodlets instantly. Eat a good meal? Moodlet. Bored out of your mind? Moodlet. Just got married? Moodlet! Moodlets, in terms of what causes them, are pretty familiar compared to the Sims 3. However, their effects are now very different.

With no moodlets, your Sim will be in the default emotional state of ‘fine’. Fine has nothing special to it, no special abilities or unique interactions. But, the moment you pick up a single moodlet, your emotional state will change.

On one evening, Lady Cheshire eats a well-made meal. Well that’s good for a good meal moodlet that grants her +1 happy for a few hours. Since “Happy” is now the dominant emotion, her emotional state changes to happy.

Being happy opens up a few new interactions. She can “Brighten Day” to another sim, if she had gone to work, her work performance would have gone up a bit faster than normal and she seems more likely to accept interactions.

Now that she’s in a good mood, I decide to have Lady Cheshire go finish her book at the town library. While Happy is a good emotion and all, it isn’t the best for creative works like writing or painting. For that, you want ‘inspired’. So I decide to have her take a “Thoughtful Shower”. Not only does she fill her hygene bar, but she leaves the shower with a 4 hour +1 inspired moodlet.

Happiness points are unique in that if they are on a Sim by themselves, they will make the sim happy, but if they are paired up with any other positive emotion, they’ll boost that emotion instead. Inspired is a positive emotion so that one +1 happy point temporarily counts as a +1 inspired point. So Lady Cheshire is now +2 inspired and formally in the inspired mood.

Inspired gives you big bonuses to the quality of the work you do when doing creative endevours (and with the creativity aspiration, also boosts you skill point gain). So Lady Cheshire goes to the library to finish her book.

Partway through her writing the book, the timer on the +1 happy food moodlet wears off and vanishes. She’s now only at +1 inspired, but still considered in the “Inspired” mood because it is still the dominant emotion.

Inspired gives you big bonuses to the quality of the work you do when doing creative endevours (and with the creativity aspiration, also boosts you skill point gain). So Lady Cheshire goes to the library to finish her book.

Finally, she finishes her book, and it’s a good one! As a reward for her efforts she gets a new moodlet “Finished Book” which is good for +2 confident. Now, her dominant emotion changes from inspired to confident. She still has her inspired moodlet. But because confident is at a +2 versus inspired’s +1, Confident takes over as the dominant emotion. Happiness points are the only ones that convert themselves to other emotions.

All of the emotional states impacted Lady Cheshire’s animation. Her normal walking gait turned into a more confident strut, and her movements and actions were done with more purpose. Just like with happy and inspired, confident comes with it a slew of new unique actions and interactions. Use the bathroom while confident and you’ll “Pee like a champion” and the animation is very different. Confident also gives a boost to social interactions.

So I decide to send Lady Cheshire to the local bar to go chat up some friends. The bar has some great music which is good for +2 happiness (The moodlet is stronger for Lady Cheshire because she has the Music Lover trait), and she has a drink at the bar, good for +1 more happiness. But remember, happiness points turn into other emotional points if another emotion is present. So that +3 happiness turns into +3 confidence points. Leaving Lady Cheshire at +5 confident. At this point she becomes “Very Confident” Building up a single emotion with enough points will give you an amplified version of it. The options and animaitons are still that of confident but my guess is that the under-the-hood bonuses become stronger.

So Lady Cheshire spends the night chatting away with people. Perhaps she flirts with someone and has that flirt rejected…well that gives her a +1 “Embarassed” emotion. But because she’s feeling so confident right now, it doesn’t change her mood.

As the night drags on, her energy levels get lower and lower… dipping into the orange, she picks up a +2 “Uncomfortable” moodlet for being too tired. Uncomfortable is a universally bad mood and conveys no benefits. It is most often caused by low needs. But because She is still super confident, she can shrug off the wearniess and keep on hanging out at the bar.

The night drags on a little further, some idiot who doesn’t know how to play starts banging on the piano, killing the good music moodlet and replacing it with a bad music ‘tense’ moodlet. Further, now that her energy level is in the red, the “Tired” uncomfortable moodlet grows in strength. It now surpasses her confidence level and thus “Very Uncomfortable” takes over as her dominant emotion. Her animations are now tired…she slouches when she walks. Poor Lady Cheshire is all partied out…time to go home and get some sleep.

That is just ONE evening’s emotional rollercoaster. As you begin to play the game more and more, you’ll learn what prompts certain emotional states and how to best make use of those emotions.