Party goals are optional. When you set up the party you select if you want goals to accomplish or just have fun doing whatever you want.

The idea of a “chameleon buff” will be much easier to explain and understand with the game running in front of you. I’ll try and give an overview though. The Happy emotion is special in that it can modify other positive emotions. If your Sim only has a +10 Happy moodlet, then they’re Happy. But if they have a +10 Happy moodlet, and a +5 Playful moodlet, then they’re Playful (even though the Happy moodlet is stronger).

This is because the Happy emotion acts as a boost to any other positive emotions your Sim is feeling. You can see examples of this throughout the demo – the moodlets with the green plus symbols above them are actually Happy moodlets that were modified to boost another positive emotion. What we’ve changed since then was to make the moodlet’s color a gradient, so the background would look like green fading to purple to show happy -> playful. I know that all sounds complicated and confusing – it was overwhelming when it was first explained to me as well. Once you play with it in-game though it feels totally natural and easy to understand.