When we last left our intrepid Legacy Family, Lady Cheshire Masque had just found out she was pregnant. But let me back up for a moment. How did she become pregnant?

Well, if you haven’t had the birds and bees talk, you may want to ask a parent. (On a side note, there is a child-to-adult interaction called ‘Ask about WooHoo’)

Yes Woohoo and its cousin Try for Baby are back as you would expect them to be, but with a little twist. As soon as they were married, I had Lady Cheshire and her new hubby trying for baby…except I didn’t get hear a baby lullaby announcing the pregnancy. They were both too tired to try again and went to sleep. The next morning when I had Lady Cheshire use the toilet, “Take Pregnancy test – $15” became a new interaction. I had her take one and it came back positive! It wasn’t until she took the test that she got her positive “I’m pregnant” moodlet. So the pregnancy jingle is gone. You gotta pee on the strip to know for sure now. Another twist is that they’ve changed up the mood effects.

Woohoo still increases fun, though it doesn’t insta-max it like it did in the Sims 3. But it also decreases hygiene a little bit. Lastly, not all woohoo is created equal. Lady Cheshire’s first few romps with her hubby were fun and left her with nice big happy moodlets for some awesome woohoo. But one of the times she got a small negative “Unsatisfying woohoo” moodlet. I didn’t test it out, but it may or may not be tied to the fact that I didn’t have them do any flirty foreplay actions prior. But the fact that woohoo can be great or lousy is just another notch on the realism chart for TS4.

The next morning when I had Lady Cheshire use the toilet and “Take Pregnancy test – $15” became a new interaction.

While Lady Cheshire got pregnant on her first try (and became pregnant with her daughter on the first try as well) some of my other Sim’s camp members were lamenting that it took them many tries before they became pregnant. Luckily, ‘fertility boost’ makes its return as an aspiration reward.

Lady Cheshire was not a happy camper during her pregnancy. Morning sickness moodlets, a bladder bar that would randomly drop by 40%, etc. She had one incident where she suddenly had to go, ran to the bathroom but the toilet was broken. Unlike past incarnations, a broken toliet starts spraying water and cannot be used while broken. So she started to try to fix it in vain, but her bladder gave way and she peed herself, and yes pee still looks like water puddles. She picked up the embarrassed moodlet and hopped into the shower.

As her pregnancy progressed, she got herself a nice preggo tummy. Like in the Sims 3, the growth was slow and gradual. Even better, she didn’t have or need maternity clothing. Her outfit just morphed to fit her growing belly.

She was also able to continue going to work, even after she was in the 3rd trimester. A lot of loving details were put into the animations of a pregnant Sim. More than just a waddle; the idle back aches, tummy rubs and groans were very realistic.

Soon the time came and she went into labor, plopping out little Lance into the new crib.

And soon after, the newborn Lance was hungry, so I decided to try out the new breastfeeding interaction. It isn’t too involved, but the animation is cute and it builds some serious relationship points between mother and baby.

Infancy seemed to fly by and soon Little Lance was ready to vault out of the crib and become a child. At first, the infant-to-child transition was a bit odd looking, then I remembered how much I disliked the toddler stage and accepted it. Still, it was quite amusing to see him as a child with a full hunger bar from the breastfeeding session he did not a few hours before turning into a child.

I’m still working out the exact way to roll up random aspirations and traits, so I used a simplified method to generate Lance’s Childhood aspiration and one trait. There is no “Random” button in game for traits and aspirations. This was a conscious development decision by the devs. It also appears that you will always get to pick the trait, no matter how well or poorly the previous stage of life went. I ended up with a Whiz Kid and Loves the Outdoors. A nerdy Boy Scout essentially.

With Lance’s crib free, I had Lady Cheshire work on baby #2, who ended up being a girl, Lady Fara. She was an artistic prodigy and cheerful, in other words, much better suited to carry on the Masque family. But alas, she was a spare, not the heir because I chose to go with the first born as the heir in this Legacy.

I found it amusing how the two parents and two children paired off. Raheem, being a family aspiration Sim, wanted to interact and read to and help his children with homework. Lance, being a Whiz Kid, wanted to be read to, have help with his homework and build lots of skills. Naturally he and his father bonded very strongly. Meanwhile Lady Fara hung out in her mother’s Inspiration room with her art table, getting inspired and drawing little crayon drawings, while her mother wrote or painted and showered her with heaps of encouragement (as a multi-tasking action while still painting or writing) so the two of them became very close.

As my playtime drew to a close, Raheem had a birthday coming up. Lady Cheshire’s transition from young adult to adult came while she was pregnant and she didn’t have the time or energy for a birthday party, though skipping her birthday party did make her a little sad. Raheem had five good friends from before he got married who he was losing touch with, so he invited them over for a party.

At this point, Lady Cheshire had become a competent cook, and cooking while inspired gives a bonus to cooking. She baked him a strawberry cake. And to my surprise “decorate with birthday candles” was an option, so I was able to turn a home-made cake into a birthday cake. The party was on. Like the date, the party was a timed and scored group event. The primary goal, blowing out the candles, was fulfilled, but the other two missions – having people dance to music and play group games – were not fulfilled. Lady Fara was just learning the piano, and wasn’t too good at it yet and while everyone gathered around and loved Raheem’s comedy routines, that didn’t count as a group game. Still, Raheem got some yummy strawberry cake out of the deal, so it was not a loss.

There was so much more I wanted to explore, like what Lance would be like as a teenager and if I could hit the top of the writing career with Lady Cheshire, but sadly my time at creator’s camp came to an end. Both the Masque family house and the Masque family themselves are up on the gallery right now and will be available to download once everyone has the retail game.

I hope you liked this two-part preview of the first two generations of a Legacy family. Keep your eyes peeled as I have two more surprises in store for you Legacy Fans related to the Legacy Challenge in the coming weeks.