So with the new High School pack for The Sims 4, you can actually build a
functional high school in the game. I've been building fake high schools and
like, pretending that they exist in The Sims for years so the idea of being able to make an
actual one that works is really exciting to me. Real quick, I just want to thank the EA Creator
Network for giving us early access to this pack. Last week, I had like, four days
of special early access with like, a special version of the game that only had the
base game, the new pack, and the newest update. It's kind of a weird version, it like,
can't access the gallery, it's got a weird watermark and stuff floating around it,
but we did get to play a lot of the pack. So just so we're clear, I'm not like,
being paid or sponsored or anything, I literally just got the pack
early and only for a few days. And with those disclaimers out of the way,
let's start building this high school. So in the High School Years pack, there is a
giant 64 by 64 high school lot in the game. And this lot also has to be a high school, you can kind of see the grayed-out high
school lot type because it's stuck that way. Basically the high school will only function on this lot, it's also got a few special lot
requirements and I made sure I followed those very closely because I didn't want the
high school to break when I bulldozed it. It's got some pretty interesting like,
basic things, like, obviously toilets and sinks and stuff, but also it requires some
lockers, you need the cafeteria station, you need the whiteboards, you need
principal's desk, and the loudspeaker. And I played with the High School pack a lot
before I built this because I wanted to make sure that I was really familiar with how it
worked and like, what you actually needed here. Because in my experience
with rebuilding these like, special lots, you've got to be kind of careful. Like, for example, if you wanted
to rebuild the hospital from Get to Work -- I am very wary of bulldozing that lot. The thing about those Get to Work lots, like the science lab and the hospital and
stuff is that they aren't actually editable. So if you want to edit them, you have to use the
bb.enable free build cheat and there also isn't lot requirements listed, so if you like, forget
to put something, then it's not gonna work right. So I am really wary about ever bulldozing
those, like, when I built the hospital recently, instead of just bulldozing the lot, I actually
took out all of the useful objects, like, the necessary things and just left them in
the corner so I wouldn't forget any of them, and then I deleted everything else manually. But a huge positive of the high school
is that it's actually editable, like, you can come here and you can
just build on it without cheats. And it also has those lot requirements actually
listed, so you don't forget anything important. So for a quick rundown of how like, the day
to day in high school works -- basically, your sim gets here. All of the Sims kind
of arrive at once at 8am and sort of stand in a crowd in the courtyard, and then
you've got a couple hours of free time. So you can go inside, you can study, you can
get some breakfast, you can go to your locker, you can like, use some of the skill-building
objects, and then they have their first class. So the high school building has two classrooms, the default one has like, one on the
far left and one on the far right. I have always been assigned to the
left classroom in all of my gameplay, so I think that just everybody does. In that classroom, there's like, a bunch of
desks and a whiteboard and that's pretty much it, and then your sim just goes in there, they sit down, they watch the teacher do their
presentation for an hour, and then they leave. You can't actually like, do anything at school.
You can't like, take notes in class or choose to nap in class, they just go to class, spend
the hour, gain some skills and then leave. And like I mentioned, the classroom is like, kind of empty, there's not a lot of decorations
or like, I don't know, posters on the wall. Which to me is kind of a standard thing for
classrooms, so I wanted to add some of that in these classrooms in this
building, but gameplay-wise, you don't need really any other like,
skill-building or necessary objects in the classroom, it's just the
whiteboard and those desks. And then after that first class you
get lunch, and you've got three hours. And so I wanted to make the cafeteria a little
bit better too, the default cafeteria is very big, but it only has like, four tables, and
I found that it's not really enough. The only required items for the
cafeteria though are just that like, food station where you can
go and buy food at lunchtime. So basically just like, the food
stand and tables, but in mine, I wanted to put like, some extra trash
cans, maybe some vending machines, kind of like, some more realistic
items to have some extra stuff. Then there's also a principal's office in the
default high school, and this one was kind of weird because in the requirements, there's a
principal's desk that's required for the lot, but it's like, specifically one of
the desks that comes with the pack. Now I didn't get a chance to test
if other desks work for this, but I'm pretty sure that that desk is
like, the one that the principal uses so when I made the principal's office in
this building, I had that desk be the only desk of that kind in the whole school,
and I made sure it was in her office. And because I did that, it always worked, like,
the principal always went into her office, she was always using her desk, but I worry
that if you use that desk again elsewhere, it might like, mess up and then she
would like, sit at that desk instead? Again, I didn't get a chance to test that, but
it just seems to me like that's how it works, so I made sure I only used that desk
in her office where I wanted her to be. I think that's kind of a shame
because the desk is like, a very standard looking school desk, it
kind of matches the students desks. So to me it seems like maybe I
would put it in the classrooms for the teacher to have that desk,
but then I didn't want to put like, that desk in the classroom and then have
the principal go and sit there all day. I'll have to test that more when
the pack actually comes out, I only had the four days of early
access before I lost the game. I'm gonna get access again in a couple of
weeks like, closer to the pack release, but I don't have it right now, so
I can't like, check, unfortunately. But those things are pretty much the only actual gameplay requirements functionally for the lot
to work, as far as like, rooms and stuff go. Obviously you need lockers and things in the
hallway, there's like, a little loudspeaker item that you need that you can put up in any
of the hallways, it doesn't really matter where. But the default high school came with a bunch
of like, skill-building rooms and stuff. In the default one, there was like a gym
space in the basement, there was like, a really small computer room and really
small chess room, also in the basement. Like, very tiny. All it had was like,
two computers and three chess tables in two separate like, bathroom-sized
rooms, it was actually kind of sad. And then upstairs they had like,
an art room and a music room. In my actual gameplay, I found that I didn't
really use any of those things very often. Like, I had a little bit of free time at
school, but I often just studied or like, talked to friends instead of going
and like, painting or whatever. I did want to include those things
in my version of the school though because I felt like it was pretty important. I just kind of like, switched around the
importance of them though, like for me, I felt like a computer lab and a library sort of space with chess tables were
really important parts of the school. I feel like the only computer shouldn't just
be in like, a back corner of the basement. So in my version of this school, I made a big
computer lab and a library on the first floor. You'll see like, the two front rooms, to
the left, there's going to be a computer lab and to the right, there's a library,
and then both obviously have computers. And then like, bookcases and chess tables. I wanted to give a little bit more love to the
chess club and the computer club because this High School pack comes with four different events
you can join, you can be on the football team, on the cheer team, on the computer team, or on the
chess team and already I feel like the football and cheer teams obviously, like in real life, get
way more attention, they've got the giant field, they've got weekly events that just happen
without you having to schedule them. And that's no fun, they always get all of
the attention, and so instead I put like, the computer and chess rooms as more like, main
features in the building on the first floor. I also found myself using them more often, like, I don't really need to have my sim
go and use a treadmill at school. Sometimes they have like a request to if
they're on the sports teams or anything, but realistically, I don't really need
to go use the treadmill at school, so I put the gym space in the upstairs instead. I found that when I was playtesting this school, I
pretty much exclusively stayed on the first floor. Occasionally I would go upstairs, but I tried to
make sure everything could be on the first floor because when I was actually playing, it takes a
long time for your sim to move around and like, route to the different sides of the school and
I wanted to spend less time walking and more time actually playing, so I tried to make
the school a little bit easier to navigate. I did have a lot of space upstairs though,
so I put a lot of skill-building rooms, you'll see I've got that huge gym I talked about. We also have an art room and a music room like
we talked about, there's a conference table. I found that in the original high
school, there was like, a big, long, skinny table in one of the rooms
and I was like, okay, conference room, and so I did the same thing in my high
school because I had like, a random corner. I've never used it, it has never served any
gameplay purpose for me, but it is there upstairs in a corner, but I also managed to fit in
like, a wood shop, like, woodworking table room. I wanted to have a lot of different
skill-building options so you can build handiness, you can play the piano,
you can play the guitar, you paint, I wanted to have like, all of that stuff available
if you wanted to use those amenities at school. And I think I managed to make it fit. There is one thing about this high school
that I built that I probably would change if I were to do it again, and I think that
my cafeteria is a little bit too small. Kind of a main thing that I was aiming for with
this version of the high school to kind of like, replace, was that I wanted it to
be a little bit smaller because I felt like the original high school
was way too big and way too empty. So we had that problem of our Sims spending too
much time walking and not enough time actually doing, and also it was just kind of empty, so I
really wanted it to feel a little bit more lively. So with this, I tried to shrink it
a little bit and then by doing that, I felt like I couldn't fit
enough tables in the cafeteria, so in my actual gameplay I've discovered
that you need more than three tables. The three that I put is not good enough,
I feel like if I were to redo this, and I probably will when I put it on
the gallery, I'll probably expand the cafeteria to make it a little bit longer out
the back and then fit in like, two more tables. I don't know if you can tell, but the
gallery icon is actually grayed out on this version of the build. It's really weird, we have like, the
watermark, and there's no access to the gallery or the library, so I couldn't
like, save this lot or upload it yet. So what I have to do when I actually
get the pack in a couple of weeks is try and put this save file in my real
game and then really hope that it works. If it doesn't work, the build's gone and I'm
gonna have to like, rebuild it or something. It's always worked in the past, like with Snowy
Escape and Cottage Living and stuff when I had this kind of early access, but you never know
because this version of the game isn't final software, like, they're definitely gonna
change things and update things and stuff. That's why I had to get that really weird version
of early access instead of like, a normal kind. So if they like, happen to update
something that breaks the save, I don't know, that would be very upsetting. I would probably cry if the build was gone. I mean, it'd be fine, I could redo it,
but I'm really proud of this high school, I had a lot of fun building it
and a lot of fun playing in it. This high school area of the
game is pretty cool though, obviously we're playing on the active high school
lot right now, but there's a second lot nearby, like, kind of to the right that's like, an
auditorium, and the auditorium lot is really cool. It works kind of like, the special lots from
Eco Lifestyle if you've played with those, the ones that are like, dynamic,
where you can vote to make it like, a community center, or like, a maker
space, or whatever, and then it can change. So basically when you go to the lot, it's got the
default version that is just an empty auditorium basically, like, kind of an empty event space, but
it's got four versions that are actively saved, so there's like, the default one, there's a prom one,
there's a career day one, and a graduation one, and you can edit all four versions of the lot
and then you can save that and I assume it'll upload to the gallery with all four versions
saved 'cause that's how Eco Lifestyle worked. I just think that's so cool because
then you can like, edit prom. I think with prom I was kind of expecting
it to work like the festivals from City Living or something, and maybe it would
happen outside, and just kind of appear. Essentially I thought I wouldn't be able to
actually edit all of the items and the builds and decorations and things that go in there,
but you can, which is really, really cool. The high school is very customizable, and there's also a ton of space outside
of the high school that is playable. This area is huge, it is like a giant campus. I
barely had my sim walk around it much because I was like, so focused on spending time in the
building, but there's a football field out behind the high school, and you can actually go
on the football field, like, the events happen, like the science fair days and the cheer event
and stuff, that happens on the football field. And those things work kind of
like City Living how it just like, appears with the items like a festival. There's also like, a little
amphitheater thing off to the side, there's like, a bus ramp which you
can't actually use or do anything with, but when your Sims get here at school, they spawn
next to the bus, so you can kind of pretend you took the bus to school even if you didn't
because it's The Sims 4 and there's no cars. There's also parking lots all over the place,
one of them has like, painted parking spots. That's kind of a tradition at a lot of American
high schools where the seniors can paint a parking spot, because if they've got like, their
designated one, they can paint the ground. I don't know, my school didn't have that. I don't think any schools of any of my friends
had that, but I've heard about it before. It's kind of mean for them to put it in
The Sims though because we don't have cars, it's like they're taunting us,
but whatever, it's very cute I guess. Overall this pack is very like, America-centric.
American high school-centric with like, the cheer, the football, the parking spaces, even prom
and graduation and stuff is very American. I will say that I had a lot of fun playing it, but obviously I went to American high
school so maybe a little bit biased. This whole pack though is nothing like
my real-life high school experience. I didn't join any clubs, I literally just
studied. I didn't have any friends, like. The stuff that is intended in this pack was not
anything that I actually did, let's be real. But like, maybe that's kind of fun. Maybe
it's kind of fun to have your sim like, play as the cheerleader or whatever, I don't know. It's definitely different than I think
most of our high school experience is. I hate to say it, but like, we're simmers, okay? I don't know about you, but I spent all of my high school playing The Sims
when I got home from school. Like, literally every day I would come home,
do my homework, play Sims, and then go to bed. Like, that's all I did. Granted, I was having a rough time, okay? I was mentally ill, my dad got cancer, like,
so you know, The Sims was a good escape for me. I feel like I had an excuse. And you know what, dare I say,
it worked out for me, okay, because I started my YouTube channel when I was
in high school when I was 16, and look at me now. I play The Sims for a living, so it's fine. Anyway, I'm doing the gym now. This is one of those things that I really didn't
know what to do with on the inside. How many high schools have treadmills
in them? Is that like, a thing? I don't know, I wasn't on any sports
teams in school, but I feel like that just wasn't a thing that would have happened at
my high school, but this high school has them. The original high school had
them too, so I put them there. I guess it's good to build the fitness skill,
you know, but I don't know how realistic that is. Again, upstairs though there's
also an art room and a music room, I tried to put, like I said, a lot of
different skill-building things up here. And again, like I mentioned, I didn't really have my sim come upstairs
too much when I was playing with the pack. I was really focused on trying to make friends. I felt like when I had the
couple hours in between classes, I really wanted to try and meet other
teens as opposed to just going up and like, painting, but it is also a nice feature
to have, it's good to have the option. Plus you can come here after school, like, you
don't have to be here only during the school day, you can spend time after school and practice,
you can like, pretend there's an art club. There isn't actually an art club or a music thing
or anything, but you can kind of pretend there is. And overall, I feel like this high school
that I built functions really, really well. I playtested it a bunch, like, I played through
two weeks of school in game so I was there a lot. I didn't run into any issues,
the only thing is that maybe the cafeteria should be a little bit
bigger, and I'm probably gonna fix that before I put it on the gallery
once I actually get the game back. I also like this version a lot better just because it feels more lively than the one
that comes default in the game. I really felt like the default one was kind of
empty and it felt kind of lacking so I really enjoyed having this version instead, it felt
a lot more fun to visit and more fun to be in. But with that being said, we are
pretty much done with the build here, we're kind of just wrapping it up. I did film a tour, like a proper tour of the
high school when I still had early access so we're gonna have to cut back
to past Simsie for that one. I don't know what I said in that video,
so maybe I'll repeat myself, I don't know. I also had longer hair because
I've cut my hair since then. A lot can change in a week, you know? You give
yourself a bad haircut with like, craft scissors. Your merch goes on sale, by the way --
I'm sorry, I had to do it! I had to do it. My merch is on sale right now, for this
week only, everything on my merch website is 10% off, and if you buy any t-shirts or
anything, those are buy one get 50% off. We're doing a huge summer sale so if
you're interested in grabbing anything, I've got a bunch of really cute stuff. I know I'm biased, but it is cute.
You can use code summersale on lilsimsieshop.com to get that discount. I'll have my merch website linked
down below and I'll put like, the code and stuff too in case you forget. And with that plug out of the way, I will send you to past Simsie and I'll
show you around the build more properly. So here is the completely
finished high school building. Couple things to note on the outside,
I guess there's a lot of big open space kind of around the whole building and
that's because the lot is 64 by 64 and I didn't want to fill in the entire thing
because then it would be like, too much. Sometimes you just don't want to
give the Sims too many options, you got to keep their space a little bit limited. We also have this sort of big open courtyard
space in the front and that's because I've noticed that a lot of the Sims kind of
crowd here when they first get to school and I didn't want to like, fill it in too
much and then mess up with the pathing. But from there, they can go up the
stairs into the actual building. It starts off with this sort of like, entryway
space where the staircases are, there's like, some trophy cabinets, there's like, a big
mosaic tile in the floor with the school logo. And then the building itself kind
of has like, one long hallway in the middle of it and then everything
else is sort of branched off around it. I was really trying hard to make this
easy for your Sims to get around. This main hallway has like, a few
decorations, there's like, a clock and some posters and diplomas and stuff,
but mostly it just has lockers in it. There's also two big bathroom stalls downstairs, they're both the same just mirrored,
so there's six toilets down here. I put a couple of vending
machines right by the cafeteria, and then back here is that main cafeteria
area, please disregard the dirty plates, I've been playing in this school to
playtest it so clearly the Sims have not cleaned up after themselves, but I'll
fix it when I put it up on the gallery. I think one thing that I've noticed
in my gameplay is that maybe this cafeteria is a little bit small and
it could use a couple extra tables. So if I were to redo it and maybe next time
I make a high school I'd probably make the place a little bit wider so we could fit
in a few more tables, but it does work. The sim stands back here to serve
food, you can sit here and eat it. This right here is the principal's office.
Something else that I noticed that I might change when I put it on the gallery is that I
set it up to have this like, faculty-only door, except then when you have to talk to the
principal and she's in here, you can't get to her. So I might change that to a regular door instead, but it does function right, she sits
there at her desk, it all works. I also put a little staff room on the other
side of the building where there's like, a little coffee maker and some tables and stuff. This room is also only accessible to
staff, it has that like, staff only door. And then to the left of the entryway, I've
got like, what I'm calling the computer lab. The original build had like, a really small room
for computers that I assume was for the computer club, but it had like, three computers
and basically a closet in the basement. And that was no fun so I made a
bigger like, more proper computer lab. I have some like, posters and things
on the wall, I feel like this makes a lot more sense. And there's also a lot
more computers if you need to use one. Over here to the right, there's like, what I'm calling the library and it has
the chess tables for the chess club. On the two opposite wings of the school
are the two different classrooms, and your sim just gets assigned to one of them. They're both the same, sorry, spoiler
alert, but they look like this. I think it's a lot more fun to have them a little
bit more decorated than the original one was, and they still function the
same, so it works just fine. In the back of the building, I put some
like, picnic tables, there's a cheer mat, I've got a couple more chess tables and some more
tables outside if you wanted to eat out there. And then upstairs, we've got a
lot more skill-building rooms. There's a little bathroom space right here
in the middle, and then we've got a huge gym area in here, they also have some
more toilets and a shower if you need it. This is just meant to be a conference room, I
don't know, the original build had one of these, I've never used it for anything, it
just fills in empty space basically. But we also have an art room,
we've got a music room, and I had an extra room so I put in
like, a wood shop sort of area. So overall, there is a lot of
different places for skill-building, it all completely functions like it should in
the game, and that is the finished high school. I hope that you enjoyed this video,
I think building the high school was probably one of my favorite parts of
playing with the pack, it was so much fun. But I've also got a ton more early access
High School content coming for you, so if you're interested in seeing
that, feel free to subscribe. And I'll link the past couple videos that I've
already posted down below if you want to watch those, for example I've got a let's play playing
in this high school so I can link that for you. Have a great rest of your day, and with that
being said, I'm gonna catch you all tomorrow. Bye everybody. You know what, they are really
taunting us with this car stuff. There's a parking lot on both sides of the
school, there's a school bus in the front. I mean, it's getting ridiculous at this point. [ JAZZY OUTRO MUSIC ]
