How To Keep Sims Happy In The Sims

Whether this is your first time going back to The Sims or you’re a lifelong player eager to return, it can be kind of tricky to keep everyone alive, fed, and happy back in the original Sims game! With eight needs lending to an overall mood, you’ve got your work cut out for you.

The eight core needs in The Sims take a bit more work to keep topped off than you might recall, with far less forgiveness if your mood begins to sink due to wanting for something. This guide will show you how to care for your Sims.

Hunger

One of the most quintessential needs your Sim will need to focus on is their Hunger need, since Sims will die if this meter hits empty. As such, you’ll need to pay close attention to how hungry your Sims are at any given time – they’ll often let you know they’re getting peckish when they think of a burger in their thought bubbles, with flashing red for urgency as they grow hungrier.

Your Sims can eat a variety of foods, depending on where they are when they get hungry and which appliances are on the lot. If you haven’t eaten before you left your home lot, then you can always find food stalls on most public lots if need be, but you’ll spend quite a few Simoleons buying food this way. They also tend to be snacks rather than meals, unless you’re eating out as part of the Hot Date expansion.

Don’t feel like cooking tonight? Call for a pizza from the phone! It costs to have it delivered, but it provides food almost immediately.

When eating at home, you can choose to Grab a Snack, which produces a bag of potato chips to tide your Sims over. Then, unlike in later games that rapidly expanded the food menu, you’ll only be able to select Make a Meal when you click on the fridge, and what your Sim prepares depends on the surfaces and cookware available when the action comes up in their queue:

• If there’s no preparation surface like a counter or table nearby, they’ll whip up a Can of Beans.
• If there’s a prep surface but no oven or microwave, your Sim will make a salad.
• If they have both a prep surface and cooking method, then they’ll make what appears to be a satisfying meal of meat and vegetables, which will keep them fullest for the longest amount of time.
• If they have a Standard-Plus Brick Oven for Bakers from the Makin’ Magic expansion and the necessary ingredients in their inventory, then they can also cook a variety of breads and desserts.

If there’s a barbecue placed on the lot, you can also make burgers, but unless your Sim has a higher Cooking skill, they won’t be very filling. As such, it’s best to reserve grilling for your most talented chefs and leave other Sims with more standard cooking methods.

Critically, you need to build your Cooking skill before attempting to use a stove, because otherwise, you’ll find that fires are more common in this game than they are in later installments! Sims without much Cooking skill will almost inevitably set fires when preparing food using an oven, so place a fire alarm nearby and work on building that skill like your life depends on it – it just might.

Comfort

A skill that’s been removed from later Sims games, the Comfort need is determined by how physically comfortable your Sim feels, and this is influenced by a number of external factors. This need focuses primarily on having furniture with high Comfort stats, since every surface your Sims can sit or lay on – chairs, sofas, and beds primarily – when they begin to get fatigued, as standing slowly drains the Comfort need.

Like in real life, you’d imagine that nicer seating offers higher Comfort boosts, with things like public benches and cheap chairs not offering much relief, while expensive beds and couches are a quick fix to discomfort. Even while Sims are doing other activities that involve sitting or laying down – eating, reading, watching television, or sleeping, to name a few – they’ll boost their Comfort need gradually based on the surface they’re on.

Additionally, you can take showers or baths to improve your Comfort need as well as the Hygiene need, with better plumbing fixtures offering higher stat boosts for both needs.

Hygiene

Like us, Sims get a little funky from time to time, which means you’ll need to tend to their Hygiene needs throughout each day. Critically, you’ll want to tend to your Hygiene on your home lot, since friends and neighbors may not like you using their belongings and public lots offer few options that fix the Hygiene need other than public sinks.

You can improve a Sim’s Hygiene need by taking showers and baths, since these are the fastest ways to fill the need. Hygiene also replenishes a bit when your Sims wash their hands after using the bathroom or whenever instructed to do so.

Unlike other needs in the game, though, there are a handful of things that can rapidly decrease your Hygiene need, such as wetting yourself when the Bladder need reaches the bottom. The Bladder need refills immediately, but the Hygiene need tanks all the way to red in kind. Putting out fires also lowers the Hygiene need, so you’ll want a shower quickly after to wash off the char.

Bladder

One of the more straightforward needs in The Sims games, tending to your Sims Bladder need is as easy as having them use a toilet. Click on any toilet on any lot, select Use, and wait for your Sim to head over and handle their business. Thankfully, community lots always have toilets, so you’ll never be stuck doing the Sims potty dance in public. Just beware that eating and drinking will slightly decrease the Bladder need more than it decays while you’re not eating or drinking.

Letting the Bladder need run all the way to empty will force your Sim to have an accident if they can’t get to a toilet in time to relieve themselves. Their Hygiene need sinks and a puddle stays behind on the floor where they stood.

Energy

We all get a little groggy sometimes, and our Sims are much the same – the Energy motive is all about how rested and awake your Sim is at any given moment. The simplest way to replenish this need to sleep is to, well, sleep. Whether you opt to go to sleep in a bed for the night or just take a nap on a bed, couch, or reclining chair, any sleep they get will restore the Energy need. Sitting will also restore a small amount of Energy, but not enough to stave off the sleep if they need it.

Anytime a Sim’s Energy need reaches the bottom, they’ll immediately pass out where they stand, right onto the floor if there’s space to do so and standing upright if not. They’ll rest up in this odd position for a bit before waking up and trying to shake off the sleep, which is your cue to get them to bed ASAP! Sims can’t die of being tired (as long as they’re not swimming, that is), but a Sim with a low Energy need will almost always refuse to do anything else until they get some rest.

While you’ll want to take stats into account for most of your important furniture, beds and sofas are important, so pay attention to the Energy score when buying something. The better the bed your Sim sleeps in, the less sleep they’ll need, since their motive meter fills much faster and depletes much slower throughout the day. The opposite is true of cheap beds – those take a while to replenish your Energy, and you’ll see it deplete faster the following day.

Sims with a full Energy meter will typically stay asleep until 6AM unless awoken by something else (like a phone, their baby crying, or an emergency), or if you ask them to do something else (no queuing actions for when they wake up at 6). Napping on couches is a good way to get through the day if they didn’t sleep enough the night before, as is drinking coffee if need be, but you can’t fill the Energy need fully on a sofa, no matter how good that sofa is. Naps are good, but head to bed, too!

Fun

What your Sim thinks is fun depends heavily on their personality, but everyone needs to take a break and let loose from time to time, your Sims included! The Fun motive can be filled in all kinds of ways, but Sims won’t die of boredom, so you’ve got some flexibility if they have to go to work or school. Sims can have fun through plenty of leisurely activities, like:

• Watching TV, which also provides Comfort if they’re sitting down to do so.
• Playing games on machines like pinball,
• Reading books that aren’t related to skills. Serious Sims tend to prefer this as a leisure activity to more playful Sims.
• Using the Telescope to check out the stars, hopefully without being abducted…
• Feeding fish or even just watching the aquarium, but be sure to clear out fish that have died before long or the Room score will suffer.
• Dancing, which can be done with any stereo but seems to be more enjoyable when done on a proper dance floor.
• Board games like checkers, chess, and even pool if there’s a table nearby.

When your Sim is having Fun is a good indication that their survival-based needs are met, since they tend to focus more on things like Hunger or Energy if those needs are low as well.

Social

Like humans, your Sims are social creatures, which means they’ll need to periodically interact with other Sims in some way to replenish their Social motive when it decays. This is easier when you have multiple Sims living in a household, but you can always find friendship outside the home lot as well. Any Sim that walks by outside can be stopped and spoken to, and they seem to give you their phone number right away after meeting.

In general, friendly or romantic socials replenish more of the Social motive bar than negative socials. While fighting is technically socializing, it’s not going to do your Sims much good. You’ll want to spend some time performing kind interactions and making friends (or even falling in love) to have the easiest time restoring the Social need.

To do this, you can always talk to another Sim when you see them nearby, but you could also opt to call them on the phone if they’re not in your vicinity. Sims on the phone can be invited over, or you could just spend some time chatting. Additionally, you can throw parties in The Sims to summon a larger number of Sims all at once, though you can’t choose who to invite. The more people on your home lot, the more people there are to chat with!

If your Sim owns the Tragic Clown Painting and their Social need decays into the red, the Tragic Clown will emerge from the painting and try their best to cheer your Sim up. However, since the clown is also miserable, their social interactions often fail, which leaves your Sim feeling even worse than they were before the Clown spawned.

Room

The final motive in your Sim’s needs bar is the Room motive, another need that’s since been relegated to the background of the game instead of having such a prominent place like the Comfort score. Overall, the Room need (sometimes referred to as the Environment motive) takes into consideration the decor, lighting, and cleanliness of the room your Sim is currently in, and you’ll see that this changes quickly as they enter new rooms.

You can positively contribute to a Room motive by letting your Sim spend time in well-decorated spaces with lots of light. Things like trash, plates, unfinished walls, puddles, or ash detract from the score, so you’ll want to be sure to clean up garbage and newspapers on the lawn, too, since the lawn also has its own Room score (and it may impact your mood when you leave for work if it isn’t clear). Plant some trees outside and clean up trash to keep the Room stat high outdoors.

This need was relegated to passive stats and moodlets in later entries in the series. You’ll see Sims in TS4 talk about well-decorated spaces that impact their mood positively, so while we may not have a Room motive anymore, the need to decorate and clean is still there.

If you’re struggling to keep the house clean throughout the day, if you have the funds to do so, you could consider hiring a maid or butler, who will tend to the household chores in your place. Another option is Bonehilda, a skeletal maid you can purchase like furniture from Buy mode.