The Sims (Windows)/Unused Text

This is a sub-page of The Sims (Windows).

The Sims have spoken. Many objects have strings and leftover scripting that indicate that other things may have been planned for the game.

Something in common among most of these is that they are deliberately untranslated by the game's localization team: As also documented below, exclamation marks (!) are used on developer notes attached to the strings for the means of telling translators that that specific text does not need be edited, frequently because nothing in game uses them anymore. For an external observer, they (rather unsurprisingly) unveil artifacts from multiple development phases, and a The Sims that wasn't.

Many of those strings would end up in the console ports and Bustin' Out.

(Source: Blayer98, Leo Gruen, LUCPIX, Trussive, SodaDog)

Sub-Pages

People Joe says, "No can do. I’ve got an appointment with the Avon lady."

Objects If your shower speaks with you, go see the doc.

Help System You did not know these.

Miscellaneous Unused Text

Executable

Within the base game's binary are related text for what appears to be an old intention in launching a trial version for The Sims. Several other games from the Sim series of its time had demo builds, such as SimCity 3000.

demo

The 30 day expiration of this pre-release has expired.

An early version of the game's copyright info. Overall, the legal attributions are more well-defined in the final versions, and ASCII characters are used for such. It shows consistency to a previous belief, among the community and the development staff, that the game would be at stores towards the end of 1999.

Sims.exe

String	Final Equivalent
Maxis is a division of Electronic Arts	Maxis is a division of Electronic Arts™ Inc.
The Sims is (c) 1999 by Maxis/Electronic Arts. All Rights Reserved.	©2000 Electronic Arts. All Rights Reserved.

Early Credits Sequence

The game contains strings for a rather over-the-top staff roll that does not go into further tangents other than those out of the core The Sims team. May have been used as a placeholder. The set that appears in the final pinpoints all of the game making's branches.

UIText.iff

credits
ID	String	Final Equivalent	Translation Note
0-64	The Sims (c) 2000 Electronic Arts All Rights Reserved The Sims was created by Alex "Code Wranglin Mofo" Zvenigorodsky Will "Don't Ask, Don't Tell Design" Wright Roxy "Please Ask, Please Tell Design" Wolosenko Paul "PEACE OUT" Wilkinson BJ "How Big Is That MAX File?" West Chris "Well, Duh" Trottier Kana "Bringin' Home the Yogurt" Ryan Michael "Web Monkey" Perry Trevor "Don't Call Mascot" Perrin David ".com" Oester Rob "I Don't Get It" Martyn Charles "Can I Have it in Blue" London Tim "Le Prosthetique" LeTourneau Mike "I Just Got It To Crash" Lawson Bob "Cat in the Furnace" King Don "Ground Up" Hopkins Eric "It's Got a Beat, and I Can Dance To It" Hedman Stefan "Silver Screen" Gustafsson Etienne "Call me Steve" Grunenwald Knut "Schlimmer Hund" Grossmann Gabriel "Bugs For Money" Gilscarbo Wende "You guys are nuts" Gauthier Jamie "Boss" Doornbos Jamil "110%" Dawsari Claire "Ask, Tell" Curtin Eric "Better Than Lifelike" Chin Jeff "Cat Herder" Charvat Eric "Purgatopia" Bowman Luc "Le Bisquit" Barthelet Patrick "Da Mayor" Barrett Sean "I Should Have Written The Credits" Baity Melissa "Laugh Til You Barf" Bachman-Wood and Jim "Tricky Bit" Mackraz Special thanks to everyone at Maxis, and everyone not at Maxis. Extra special thanks to EA Canada Bullfrog and the Maxis Framework Team For a bunch of great code And most of all Electronics Arts, without whom the project would never have shipped. That's All, Folks!	GAME DESIGNER Will Wright PRODUCER Kana Ryan ART DIRECTOR Charles London SIMULATOR ENGINEER Jamie Doornbos GRAPHICS ENGINEER Eric Bowman DEVELOPMENT DIRECTORS Jeff Charvat Jim Mackraz ENGINEERS Patrick J. Barrett III Don Hopkins David Oester Trevor Perrin Alex Zvenigorodsky AUDIO SYSTEM ENGINEER Paul Wilkinson LEAD ANIMATOR Eric Hedman ARTISTS Jami Becker Eric Chin Bob King B.J. West ADDITIONAL ARTISTS Margaret Foley-Mauvais Dan Goldman Stefan Gustafsson Minds Eye Media New Pencil Inc. Ocean Quiqley DESIGNERS Claire Curtin Roxy Wolosenko Luc Barthelet ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS Chris Trottier Tim LeTourneau ASSISTANT PRODUCERS Melissa Bachman-Wood Sean Baity Chris Baena PRODUCT ANALYST Michael Lawson AUDIO DIRECTOR Jerry Martin SOUND DESIGNERS Kent Jolly Robi Kauker COMPOSERS Jerry Martin Marc Russo ASSOCIATE COMPOSERS Kirk Casey Kent Jolly Robi Kauker Jonathan Mitchell SINGERS Frank Biner Marchino Brazil Sandy Cressman Molly Mastick Laurice McCoy-Ozjuwah Dan Mendoza Dave Meniketti Glenn Walters MUSICIANS Celso Alberti, Drums Darol Anger, Violin Marchino Brazil, Percussion Dix Bruce, Mandolin Steph Burns, Guitar John R. Burr, Piano Kirk Casey, Guitar Myron Dove, Bass Mary Fettig, Flute & Clarinet Art Hirahara, Piano Dan Joseph, Piano Jerry Kuderna, Piano David Lauser, Drums Glenn Letsch, Bass Gary Lillard, Bass Jerry Martin, Guitar & Synthesizers Kenneth Nash, Drums & Percussion Jim Nunally, Guitar Eddie Ramirez, Trumpet Marc Russo, Sax & Synthesizers Avram Siegel, Banjo Steve Smith, Drums DRUM LOOPS COURTESY OF Spectrasonic's “Burning Grooves” Ilio Entertainment’s “Eurotech” MUSIC MIX ENGINEERS Francois Lafleur Ken Marshall Jerry Martin Marc Russo VOX PRODUCER Claire Curtin VOICE TALENT Gerry Lawlor Stephen Kearin Sean O'Connor ADDITIONAL VOICE TALENT Laurel McCarl Kapros Paul Rausmussen Melissa Roberts Elizabeth Knudson Sibley LEAD TESTER Jamil Dawsari ASSISTANT LEAD TESTERS Gabe Gils Carbo Etienne Grunenwald TESTERS Andrew Blomquist, Syruss Flyte, Justin Holst, Matt Lewis, Jason Morales, Shaun Morton, Ed O'Tey, Chad Schnittjer, Peter Trice, Kinh Williams, Duane Gundrum, Aaron Bennion, Colin Clarke, Terry McElroy, Robb Reck, Daniel Hiatt, Scott Parker COMPATIBILITY & TECHOLOGY LAB Michael Jung Dave Koerner Jay Miller CUSTOMER QUALITY CONTROL LEAD Tony Alexander Benjamin Crick Jacob Fernandez Darryl Jenkins Dave Knudson Andrew Young ONLINE DESIGNER Michael Perry ONLINE PRODUCERS Darren Futa Marti Holguin ONLINE ENGINEERS Louis Ewens Feng Qiu WEB SITE DEVELOPERS Red Hill Studios LOCALIZATION MANAGER Knut Grossman LOCALIZATION TESTING Gregory Touilliez, Alvaro Corral, Dirk Vojtilo, Natasja Hagemeier, Giulio Marchionni, Sami Valkama PRODUCT MANAGER Steve Perkins PUBLIC RELATIONS Patrick Buechner MANUAL LAYOUT Golden VizComm PACKAGE DESIGN Soo Hoo Design ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT Wende Gauthier CONSULTING PRODUCERS Danny Bilson Paul DeMeo MAXIS GENERAL MANAGER Luc Barthelet EXECUTIVES IN CHARGE OF PRODUCTION Lucy Bradshaw Rob Martyn SPECIAL THANKS TO: Karen Ahn, Christopher Alexander, FrANK Barchard, Jeff Braun, Dan Brazelton, Colin Boswell, Michael Bremer, Daniela Castillo, Jenna Chalmers, Max Chandler, Colin Cherot, Ede Clarke, Mike Cox, Mayor Theresa Denton, Kelly Farrell, Michael Gauthier, Jim Gasperini, Frank Gibeau, Bing Gordon, Martin Griffiths, Trish Halamandarais, Kristi Hein, Michelle Hinch, Phil Hinkle, Kevin Hogan, Creighton Hurt, Joell Jones, Forrest Junod, Joe Keene, Eric Kornblum, Mike Larson, Frank Le Ouay, Cisco Lopez-Fresquet, Stephanie Lonon, Jenny Martin, Eddris Malikyar, Rob Matthews, Don Mattrick, Justin McCormick, Christine McGavran, Sid Meier, Terra Morais, Kaz Okuda, Patrick Ratto, Josh Rose, Colleen Schuman, Ihssan Sekandari, Gerry Shaw, David Shiner, Eric Todd, Don Walters, Andrea Weber, Ilona Webb, Cassidy Wright, Charlotte Yates, Walnut Creek Model Railroad Society, Inc. and Everyone at Electronic Arts and Maxis!!! Dedicated to the memory of Dani Berry	! Old Credits

UI Strings

UIText.iff contains many strings which are used and naturally some that aren't (funny how that works, eh?).

Context: Neighborhood Menu

6-12

These suggest that "Community Spaces" — either as fully playable properties or mere interactive elements in the Neighborhood Menu — were originally going to be in the base game but didn't appear until the Hot Date expansion pack, which released over a year after the base game launched. Also, in the final game there is no marquee (or even a mention of it) in the neighborhood, and judging by existing "SimEstates" and "Marquee" UI graphics, the marquee may have been where you originally created a family before the feature was changed to simply be an option on the neighborhood screen.

MoveInModeStrs
ID	String	Translation Note
12	Community Space	!move in label
11	You cannot place a family in community space.	!move in dialog
EvictModeStrs
6	Community Space	!evict label
7	You cannot bulldoze community space.	!evict dialog
8	Sorry
9	You cannot bulldoze the SimEstates marquee.	!Neighborhood Screen: Dialog: Sims Marquee: Text

4-5

There is no house here to bulldoze. is used, instead.

EvictModeStrs
ID	String	Translation Note
4	Nothing to Bulldoze	!Neighborhood Screen: Dialog: Empty Lot: Bulldoze: Text Notes: Appears when empty lot is selected with bulldoze tool.
5	There is nothing here to bulldoze.

8-11

In the final game, generic lot-buying strings appear, not identifying them as pre-made.

MoveInModeStrs
ID	String	Translation Note
8	Purchase Pre-Made?	!
7	Do you want to buy a pre-made home?

These foresee an impossible scenario where the player would be refrained from accessing a Neighborhood Menu feature as they're meant to place a family in a vacant house.

MoveInModeStrs
ID	String	Translation Note
10	Sorry	9 Error: Dialog08: Title Notes: Appears when attempting another activity before placing the family in a house. Not easy to reproduce.
11	You must first place this family in a house.

Context: Create A Sim

22-23

The minor characteristic that makes these unused button label texts different from their final counterparts is that all their letters are capitalized.

DesignCharStrs
ID	String	Translation Note
22	DONE	!
23	CANCEL

Context: Object Placement

2

Objects always snap to the center of the tile or to a slot. While the game can handle objects elsewhere perfectly fine it's strange to imagine the player seeing this.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
2	Must be at center of tile	7 Placement: Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur if attempting to place an object that is not in the center of a tile. Not easy to reproduce.

3

Oddly, this error message is on the set of strings related with the Terrain Tool. The objects in the game can not be selected or picked up by players when terraforming

DirtToolErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
3	Object requires flat surface	!Build Mode: Placement: Terrain Cursor Notes: not used

3-4

No objects use the flags defined for this (4 & 5 in object data - wall placement flags) so it is unused by the game. As stated before, the objects always snap to the center of the tiles in which they can be placed. None of the final objects can be specifically placed in the tiles' corners.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note	Snapshot
3	Must be in corner	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur if certain objects need to be placed in a corner. Not easy to reproduce.	Modified object with its wall placement flag set as 6: corner required.
4	Can't be in corner	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur if certain objects can't be placed in a corner. Not currently used.

7

No object meets this condition. Probably refers to older mechanics of adding pond/pool tiles in game.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
7	Must be over hole in floor!	!Buy or Build Mode: Placement: Tooltip Notes: not used.

9

Error message that foresees objects that could only be placed inside the houses. No object in the base game has this specific placement rule, however - at least not until later expansion packs first featured objects as ceiling lamps.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note	Snapshot
9	Must be placed inside	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can appear with certain objects that must be placed inside. Not currently used.	Object with its "Expression" myroom placement manually set as 2.

11

Unused in favor of the more generic Can't intersect other objects..

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
11	Must be on its own tile on the ground	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur if placing some object under other object. Not easy to reproduce.

12

Taking the translation notes into consideration, this text seems to be an error message intended for a similar object placement restriction context as ID 11's, mentioned above (albeit somewhat more ambiguously worded).

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
12	Can't find a place to put it	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur if object can't be placed on the ground under another object. Not easy to reproduce.

13-14

In fact, the objects in the game are assigned to a given "weight" value that may prevent their placement on certain surfaces depending on how high it is. However, even when users manually modify an object's weight to a value that is unsupported by a surface, the error messages below fail to trigger.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
13	Can't support the weight	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Could occur if object that is too heavy is placed on another object. Not currently used.
14	Can't support the size!	!Buy or Build Mode: Placement: Tooltip Notes: Could occur if object that is too large is placed on another object. Not currently used.

15

Similar to 11, Can't intersect other objects. is used in cases as the one described in the translation comment below:

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
15	Can't find a place to put it	7 Placement: Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur when placing multi-tile object on top of one another. Not easy to reproduce.

19

All the objects in the game can be placed on a grass tile.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
19	Must place on floor tile	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Can occur with object that must be placed on a floor tile instead of terrain. Not currently used.

22

An error message within the game's code hints at a feature that never saw the light of day: the ability to place objects diagonally in the world. This concept was designed to be enabled through a "wall placement" Expression flag set to "diagonal required" within an object's init scripting tree. However, the final release of the game lacks any remnants of this functionality, with no objects capable of being placed against diagonal walls and no pre-rendered 45º sprites to support such placement. One of the few tangible vestiges of this abandoned concept reside in the alpha channels of certain doors and windows, suggesting its potential inclusion at some point during development.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note	Snapshot
22	Must be on diagonal	7 Placement: Buy or Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Could be used for items intended for use on diagonal walls. Not currently used.	Modified object with its wall placement flag manually set as 6: diagonal required.

25

It's no wonder this ended up unused!

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
25	User should never see this message!	!

32, 35

Can't intersect other objects. is used, instead.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
32	Must remove objects on wall first	7 Placement: Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Appears when attempting to remove a wall that has an object placed against it (i.e. a picture).
35	Must be placed on counter	7 Placement: Buy Mode: Tooltip Notes: Appears when attempting to place a kitchen sink on any object other than a counter.

39

Older string for what reads Must be on first story in the final build.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
39	Can't effect first level from second level.	!Buy or Build Mode: Placement: Tooltip Notes: not used

41-42

Other instances of specific building failure states that went summarily reduced as a multi-purpose Can't intersect other objects. tooltip.

PlacementErrs
ID	String	Translation Note
41	Can't intersect second-story object	7 Placement: Build Mode: Tooltip Notes: Appears when attempting to place stairs and there is an object in the way on the second floor.
42	Can't place on end table	0New 7 Placement: Buy Mode: Tooltip Notes: Appears when attempting to place computer on an end table too small to support it.

LocalKeys

Refers to the game's hotkeys — 161 as its ID, presumably so they could be changed by the localization teams easily.

• A for Anti-Alias. Manual toggling works, but is removed in versions patched in Vacation onward, when is always forced it on by default.
• S for Shadows. Again, removed in Vacation and later expansion packs, in favor of the shadow detail level setting in the UI.

Expansion Packs

Livin' Large

The "Concoctanation Station”

There is a duplicate I'm not in the mood to work. string. ID 3 is unused while ID 14 is used. While not every language translated the duplicate ID 3 string, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish did and interestingly enough have different translations for ID 3 and the used ID 14 string. All three of those languages were (officially) added in the Unleashed expansion, meaning this translation was possibly retro-fitted.

Minua ei nyt huvita tehdä kokeita!

Minua ei nyt huvita!

Madame Blahbatfry Crystal Ball

You are already solving a crystal ball riddle.

You are already solving a crystal ball riddle.

This dialog appears when the user is in the middle of solving a riddle and gazes into the crystal ball.

Translation notes indicate that the Sim would receive the riddle then have to check in with the crystal ball the next day after completing the task. However the way the scenario works in the final game the Sim is told by the tracker object when they finish a riddle without any Sim interaction. If the Sim does gaze into the ball again they will be reminded of the riddle.

Hot Date

Downtown Controller

Nobody gets a free lunch. No §§, no grub. Sims need full bank accounts if they want to stuff themselves downtown.

An alternate ID 1 line for when your Sim does not have enough money to pay for their food. The game explicitly calls the used ID 0 string. While this is translated it is likely just an oversight since the tree that manages the eating controller is hectic enough. It is possible that the used string was intended for the "classy" restaurant and the unused one was intended for the "diner". Regardless this is unused.

All right people, you know the drill. This town has a strict 2 AM curfew and don't pretend like you don't know. Move it!

OK, OK, let's go people! It's 2 AM. Some people need to get up in the morning. Everyone go home. Now...I mean it.

Don't you people ever sleep? Perhaps you just moved here, so I'll go light this time. Downtown closes at 2 AM. Now let's move, nothing to see down here, go home now.

Apparently, at one point all of downtown was supposed to close at 2AM. The controller does not check the time or ever display the following messages in case you're wondering they are translated.

Restaurant Podiums

Dear patrons. The restaurant is now closed. Thank you, and good evening.

Dear patrons: the restaurant will be closing soon. Please enjoy the remainder of your evening. Thank you.

Apparently at one point the restaurants were intended to close. The strings are translated but there is no call to them in the podium object or any code which seems to reference the time or any attribute (which could be set by the downtown controller object) to see if the restaurant is closing.