I genuinely thought I’d thought of this myself—a truly genius idea to make my gameplay more immersive, I reckoned—until I decided to write about it and discovered that it’s already "A Thing."

It’s called a Forever Save file. It is a single, ongoing save that the player uses continuously, customising every world and playing multiple different Sims and their families.

Since my downfall has always been abandoning saves after a couple of weeks to start something new, the possibilities this offers are amazing. For a start, I hate playing with the same NPCs every time. I also don’t like a lot of the prebuilt lots, especially the early ones. The challenge of modifying each world so it’s exactly how I want it is really exciting for me. However, I decided it’s best not to bite off more than I can chew, so I focused on Willow Creek to begin with.

My Willow Creek
My Willow Creek takes the idea of an English spa town with Georgian roots as its basis. I’ve remodelled the non-residential lots, like the library, so that they fit this pattern. I’ve also added a retail lot—the Creek Garden Centre—and a cosy little tea shop. The tea shop is based upon the Greenhouse Cafe by CozyJenn, and I remodelled the park based on the Willow Creek Park by sunnysimsieyt. You can find both of these in the Gallery!

As you can see from the image, I am currently using a map mod, which I love. Some of the EA world maps are so bland, and Willow Creek is a great example. There are a few options out there, but this one is my favourite; it’s by 20th Century Plumbob, and you can find all of his map replacements on his Patreon page.

My Willow Creek People
Don’t panic, I’m not going to catalogue all of them! But I have set out to populate Willow Creek with Sims I actually like—Sims who aren't wearing ridiculous random hats or makeup that makes me wince every time I encounter them. I’ve nothing against ridiculous hats in the right context, but not everywhere, please!

My main Sim in Willow Creek is Betsy Rivers; she’s my Sim for the Pack Legacy challenge I'm doing. That's Betsy in the above image.

I have created or edited all the other Sims living in the world so that they have traits, aspirations, jobs (and hats!) that make sense. Of course, editing them makes me want to follow up on their stories, so I already have hours of gameplay waiting for me just in Willow Creek alone.

Over to You!
Do you have a Forever Save file? I’d love to hear about how you set yours up. If not, how do you keep your game time interesting and engaging? Let me know in the comments!