Proto:The Sims (Windows)/The Sims Steering Committee

This page details one or more prototype versions of The Sims (Windows).

To do: Everything.... LOTS of early audio to upload and cover. Document removed furniture. Replace screenshots from the old YouTube footage with in-game screenshots (or rips wherever appropriate).

On October 27, 2023, a prototype build of The Sims from June 4, 1998 was released on archive.org, dated over a year and eight months before the game's release. This is also the first time that a prototype of a mainline Sims game was released! This build was used in The Sims Steering Committee, which can be read here.

Despite being presented as a proof-of-concept, this build contains numerous differences from the final game.

General Differences

• There is no title screen, instead being a basic-looking splash screen as seen above.
• The HUD, while containing most of the finalized elements, has a drastically different appearance, looking more like a notepad than a bevel aesthetic in the final.
• Create-A-Sim did not exist, instead using a set of premade characters with names.
• Children did not exist as of this build.
• The game has a story mode, which would not be implemented until the console versions.
• Many of the animations are incomplete and/or broken.
• The music played on stereos are just loops of short tunes than full songs in the final.
• Almost all of the audio samples are completely different.
• Some controls are different; Tabulator key for moving camera, 1 is half-speed.
• Sims can be moved around in Buy/Build Mode.
• Sims' mugshots could originally changed based on their mood, a feature that would not be implemented until The Sims 3.

Audio

Background music constantly plays when on a lot in this build, including when in Live Mode. There are only two full music tracks present in the game;

Date	Filename	Audiofile	Notes
20 May 1998 13:18:04	SIM3b.WAV		A much earlier and shorter version of Mall Rat (Let's Go Shopping) (buy1.mp3), with MIDI instrumentation. The Pizzicato strings are quieter and simpler, the key change occurs midway through the song and the transition before the key change serves as the early song's ending.
20 May 1998 13:18:30	SIM4.WAV		A slightly early, but short version of Now Entering (Smooth Jazz E) (nhood1.mp3), with the lack of variance in percussion and quieter lead instruments in the latter half of the song. It also cuts off at the end abruptly than looping properly.

According to the music filenames, it appears that this build only has a fraction of the music that was composed at that time.

Happy Acres

A jolly sample of suburbia where rich kids find a sense in their lives at.

• Here, one takes a visual note of the oldest Neighborhood Menu iteration known to date. Its notable by sporting a landscape and overall feel — as well as the name proposal "Happy Acres"— that very little relate to its final design, leading one to conclude that they are entirely different canon areas, instead. Summed to that, a more fantastic vegetation that won't be saturation-shy, which won't help but sustain a sense of self-ironic humor still borrowed from older, odder builds.
• UI-wise, it is a normal Simulation game campaign menu. Mind you, the apple did not yet fall far from the tree: This particular build's approach as a DEMO for an idea in probation made it wiser for it to have scripted scenarios for each and every one of the available house files, hence the inexistence of any signs of interactive menus that allow one to design families and stories from the scratch. A commonly explored dynamic in these scenarios involves teaching players how to pursue the characters' happiness & wealth, and what to do with them. It's The Sims, first and foremost.
• Moving the mouse pointer to the static lot thumbnails causes to pop but illustrated boxes descriptive of each scenario, instead of Bobo's formidable roof-fading SFX that the final menu runs.

Scenarios

There are four scenarios that are included in the game, in the form of an apparent story mode. Such a feature would not appear until their console games.

Scenarios Brief

Main
#	Thumbnail	Brief
1		Ross is handsome, sporty, but--since his accident--not so bright. Amnesia has made the simplest tasks a chore. Help him remember how to cook, clean, bathe by directing him toward the objects that will satisfy each of his needs. Once you get all his motives into the green, he'll be well on his way to a productive life.
2		Samantha and Mercedes have little to do and a dwingling household account. Mercedes is waiting for an inheritance, but until it comes (it won't be soon), her earning potential is nil. Samantha is an artist and has just found a gallery that will carry her paintings. She's only productive when her mood is good. Keep her happy and productive and you'll make enough money to score a new toy. Something electronic like a stereo or TV ought to do the trick.
3		Ross has had a dramatic recovery and is getting around by himself quite well now. As if that wasn't enough, he just scored a spot in a house with two women. Samantha is calm, quiet and focused on her thriving artistic career. She's cool and shares a lot of interests with Ross but may be slightly standoffish. Mercedes is hot but somewhat ditzy. Help him choose whom to pursue. When you get a kiss you'll know he's on his way to some fine lovin'.
4		Okay, architect. Three rich kids just showed up with a good chunk of cash and an empty lot for a dream house. You have total creative freedom. So go wild. Make a terraces mansion on a hilly lot. Try a humble level on a woodsy lot. Build the worst house imaginable and watch them go slowly nuts. While you're at it, try planning for maximum efficiency. You know you can't resist picking the quickest course in traffic...now take it to the next level of anal. You will need to use architecture mode to build the house (the saw and hammer icon below the chair). Remember to save enough money for furnishings.

The Characters

Main
Name	Sad	OK	Happy	Skin	Note
Ross					The demo's male hero, portraited as your classic, handsome bachelor. His existence in game is justified by this off-screen whoopsie that temporarily caused him to lose the best out of his memory. For the time being, it is down to the Simmer to provide him minimal guidance when at his most mundane tasks. In later scenarios, not only does his amnesia get miraculously sorted, but the man moves into the exquisite abode owned by the single girls next-door, with whom he will of course fancy to get lucky. Another commentary on Ross is that both his head mesh and texture proved to very well become the good standard for the following concept of Sim characters in game, hence the fact it went used in the final release of The Sims, left basically untouched since its alleged debut, here on Steering Committee. The same does not apply to his body mesh/texture. An unused UI graphic in the final game, however, contains copies of prerendered models of Ross, whatever its usage intention was.
Samantha					Sam is the "calm, quiet", professional artsy Sim — the one you'd imagine as the extremely grounded part of the trio. That being said, as unrealistic as it gets, she won't find any inspiration for her paintings when unhappy — a perfect recipe for a Motive tutorial scenario protagonist. Unlike Ross and Mercedes, Samantha's bank of skins and textures was entirely cut from the game in mid-production. As some sort of symbolic shout-out, a character of exact same skin properties as hers does appear as a stock asset in the game's original box, facing backwards in relation to the viewer. A character with the same properties also makes a brief appearance in the game's intro video.
Mercedes					Samantha's "hot" roomie. One could say her existence in game is justified by the large amount of Simoleans she's inherited with at some point in the demo's guided tour, as well as being a potential love interest for Ross. Technically, she is the only character in this demo that can be replicated, head to toes, by a player in the final build, as both her body and head meshes have gone through all of the following development iterations until the retail one, having suffered only compulsory tweaks, as you would expect from most resources that, by chance, prove themselves to be good enough in all stages of production since their conception. Attagirl.

Unused
Name	Sad	OK	Happy	Skin	Note
The Colonel					Other pre-made characters that do not get involved in the Ross-Samantha-Mercedes narrative whatsoever, nor are seen anywhere in game unless if otherwise called through hacking. Belong to this build's cache of IFF people as unused leftovers from even earlier iterations — signified by how unusually diverse and indecisive the characters' styles are, nearly as though they belong to entirely different games —, suggesting that they were once the protagonists for demo builds even prior to Steering Committee‍ '​s. Same deal as Jefferson's infamous characters set, it is at the moment foggy as to how their intended scenarios played like, or anything regarding their biographies. A curious fact about The Duchess and Sigmund Silver is their very symbolic presence in the final game as placeholder graphics for when the engine can not localize/read the correct thumbnails for a given Sim — elusively flipped vertically and always made it unclear by the engine as to why the player is even experiencing them, in the first place! Altering mugshots based on moods would come to full fruition in The Sims 3 in terms of the Moodlets.
The Duchess
Dunne Uh
Fritz Frisbee
Sigmund Silver