In the first scene of Alfred Hitchcock Rear windowa panoramic camera shows the exterior of buildings and allows the viewer to look inside apartments. From your floating vantage point, you can see what your neighbors are doing as they start their day. The camera’s view helps set the stage for the film, but the voyeuristic look into the characters’ lives is unsettling. I’m worried about playing The Sims 4 he distorted me into a person who looked at my neighbors like that.
Like many twisted ventures, this particular one started with grave intentions. After living in the same city for nine years, I found out I would be moving at the end of the summer. In my hometown, I was lucky to live in a historic area with colorful painted houses and gingerbread decorations. The street was an absolute dream and it almost felt like I was living in a park. I felt devastated to leave and because of this, my partner and I decided to try and recreate some of the houses on our street in The Sims 4 to remember the home we loved.
We started by building a house across the street from ours because we always liked it and could easily see it from our second-story balcony. We soon built a uncomplicated two-story house with murky wood accents and a red brick facade – but it wasn’t enough. Wall by wall, window by window, we tried to recreate our neighbors’ houses as accurately and accurately as possible. Back and forth, back and forth, we went between the balcony and the TV to make sure we had built each part of the house correctly.
Each day on our daily “look at the flowers” walk, my partner and I observed the houses in detail. I noticed one house had a long black rug on the outside porch and then added it to the game. The top front windows of a home may have trim, while the side windows may not. I could interrupt our walk to lean over and peek around the corner of the building to get a better idea of how far it extended, and then discover that it had a hidden, screened-in porch at the back.
Then I found myself taking a personal look at my neighbors. The single couple that lived across the street didn’t talk much, but when I saw my wife leaving one day, I went out to our porch to see what she looked like so I could create a Sim based on her. She wore a uncomplicated blue sports T-shirt, khaki shorts, and Teva sandals. She had brown, wavy hair cut just below her shoulders – it took me a few minutes to reach her The Sims 4.
At this point I had to stop. Like some mad scientist, the project deviated from what was intended. When I created her and saw her character walking and babbling in Simlish, I knew I had gone a step too far. It was terrifying. I immediately stopped working on the project.
At one point I wondered whether it would be cute or downright weird to print out screenshots of houses and leave them in my neighbors’ mailboxes. I thought it would be fun and something I would want if my neighbors were the Sims-loving type, but I didn’t. I thought that my neighbors, most of whom were over 50, might not understand what The Sims was and might even feel threatened by receiving an anonymous newspaper with an obsessive recreation of their home.
Ultimately, I’m glad we built the houses in the game, even if it made me feel like a jerk. I had to pay close attention to my area in a way I hadn’t done before. I felt it helped me develop a sense of appreciation for even the smallest details of each building in the district. The internship became the perfect send-off before a move, and now I can visit these houses in The Sims if I feel homesick. So if you want to have fun remembering a special house or place, I highly recommend doing it in The Sims – but maybe stop if you ever feel like you’re getting a little too sneaky.
