Sims 3 for XBox 360 bug workarounds and gameplay hints, part 1

This post is now too big for one blog entry! If your bug/problem isn't listed here, try the other post:

Sims 3 for XBox 360 bug workarounds and gameplay hints, part 2.

(Formerly titled "Sims 3 for XBox 360: Just as addictive... with a side order of frustration" but I realize a more useful title will help people find these tips via search engines. Some of these solutions I figured out on my own, plus I'm including a lot of what I had to search for online. Hopefully it'll be helpful to someone else. This up like a FAQ and hopefully search terms will lead people here looking for these answers. Not all of this is bugs, some of it is helpful tips or major problems I ran into that aren't helped by the tiny manual that comes with the game, nor the in-game Lessons database.


-- How do I control my Sim directly in Sims 3 for XBox 360?

You can't. This surprised me too, as I was so used to it from Sims 1 and 2 for the Xbox. Apparently, that method of direct control is console only and the PC versions have always been what Sims 3 is now. You direct the Sims with the green beam of light, cueing up tasks for them like you had the option to do in the other console games but this time it is the only control method. You get used to it, but I do still miss running around with the actual Sim, especially as the camera controls in Sims 3 can be a bit wonky (annoying when searching the ground for anything or trying to zoom in on something).

Also take note that your Sims are completely stupid when you leave them alone in one location and go elsewhere. Usually they will get up even if they were dead tired, and if there is a baby or toddler in the house, I'll come back to find the baby on the floor or the toddler wandering around... which means an older Sim got them out, regardless of whether the youngling was sleeping or not.


-- How do I import a Sim? Can I add a custom Sim to a game I'm already playing?

When you are creating the initial household, importing a Sim is less obvious than it should be. The game will give you a default random Sim. Ignore it, and choose one of the other five spots where Sims can be created. Now you will see the option to either create a new Sim, or import one you have saved previously. To save a Sim, you need to do that during the creation stage, once you are happy with the Sim.

As for adding a custom Sim to a game already in progress, that cannot be done. Your best bet is to adopt or have a child naturally, and use a mirror to change their appearance, along with the "Instant Beauty" Karma power to change facial features and the like. For tips on how to get as many character traits for the Sim as possible, see the Evil/Genius Wish question further below.


-- Can I make my Sim stop aging or keep them from aging up to the next age bracket?

Yes, it's in the main game options (Start button) under Options. You can uncheck the Enable Aging button, then hit X to save and exit (be sure you hit X and not some other button!). See the question/answer further below about birthday cakes and aging up if you want to make Sims reach a new age bracket while aging is turned off. Seriously, it's important. Go look.


-- My Criminal Sim won't go to work! The "Go to Work" button is greyed out, the car pool doesn't show up, and walking up to the building and clicking it doesn't give the option to go to work. It also doesn't seem to be affecting if he/she will get fired or not?

This happened to my criminal guy at a fairly high level, and since there is no edit town option I wasn't sure he'd ever get to work again. The solution given for the PC version was to delete a possible invisible wall in front of the criminal building door. I fixed it by choosing the "Retire" option, which sent him over to the building, and he went into the door like he should and disappeared like normal (going to work / shopping). The dialogue came up to say he'd been given an offer of $___ to retire and asked if I wanted to do this or not. I cancelled it (did not retire), then sent him back home. The next work day, the car pool message came up again like it should (it hadn't been for ages plus he would not come home after work on his own for several days in a row before the bad bug happened). He was able to go to work from then on.

This happened again to a non-Elder Sim who was not old enough to retire. After his strange three day weekend (the extra work day just magically vanished somehow), the carpool arrived as usual. It happened yet again to another non-Elder on two different days, so it seems the Criminal career is really buggy for this, which is particularly frustrating if you're trying to climb the ranks quickly and already have the skill work done.

Note related to all careers: If your Sim recently had a child or adopted, they will get paid time off work. I noticed this recently when my new parent Sim kept getting their work counter reset to the next day. They do get paid every day they should be working, in this case, and there will be a message stating that fact.


-- My sim got stuck and won't move, he was in the way of another Sim I have control over.

I had this happen with one character making the bed while the other one wanted to, and there was only a 1-block width space because the character making the bed was right by the wall. I cancelled everybody's actions but the stuck Sim would not move at all and the cancelled action stayed cancelled and wouldn't clear. The other Sim blocking the way stood there tapping his foot with no actions showing at all (the cancelled action had cleared). I fixed this by having one Sim try to talk to the other (I think the stuck one, I can't remember exactly). This seemed to unglitch them both, and the blocking Sim walked away and the now-unstuck Sim followed him.

There is also a way to "reset Sim" by hovering over the mailbox in normal-play mode: press LT, RT, LB, RB at the same time, then while keeping those held down, press A. This will give you a list of all Sims at home plus local Sims that you can reset if needed. It will pop them out somewhere near where they were stuck. (Found via this quetion answered by thrax22.)

If that doesn't work for you, try going into Build & Buy mode and deleting walls or moving objects until the Sim(s) can move freely. If nothing works, there's always reloading your most recent saved game.


-- My Sim's single bed can't be made, or they won't sleep on it anymore!

I've had the most expensive single bed glitch out this way. The only way I've managed to make them sleep on it after it's bugged is to choose Relax first, and once they are on the bed, then choose Sleep. This is annoying, because Sleep by itself results in no action when the Sim is not on the bed. The only real solution, from what I can tell, is to sell the bed and buy a new one.

Moving the bed doesn't help, nor does making the bed while it is in an open area and accessible from all sides. Usually when it's that far bugged, the covers glitch to look unmade permanently, even though the Sim did make the bed and Make Bed is no longer available as an option. No amount of later bed-making has fixed this for me, it's far easier to just sell the thing.


-- I have an object stuck right outside the lot, I can't get rid of it!

The solution for this depends on how the object got stuck. The only case I have seen this happen came about as follows:

I sold something from family inventory storage by accident (this is frustratingly easy to do) and attempted to get it back by going to the normal Build & Buy mode, and hitting the "undo" button (Left Button on the gamepad). I heard the undo sound, but couldn't find the item in inventory. I wasn't even sure what I'd sold in the first place. Much later I realized the item was a high chair and it was now stuck on the outside edge of my lot by the street. It's usable (in theory, haven't tried feeding a kid out there yet) but I can't select it in Build & Buy mode and thus cannot delete it or get rid of it.

Solution: It turns out the object was listed in family inventory storage again, after I had hit undo, I just never noticed or it was glitched to not show up until later (probably from loading a later saved game). I was selling items out of that category when intending to move to a new house, and saw the high chair listed. As soon as I sold it via the storage list, it vanished from the edge of the lot. Yay!


-- My Sim wants to "Clean Entire House" but when I try this, he just stands where he is and shouts about not being able to get to something like he's blocked from it. I can't find anything messy in the house!

Did you put a dirty item into Storage using Buy/Build mode? I had this happen when I stored an unmade bed and realized what the problem was on my own after fruitless searches giving answers that were only useful in the PC version (sledgehammer blank areas of grass in the yard and something invisible might sell and "vanish" properly). I got the bed back out of Storage and stuck it in the yard and had the Sim go over and make it. He got his wish points and I put the bed back in Storage.


-- How do I use a birthday cake on my Sim?

Click on the cake and choose "Blow Out Candles" with any Sim. It should then bring up a list of all the Sims who are home at the time, and you can choose the correct Sim to have a birthday from that list. Note that doing so will interrupt / wake up every other Sim in the household, because they will join the birthday party (you can cancel their cued "Birthday Party" action immediately if you want to, but they will still stop their previous action). Also note that every Sim in the house will want to get a piece of birthday cake once that stage of the party hits, you can also cancel that action once it shows up. Put the cake in the fridge as leftovers and it will last quite a while, assuming you just bought it.

If the problem is trying to get the cake out of inventory, you have to do it from Buy/Build mode. Select Buy, then Family Inventory and look in the Sim tab for the cake. You can select it from there and then place it on a table or countertop. And yes, cakes do get old and can't be used once they are spoiled (but they can be cleaned up). If a cake stays in inventory and spoils, a Sim will throw it out (or well, my Neat Sim did by default, it may be a selectable option once it has spoiled, or just get it out in Build/Buy mode and stick it on a table and make a Sim clean it up).


-- I can't age my Sim with a birthday cake!

This entire section has been revamped due to extensive in-game research. The problem comes up when aging is set to off, and seems to glitch out birthday cakes because you can only use a birthday cake once a day (per Sim) and it seems to count every new day after you use it as the same "cake" day. Even if you turn aging on for a few days (set lifespan to Epic for best results), it seems to be very picky about who gets to use the cake on what day. If you are finally able to successfully age someone up with a cake, don't forget to turn aging back off. You may want to keep a backup saved game before experimenting with aging turned on.

With a game where aging has always been on, you should be able to use a birthday cake on a Sim every day that they haven't already used a cake. This includes games where lifespan has been changed (I've done it in a multi-generation speed game set to Brief that I later changed to Epic). If your cake seems to be glitching anyways, try again every new day and hopefully it will eventually work.

You can use six cakes on six different Sims in the same household on the same day if you really want to, but fair warning, a cake can start a fire, so save the game before each time a Sim blows out the candles!

It should be noted that a pregnant Sim cannot use a birthday cake.

In a game with aging set to on, aging up one Sim without aging up others who are near their birthdays gets trickier and you have a lot of work ahead of you... unless you can already make Ambrosia, including having all the right ingredients. If that is the case, then make it and feed it to the Sims who you want to stay in their age brackets if they already have too much time on the aging bar. Now turn aging on / set lifespan to Brief to make things faster if you want. If you have to feed the "non-aging" Sims Ambrosia at a later point because they are in a young age bracket with fast lifespan, do so. Have the Sim you want to age up do so, then turn aging back off once they've hit the desired age bracket.

Don't have Ambrosia or don't know how to make it? See the next question/answer.


-- How do I make Ambrosia? Where do I get Life Fruit? Where do I get Deathfish?

Ambrosia requires Life Fruit and Deathfish, and brings a Sim back to life or resets their age days back to zero on their current age bracket (there is no way to age down a Sim into a previous age bracket). Most of the credit for the following info goes to a Yahoo answer by Goddess which can be found here. You need:

Cooking skill 10, buy/read Ambrosia recipe.
Gardening skill 7.
Fishing skill.

Cooking and Gardening can both be levelled to what you need (and/or max level) by reading books if you don't want to do it by cooking things and planting stuff. FYI, a sprinkler can be found under Build/Buy -> Buy -> Appliances -> Misc Appliances and can be tinkered to auto-water by a Sim with high level in Handiness. Cooking can also be learned by watching the cooking channel after skill level 2 if your Handiness Sim has upgraded the television to show more channels. Fishing skill you will be levelling anyways while doing this if you haven't gotten it up previously.

For fishing: Buy some cheese, say 10 per fishing trip or more if you don't care about them possibly spoiling. Note that fish themselves definitely spoil if kept in inventory for too long. Find a fishing spot, they're marked on the map with a blue fishhook symbol and usually you should see fish jumping out of the water when you arrive. Fish right on the spot with the jumping fish. At first you can't use bait, you need skill level 2. Once you hit 2, stop fishing and fish again, "Choose Bait" and pick one of the cheeses.

Cheese will catch Alley Catfish, and at skill level 5 you can use fish as bait. Once you can do so, use the Alley Catfish as bait, and catch Angelfish. You may end up catching other fish too but just keep trying, higher skill level helps for getting the better fish. Use the Angelfish as bait to catch Deathfish in the water right by the Catacombs/Graveyard (which is near the Criminal career building / Theater) from 12am-5am. You can also supposedly catch Vampirefish at that location during the same time.

Life Fruit: You need Gardening skill 7 for this. It is a seed of Special variety found randomly lying around on the ground. You can also get it from Science career level 9. If you have the Collector item, it's a lot easier to find seeds. I don't have the Collector and have no interest in trying to add another Sim to the household and slogging through Science, so the other option is to run around town and the residential areas and look for seeds on the ground. The most highly recommended place seems to be the Catacombs/Graveyard. I've had better luck near the water at the Moonlight Falls Fishing Hole (top-right corner of the map). Seek ye as many Special seeds as you can find, plant them and cross your fingers. You can also get Flame Fruit this way, which is required for angel food cake, and Deathflowers which are handy to keep in inventory in case a character dies, as they will trade it to the Grim Reaper for resurrection.

I'm not sure if there is a definite ratio for the odds of what kind of Special plant you will end up with, but here's my results for a round of nine Special seeds and what they ended up growing:

Deathflower: 5
Life Fruit: 2
Flame Fruit: 2

If that's anything hard-coded into the game then it seems Deathflowers are more likely to be the end result while the other two are more rare. As soon as you have harvested Life Fruit and Flame Fruit, remember that you can replant them to create more. Forget tromping around crossing your fingers for mystery seeds from that point onwards! Also, remember that if you move to a new lot, take everything out of the fridge and put it in main Sim inventory (and your books out of the bookshelf storage) or you will lose all that work when moving even if you take your furniture with you.


-- How do I get my Sim pregnant?

Keep using romantic chat options on the girl with the guy Sim until the girl thinks he's absolutely irresistible. Sims who have the Flirty trait will get to this faster, Sims who don't will have to work at it. Then, put both Sims on the bed and see if the "Try For Baby" option is available under the bedtime actions. If it isn't, get them up and do more romantic spam. If "Try For Baby" is there, do that until you hear a little nursery-rhyme music at the end, this signals that your Sim is pregnant. Grats!

When it's time for the baby to come, it'll be extremely obvious. You can either stay at home or send the mother to the hospital to have the baby, and if you do, send daddy to the hospital too to be with her (he'll default to doing so before long anyways).


-- How long is Sim pregnancy?

Three days, even with lifespan set to epic.

 
-- How can I make my Sim have twins or triplets? How can I influence the baby's gender?

First off, both parents having the Fertility Treatments lifetime achievement award will help tremendously. Secondly, during pregnancy, have both the mother and father read the two pregnancy-related books from the bookstore (have them reread them a lot if you have enough time), and watch the children's programming TV channel (I pity those two having to sit through bunny-Teletubbies from hell on eternal loop). Doing this, I got triplets on the first try. Just remember you need enough room in your house for three new babies!

I highly recommend having three adult Sims with no job if you want to raise triplets properly, or at least two adult Sims with no jobs because the kids will run your Sims ragged.

I forget where I read it but to influence a baby's gender, have the mother eat apples right after conception for a boy, or watermelons for a girl.

Following are the results of my attempts, for reference and what looks like a pattern for multiple births (have mother watch kids TV and give birth at the hospital) and randomized traits (father completely gone from game):

Parents set 1: Both had fertility treatments, both read the pregnancy books and mother reread them, both parents watched some kids TV. Hospital birth. Result: triplet girls, both traits available.

Parents set 2, attempt 1: Both read the pregnancy books several times, father watched a little kids TV, mother watched some kids TV. Hospital birth. Result: twin girls, both traits available.

Parents set 2, attempt 2: Father reread one pregnancy book, mother reread both books and watched a crapton of kids TV. Hospital birth. Result: twin girls, both traits available.

Single parent 1: Read both pregnancy books and did not watch any kids TV. Home birth. Result: one boy, both traits available.

Parents set 3 (ghost father), attempt 1: Father returned to netherworld, mother read both books and reread one, and watched some kids TV. Home birth. Result: twin girls, one ghost one normal, one trait available.

Set 3 reload saved game results: ghost twin girls. Reloaded again, normal twin girls.
 
Parents set 4 (ghost father), attempt 1: Father returned to netherworld, mother read both books and reread one, did not watch kids TV. Home birth. Result: one normal girl, one trait available.

Set 4 reload saved game results: no change. Reloaded again, ghost girl.

Parent set 3, retry from start:  Father returned to netherworld, mother ate watermelon after conception, read both books and reread one, and watched some kids TV. Home birth. Result: one normal girl, one trait available.

Set 3 retry reload saved game results (hospital birth): ghost twin girls. 

Parents set 4 retry from start: Father returned to netherworld, mother ate apples after conception, read both books and reread one, did not watch kids TV. Home birth. Result: one ghost boy, one trait available.

Set 4 retry reload saved game results (hospital birth): one normal boy, one trait available. Reloaded again, no change. Reloaded again, one ghost boy, one trait available.

Single parent 2: Mother ate apples after conception, read both books, did not watch kids TV. Hospital birth. Result: one boy, two traits available.

Bonus test: bright blue and bright green parents!

Blue father, green mother (cheats on to maximize baby number and traits) resulted in green boy triplets; reloading the saved game five more times produced the exact same results. Later, the mother had one blue baby, and reloading the saved game five more times produced the same results. It appears when using green and blue skin, the color is set from conception. Other genetic traits appear to be randomized as usual, like hair/eye color, though I only aged up the official save and didn't try aging up other reloads.

I did this test because I was getting black aka dark-brown babies with white NPC mothers and a male Don Juan-type Sim who was the lightest shade of blue on the blue color scale (because I wanted him to look albino and it's closer than pale peach). He would also get white babies aka light-peach, but never blue or pale blue, and the black ones really made me go "huh?" Seems the game doesn't know what to do with the lightest shade of blue for offspring genetics.


-- How do I make my child Evil or a Genius? They were born or adopted after I started the game.

This is for the wishes "See (child) Become Evil" and "See (child) Become Genius." If you do well enough raising the child at Toddler, Child, and/or Teen stage, you get to pick the next trait at their birthday. Cha-ching! Instant trait acquired.

Also, if you have a natural pregnancy and do all the right stuff (read pregnancy books and watch kids TV programming), you can choose the first two traits for your child, but choosing Genius or Evil at this point will make the wish "See (child) Become (whatever you chose already)" never appear. I have yet to see a parent wish for their child to be Good, but I would imagine the same things in this section apply to that wish if it exists.

In the case of Genius specifically, maxing out the Toddler block puzzle and doing as much Logic work as you can on a child/teen will give you good odds to get Genius. Make sure your child/teen does their homework on time as well, and complete every school-related opportunity that comes up. I would avoid having them read books (even Logic books), as that might give them Bookworm instead.

In the case of Evil specifically, I was told via Yahoo answers that having one evil parent will give the child the Evil social interaction options. Choose to do a bunch of those to some random stranger while the child is growing up and the odds are good they'll be Evil if you can't pick their next trait. (I usually get to pick traits so I can't confirm this but it's worth a try for anyone having trouble managing the kid well enough to pick traits, or for skipping the grindwork of training/school, or on a Brief-lifespan speed run game where there is often bad timing with homework turn-ins and the kids can't get an A grade in time.)

One thing that does not work to make a Sim evil is "Mastermind Plot" used from an evil Sim who has a good/romantic relationship with a teen Sim you want to see become evil. I tried this chat option quite a few times with a teen's boyfriend (who was evil), once the girl got positive relationship points for discussing the evil plot (they won't at lower relationship level). She did not have an evil parent, I just wanted to see if I could influence her to be evil this way. She got Schmoozer when she transitioned to young adult.


-- There's a plate or bowl stuck to my Sim's hand!

Select your Sim and the option for whatever food it was should be listed along with your Sim's name. Choose the food and put it in inventory. Go into Build/Buy mode and place the plate on the floor, then go back to normal mode and have the Sim clean it up.


-- My game stays on the loading screen after choosing a saved game to continue. It was just working, I don't think it's my game disk.

If your XBox is hooked up to the internet, turn the console off and disconnect the network cable (internet). Turn the console back on and load up the game and (hopefully) play as normal. I found this solution elsewhere and it worked for me. It's also a good way to stop repeated error messages about being unable to contact the EA servers, which I have had happen in the middle of playing (you'll want to save your game, exit completely out to the XBox dashboard, disconnect the internet, and restart Sims).


-- My Sim ghost won't return to the Netherworld!

I've had this happen where I try to give them the command and they will ignore it as if I've done nothing. Thanks to "Nick" on Yahoo Answers for the solution: Save your game (under a new filename if you want), then turn your console off completely. Turn the console back on and load the saved game, and send your Sim to the Netherworld. I can confirm this works on the XBox 360, as Nick had it work on the PS3.


-- My Sim's tombstone disappears!

This is a console bug, and if you want some interesting related reading, check out this Sims forum thread that claims the game devs intend the tombstones to work properly and not vanish. From what I can tell, Sim tombstones just plain disappear on the console and there's nothing we can do about it, nor do I think EA will actually fix it.

What I've done to compensate in a game where I want to memorialize Sims (a speed run going through a whole lot of generations fast for the aging challenge), is to make a graveyard area in the backyard. There's a nice fountain, and for each Sim I choose a commemorative plant that fits their personality, then beside it put a teddy bear in the Sim's typical fashion colors or favorite color, and name the teddy bear after them. It's really cute, and a nice way to have memorials since the console version doesn't want us to have proper tombstones.

If you use the teddy bear method and a bear randomly goes missing, it's probably because a toddler or child moved it or picked it up (possibly also an adult or Childish Sim of any age, I've never actually had this happen over quite a long period of time, but wondered if it does). Look around the lot or check personal Sim inventory.


-- Having a ghost Sim in a part of town that isn't the same section as other player Sims, and returning the ghost to the Netherworld bugs out the game really badly.

(Edit 2/27/2014:  I've been unable to duplicate this bug by following the same steps, so either I got lucky the first time or it's random.)

This one is actually worth doing just for the lulz, but remember to save first. I had my ghost Sim over in the graveyard attempting to put his gravestone there (didn't work, must be a PC version thing). I had two other living Sims back at home. I told the ghost Sim to return to the Netherworld and he did, and then one of my other Sims was selected to be the current Sim. I got the message about them being in another part of town and did I want to go where they were, and picked "No" by accident so I was still looking at the graveyard. I hit Y to switch to the other Sim which I thought would give me that choice of going back home again.

Instead, the camera zoomed over lots of grass and trees and arrived in my Home neighborhood... but all the houses had really messed up textures and no ability to interact with the doors or go inside them, plus it was no longer my custom made house but the old default starter home. I didn't try to find any way to fix it (like see if I could use the Town Map to go to another part of the map and come back) since I had a saved game from right before saying bye-bye to mister ghost. Next time I play, I'll wax somebody and see if I can duplicate the bug / see if the Town Map will then fix it again and if my proper house is there or not.

One thing this does imply is that the 360 version has some kind of basic map with extremely basic buildings running at all times no matter what part of town you're in. I bet this effects the obnoxious build limit... in that, we could build more if the neighborhood maps actually ended past where you can't see anymore. Maybe it helps with load times between areas... but considering my custom house wasn't even there anymore and there didn't appear to be furniture or anything like that in the mis-textured houses (although there was one guy running around outside doing his own thing)... it's debatable.

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Is your issue not listed here? Try the other post:

Sims 3 for XBox 360 bug workarounds and gameplay hints, part 2.

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