Prerelease:The Sims (Windows)/Late 1999
This is a sub-page of Prerelease:The Sims (Windows).
September
 | For those interested in further reading and a deeper exploration, here's a development-focused subarticle that delves into early in-game text assets found in certain retail builds of The Sims, as they're directly linked to development iterations from this period. |
While not much is unknown about this build, it stands as a bridge between the elements of the E3 demo and the game's alpha stages, specially by its GUI overhaul to achieve its quasi-finalized iteration.
Create-A-Character
| Jul-Aug '99 | Sep '99 |
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Now the game is subjected to its final major graphical user interface facelift.
- The GUI now favors easier localization, as its button labels/title areas have room for rendered strings directly above them.
- The Sim template character still does not zigzag its facing position between the northeast and northwest as they do in the final.
- The character customization suite still retains its original name, "Create A Character".
- The Adult/Child Female/Male buttons had their positions reversed.
Buy Mode
| Sep '99 | Final |
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While the engine's buy mode thumbnail generation doesn't render sprites at fixed sizes or coordinates, there are a few minor differences in the cheap fridge sprite's display here compared to the final version — the sprite in the text box is a bit smaller, and the object description in buy mode is slightly longer than in the final version.
Music
| Sep '99 | Final |
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It's likely that the game's soundtrack was still transitioning from simple MIDI demo tracks to their final versions. An existing demonstration of how the music changed between builds is "Elm Street," one of the three Buy Mode scores. Most (if not all) of its instruments were still made up of synth samples.
Object Selection
This is the first and only instance in development where users receive visual feedback about an object's lack of available pie menu interactions (trees, stoves, tables...) when hovering the mouse cursor over it: The object's brightness decreases, similar to how objects with available interactions brighten a little when hovered over in the final.
Pleasant Family
The pre-made Pleasant family seems to debut in this build. Although the picture showcases them in a pre-made house layout that later in production was used for the default tutorial "Newbie" lot, players in the final version can simply evict the Newbie family and replace them with any other family, so this must be the case, here.
Hand Item
This build offers a small quirk: characters can perform other tasks while holding hand items, like food and flower vases. In the final game, Sims set down such items before initiating any new interaction. Interestingly, this "multitasking" behavior also appears in a mock-up snapshot predating this build by at least six months.
October
October 1999 marks the game's triumphant entry into alpha production. All core features and objects had already been developed and implemented, whist the myriads of scenario households/lores from the past were gone for good. It's safe to say most of the pre-made houses and families that fans known so well were born in builds made during this phase, despite their midly early look.
Our subsequent coverage will mainly dissect the remaining polishing efforts of aesthetic and coding bias, including the rigorous engine tests that it take to squash the pesky bugs.
Neighborhood Menu
| Jul-Aug '99 | Oct '99 |
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Based on the pre-made house thumbnails and chronological sequence, it's not far-fetched to say the style of neighborhood menu at this point was similar (if not identical) to that shown in a developer's trivia easter egg dialog picture in the final game. Most remarkably, it's the first appearance of an HTML-generating button, whose graphic mirrors the ethernet cable icon iteration the final build uses in its user setting interface.
| Early | Final | ||
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This build also features a minor change to the neighborhood screen's UI graphics by replacing their inner bright effect with a combination of a larger white outline and a subtle inner black shading.
Create-A-Sim
| Sep '99 | Oct '99 |
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The next iteration of Create-A-Character triggered a butterfly effect in a way: The character creation suite was renamed to the more iconic "Create-A-Sim," a name that has endured to this day in the franchise. Otherwise, players can get more intuitively that the purpose of the upper black text box is to type down the first name of the Sim they're creating, as there's now an Enter First Name: string next to it
GUI
| Jul-Aug '99 | Oct '99 |
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This development build marks the final major graphical user interface upgrade, with significant changes to the leftmost section.The three primary mode buttons now extend to the top edge of the control panel, breaking the previous rectangular shape of the UI; consequently, the "Build", "Buy", "Live" button labels were erased. Also, the roof vision feature received a new, distinct icon that aligns better with other house structure visibility icons; this change likely is a response to a potential confusion users could have with the previous icon by how it hinted at the possibility of building a third floor. The snapshotting tool now has a dedicated "Mode" and icon, indicating the developers' recognition of its potential for family storytelling, and time is now displayed entirely as plain text. Next to it, the control panel now displays the number of friends associated with the current household — the active household's last name is rendered directly above it.
Pie Menu
| Jun '98 | Mar '99 | Oct '99 |
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The pie menu design is finalized. Even when the mouse cursor isn't hovering over an item, it now displays a solid filling, this time blue-colored, akin to the existing GUI palette.
Newbie Household
| Oct '99 | Final |
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First instance in development in which the seventh Sim Lane lot is appropriately occupied by the Newbie family. As confirmed by snapshots we'll later cover, the Newbie household on its default state has a cheap stove in the kitchen rather than a microwave, and the outdoor flowers in this build are completely fenced, which probably caused Sims to struggle a little when watering.
Goth Household
| Oct '99 | Final |
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The first glimpse of the Goth household reveals a half-different lot when it comes to furniture arrangement and wallpaper/floor choices. While this could simply be due to user-made modifications, it's noteworthy that the house lacks a second story, a graveyard, or any on-screen presence of Bella Goth.
A newer snapshot from the same development phase: a second floor and Bella Goth are now added to the savefile.
Unsorted Households
This gallery showcases user-made Sim saves, presumably from previewers around this development era, that exist outside the default game lore.
Coolies
Jones
Partier (A)
Partier (B)
Partier (C)
Soldier (A)
Soldier (B)
Smith
Bug-Proofing Tests
SimTalk 1.0
SimTalk 1.0 is a very simple but interesting program that was developed by Assistant Producer Sean Baity, released on October 13, 1999. Its main purpose was providing the Maxis fans who were following the game's prerelease media to get a chance of listening to several .wav files containing audio samples of Sims talking with each other, introducing to the community the elusive language nowadays known as Simlish. Since its first version was made available 4 months before The Sims' final version release, it's no wonder a few of the samples put into this Sim program didn't actually make their way to the game, even if they were once thought out to do so — mostly the children ones!
| .WAV Audio Name | Vox |
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| 0007.wav | |
| 0008.wav | |
| 0009.wav | |
| 0013.wav (a shorter version of it was used, though) | |
| 0025.wav | |
| 0026.wav | |
| 0027.wav | |
| 0028.wav | |
| 0029.wav | |
| 0030.wav |
November
Promotional Mock-up
This mock-up snapshot, while purposed for post-release promotion, draws on its current development stage. All objects appear to be finalized.
Manual Build
Following the recurring and accidental practice of showcasing slightly outdated screenshots in game manuals, the original edition of The Sims' user manual presents a fair share of these. Thankfully, after the game's release, a revised manual replaced the original. This updated version rectified the issue (albeit not entirely), swapping most of the pre-release snapshots for accurate representations of the actual in-game visuals.
Neighborhood Menu
Context: First Game
| Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) | Final |
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What the players see when they run the game executable for the first time.
- The arrow graphic that points to the Newbie tutorial scenario was redesigned from a more flat iteration to one that mirrors the neighborhood's viewing perspective.
- "Credits" button (the wooden sign with The Sims brand) still uses a generic typography other than the game's logo.
- The pre-made house at 4 Sim Lane has been bulldozed in the last minute in production.
Neighborhood: General
| Jul-Aug '99 | Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) | Final | |
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The neighborhood screen now presents a more familiar set of pre-made lots. Minor changes include the HTML-generating button, that was redrawn to a unique ethernet cable icon. Also, the "Credits" wooden panel starts to use the final game logo between revisions. Note that the net worth of the Goth household also is different, however it might just be the result of user-made alterations to the house from its default state.
Context: Pick-A-Family
| Jul-Aug '99 | Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) | Final |
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- Sometime in development, the "Pick-A-Family" menu was renamed to its final title, "Select a Family", and it's now faithful to the GUI update first seen in the Create-A-Sim interface, where the text-only buttons are made empty to accommodate rendered strings on it for localization.
- Probably as an accidental leftover from demo-oriented builds, the original manual displays an iteration where the three pre-made families are categorized by their "difficulty levels" other than the households' last names.
- The pre-made Sim that occupied the third slot (if not Michael Bachelor himself) uses a different head mesh and texture.
Context: Tutorial
| Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) |
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The tutorial chapter of the manual's original edition mistakenly attaches a Control Panel snapshot in a Ryan household save, marking his only actual appearance in the final product. This was later fixed, when manual revisions replaced it with the Newbie household in the same UI context.
Context: Newbie Tutorial
| Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) |
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- Consistent to the documentation of a previous build, the Newbies originally owned a cheap stove other than a microwave, and the outdoor flowers were all fenced, probably making it difficult for Sims to water them.
- The newspaper's placement area is different: it's on the cement tile right behind the mailbox.
- The "zooming-in" tutorial message did not have a reference to the possibility of pressing the ESC button to halt the tutorial scenario yet. Also, the dialog pop-up has an extra space for a title string; it was later removed.
- The pop-up collapsing button used to be a "close" icon instead of a "minimize" symbol.
Context: Service Calling
| Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) |
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All the texts ID's associated with house maintenance services were rewritten as the NPCs' role.
Context: Napping
| Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) |
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Not only the animation was changed, but the revised snapshot compensates the final build's lack of a coffee table object by the insertion of a wooden desk.
Context: No Fun/Energy Motives
| Manual (Og.) | Manual (Rev.) |
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Early icons. The engine no longer calls speech balloons when Sims pass out.
Help System Icon
| Manual | Final |
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Early icon for the help system pop-up trigger.
Early Talk Icons
Sims talk about war (missile) and space (planets)-related topics, which they won't do in the final.
Urn
Very true to many objects in older builds, the urn uses a shadow-dropping flag that is way bigger than its associated sprite.
December (Pre-Final)
Splash Screen
| 07/15/1999 | 12/06/1999 (Final) |
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The final alterations to the game's splash screen include the addition of a trademark symbol, a slightly smaller logo with more intense shading, and an increased three-dimensional effect depth in the font.
Create-A-Sim
| Sep '99 | Oct '99 | Pre-Final |
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In Create-A-Sim, the personality chooser box has been vertically adjusted to better accommodate the newly added "PERSONALITY" text label. The contents of the box have also been shifted slightly upward to create space for the Astrological Sign display, which becomes visible once at least one personality point has been used.
GUI
| Oct '99 | Pre-Final |
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| Final (US) | Final (Non-US) |
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The last name of the active household is no longer rendered on the control panel. To balance the newly available space, the friends/funds counters have been moved slightly to the right. Additionally, the time strings align to the leftmost edge of the digital clock, rather than centering within it, something that would be rectified before the compilation of the final build. Along with it, the control panel sees its last addition: The Help System button [?], at the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Buy Mode - Appliances
| Pre-Final | Final |
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The Wild Bill THX-451 Barbecue used to be a tad more expensive than the Junk Genie Trash Compactor.
Build Mode - Floor
| Pre-Final | Final |
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§20 floor tiles are arranged in the catalogue differently, and the object thumbnail template still uses its early palette.
Goth Household
With Bella settling into the household, plus the house layout facelift, the Goths' lot is in its final state...
Newbie Household
...ditto with the house of the Newbies!
Conclusion
Last-Minute Changes
Consistently used since the major GUI overhaul that implemented them, the original object thumbnail template was recolored a few days before the final build's compilation.
| Pre-Final | Final | |||
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In Create-a-Sim, the character template viewer's camera now alternates the models' facing direction between southwest and southeast.
| Pre-Final | Final |
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All the group meal sprites were re-rendered from their original oviform dishes to circles. Whew! Guess this game is ready to ship now.
| Early | Final |
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