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Project Squealer BIG REVEAL

Calling all mystery buffs, adventure seekers, and gumshoe wannabes!

I am developing MY OWN INDIE GAME under the working title PROJECT SQUEALER! In this action-packed adventure RPG game, a disease called Laughter Pox has plagued the town, and it's up to three kid detectives to investigate!

These days, I'm mostly known for making mods for The Sims 4, but I've been interested in game development as far back as 2009. In fact, I originally bought The Sims 3 for PC back in 2012 as a tool to plan out characters and worlds, before becoming hooked on the gameplay. For a long time, The Sims was my main creative outlet, but I was still coming up with game ideas in the background.

Skip ahead to mid 2016: while playing with my Go to School mod, I needed to create some child characters to fill the school with. I created two rival teams of kid detectives, and came up backstories and mysteries for them to solve. I ended up liking these characters far more than any other characters I had created. They felt like my creative masterpiece, begging for something bigger than just creations made in a character creator.

That's when "Project Squealer" started brewing in my brain. This indie RPG wasn't just some vague idea; I was developing full-blown stories, environments, and gameplay planned for my kid detectives. I also had the perfect art style in my head. Emphasis on in my head.

Turns out, bringing my dream art style to life was way harder than I thought. So hard, in fact, that I spent the next few years learning how to create art. It took until 2020 to finally have character and environment art that could (almost) pass for pro-level game stuff. Not only that, the project was undergoing what indie devs refer to as scope creep. I kept adding more and more ideas to the design doc, making the game more complex and pushing the release date even further into the future. In 2018, I even decided to move from 2D to 3D, and switched engines from MonoGame to Unity (and later to Unreal Engine 5 in 2023).

Now, it's 2024, and I'm finally, finally ready to announce what I've been working on for the past 6 years!

Project Squealer is the working title for my own indie game about a team of three kid detectives: Orlo (middle), Von (left) and Zoros (right). Together, they go on adventures and solve mysteries… or at least they would, if they weren't constantly having their business stolen by a rival detective team.

In this action-packed adventure game, a mysterious disease known as Laughter Pox has plagued the town, causing people to laugh hysterically. Where is it coming from? How can it be cured? It's up to our detectives to find out! If they can convince others to trust them with such an important mission, that is!

Project Squealer uses a hybrid of 2D and 3D graphics to create a 2D cartoon look with full 3D movement. Characters and some organic objects are 2D sprites that move with the camera. Most environments, objects and buildings are 3D, but have texture-based outlines to give it a 2D look.

The game features a variety of different quests, characters, abilities, enemies, locations, weapons and items. In addition to the main storyline, you can help out NPCs by performing "errands" for them, which will unlock cool rewards and even side missions.

Unlike many RPG games, Project Squealer won't include a character level system, because I want the player to be able to progress using their own skill, not by grinding levels. One of the game's main design philosophies is that there are few, if any, permanent upgrades. Weapons will eventually break, status effects that make your stronger will eventually expire, etc.

Project Squealer is still in relatively early development. I plan to post more information, screenshots, and eventually even videos, as it gets closer to release. Follow my Twitter for quicker updates: https://twitter.com/ZerbuTabek

Your support and feedback is welcome, and will help improve the game!

[zerbu]

The Sims 4 Mod: Simvestigations

Your Sims can become private investigators in this mod for The Sims 4! What was originally based on the Private Investigator active career from The Sims 3 Ambitions, evolved into its own mini game game. Take cases and look for clues to determine who is innocent, and who is the culprit.

How to Play

The mod adds a new "Simvestigations" app to the phone. Select it and choose "Search for Cases" to find a case to solve. It works similarly to the Odd Jobs system from Island Living. Solving cases increases your star rating, and a higher star rating unlocks more cases that are higher paying but more difficult.

After choosing a case, the game will assign a random Sim as the culprit, and one or more other Sims as decoys (assuming you start a 0 stars, your first case will only have one decoy). Using interactions that are available to your Sim, deduce which Sim is the culprit. There are various ways to find clues, including talking to the suspect, rummaging through their trash, using the Listening Device from StrangerVille, and more. See further down for more information. The mod is more likely to choose Sims with traits, skills or who live in worlds based on the case description.

As your Sim finds information about the case, there is a random chance it will increase your Sim's "Confidence" that the other Sim is the culprit. Once your Sim's Confidence reaches 100%, you can use the phone to report the culprit and complete the case.

Your Sim isn't doing all the work, though. You, the player, have a bit to do as well. While the chance of gaining Confidence is random, it is higher when looking for information on the actual culprit than on a decoy. Therefore, if you notice an unusually high success rate, you may have found the culprit and should continue investigating. Conversely, if you notice a low success rate, maybe you should start investigating a different suspect. Your Sim can only ever get 100% Confidence on the culprit, decoys will cap out.

Ways to Investigate

There are multiple ways you can find information on a suspect:

Become friends with them and convince them to give you information.

Become friends with them and trick them into giving you information.

Be mean to them and demand information.

Secude them for information.

Become friends with a household member and ask for information.

Rummage through their trash.

Research them on a computer.

Hack for information on a computer.

Use the Listening Device from StrangerVille. After using the device to listen in on a suspect, click their recording and select "Use as Case Evidence". This will delete the recording and has a chance to increase your Sim's Confidence.

Analyze previously rummage trash using the Chemical Analyzer from Get to Work.

Side Cases

Aside from the mini game, there are other cases you can take to earn extra money and increase your star rating. These include socializing with other Sims around town for information, exploring hidden areas from packs, and more.

Some side cases require certain packs to function. The mod is split into seperate package files, so you can delete ones for packs you don't have.

Download

Ready to start solving cases? Download the mod now!

Download Simvestigations

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The Sims 4 Mod: Less Lot Type Restrictions

This mod unlocks the ability to have Residential Rentals on Sulani waterfront lots (with side effects, see below). It also allows you to change the lot type of owned businesses.

Restrictions on Residential Rentals on Waterfront Lots

If you set a waterfront lot to be a Residential Rental, the game will no longer recognize it as a waterfront lot, and the water area will be treated as normal terrain. Sims can no longer swim or use boats on the lot, and if you direct a Sim to "Go Here", they'll stand under the water. All water off the lot still works as normal.

Since the game doesn't recognize the lot as waterfront, buildings aren't required to have a foundation, and it's possible to build basements. However, terrain tools are still disabled.

If you change the lot back to another type, you'll need to reload the lot for it to work normally again.

Download

Download from Google Drive

[zerbu]

The Sims 4 Mod: Fixed Interior Decorator Career

As of this post, the Interior Decorator career from Dream Home Decorator has a significant bug that makes it unplayable, where upon completing a gig, there will be a LastException, no popup, and worst of all, your Sim won't gain any performance/reputation or get promoted.

This mod fixes the issue, allowing you to play the career once again!

Additionally, this fixes a minor issue with both the Interior Decorator and Actor careers where they would show as rabbithole careers in the Find a Job dialog.

Download from Google Drive

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The Sims 4 Mod: Spawn Refresh

This mod completely overhauls how venue spawning works in The Sims 4, allowing for fully-staffed, multi-purpose lots!

How it works

With Spawn Refresh, most spawns are no longer tied to the lot type, but are instead based on the objects on the lot. Not only will all bars, stalls, etc. be fully staffed, but the objects also impact the types of visitors that spawn and how many. For example, a lot with gym equipment will attract Sims who like to workout, and a lot with many barstools and a few (but not many) bookshelves will attract a lot of barflies, but only a few readers.

Both staff and visitors will spawn on the following lot types:

Arts Center

Bar

Beach

Cafe

Gym

Karaoke Bar

Library

Lounge

Museum

Nightclub

Onsen Bathhouse

Park

Pool

Spa

Retail (not owned by the active household)

Resaurant (not owned by the active household)

Thrift and Bubble Tea Store

Additionally, the following lot types will spawn extra staff, but the visitors will stay the same:

Foxbury Commons

Recreation Center

UBrite Commons

New Lot Type: Rental (Shared)

Spawn Refresh also adds a new lot type to the game called Rental (Shared). This is a Rental lot that spawns Sims like a public venue. It can be used to simulate hotels and other accomodations for storytelling.

You will need a venue mod like Venue Changes for this to be available in Build Mode.

Limitations/where lot type still matters

Although this mod blurs the importance of lot types, they still matter in some cases.

Bowling events and spa classes are only available on venues they were available on previously. This may change in the future, but wasn't a focus for the first version.

You cannot combine multiple types of businesses. Although the mod will spawn Sims on businesses not owned by the active household, the "main" type still has to be set to the business type.

Events like bar nights and karaoke contests are still limited by venue type.

To prevent bar nights from breaking, barflies in Bar venues will spawn the same way they would without the mod.

Parks are the only lot type that will spawn bench sleepers.

Beaches and pools are the only lot types that will spawn swimmers, and will do so using the same logic it would without the mod. This doesn't mean Sims on other lots can't swim, it just means they won't spawn Sims specifically for that purpose.

For roles that have variants that normally spawn on multiple venues (for example: bartenders and barflies can normally spawn on Bars, Lounges, Nightclubs and Karaoke Bars), the mod will use the same variant as in the vanilla game, although it can still spawn multiple of them.

Only Museums and Arts Centers spawn visitors specifically to view art, since you probably don't want a bunch of random Sims showing up just to look at decorations on other lots.

Conflicts

This mod will conflict with any mod that modifies the "Zone Director" files for venue spawns. It should work fine with mods that limit Sims to their home world, since those don't edit the Zone Directors.

Download

Download Spawn Refresh

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The Sims 4 Mod: Voidcritter Card Inventory Fix for Sims Outside the Active Household

With this mod, Voidcritter cards from Kids Room Stuff are no longer removed from a Sim's inventory when switching to another household. Now your Child Sims can battle each other with the cards you gave them!

Download from Google Drive

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The Sims 4 Mod: Increased Default Household Funds

This mod increases the default household funds when creating a new household or moving in an unplayed household from the gallery, to 50,000 simoleons plus an additional 5,000 for each extra household member.

Download from Google Drive

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The Sims 4 Mod: High School Spawn Fix

This mod fixes an issue that prevented player-made Sims from spawning at the high school in High School Years. Additionally, it makes it so that the game is equally likely to choose Sims that are assigned to either class 1 or class 2. The two issues are related, so it's not easy to fix just one.

Please note: This only fixes the issue preventing player-made teens from spawning, it doesn't guarantee that they always will. The game uses its own system for deciding which Sims to spawn, and it may or may not choose player made ones.

Download from Google Drive

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The Sims 4 Mod: Renamed Emotions

This mod renames certain emotions to be more descriptive.

Very Angry is changed to Furious

Very Confident is changed to Fearless

Very Energized is changed to Pumped

Very Flirty is changed to Passionate

Very Focused is changed to In The Zone

Very Happy is changed to Elated

Very Playful is changed to Silly

Very Inspired is changed to Imaginative

Very Tense is changed to Stressed

Uncomfortable is changed to Cranky

Very Uncomfortable is changed to Miserable

Very Sad is changed to Depressed

Very Embarrassed is changed to Humiliated

Download from Google Drive

[zerbu]

The Sims 4 Mod: Less Music Wants

This mod merges all “Listen to Liked Music” to a single set, so Sims will get them less often and never more than one at once. Also, Sims will never receive two Liked Music wants in a row.

Change Log

31st Match 2023 - The mod is now split into seperate packages for each pack. This is because of a LastException that can occur if you have Growing Together, but not other packs. If you don’t have a certain pack, you can delete the package.

16th March 2023 - Updated for the Soul station in Growing Together.

Download

Download from Google Drive

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The Sims 4 Mod: World Sort

This mod changes the order of worlds in the world select screen, so worlds with similar themes are next to each other. It goes from San Myshuno (which I consider to be the central “hub” of all worlds) and transitions to worlds with more unusual climates, and then to more “secluded” worlds, eventually ending at Batuu.

You don’t need to have all the packs for this mod to work. Worlds from packs you don’t have just won’t appear.

Download from Google Drive

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The Sims 4 Investigations Mod Pack Announcement

Become a private investigator with The Sims 4 Investigations Mod Pack! Something bad happened, but we don’t know who did it, so it’s up to you to find out. Get on the suspects’ good side and convince them to give you revealing information, or take the mean route and demand it. Find clues by rummaging through the trash, or hack for information on the computer.

Investigations is a brand new Mod Pack for The Sims 4, currently in development. It started off as a Sims 4 version of the Private Investigator career from The Sims 3, but ended up turning into a kind of mini game.

The mod adds a new “Investigations” app to the phone. Selecting “Search for Cases” opens a dialog where you can select from a list of investigations that are available. Investigations work like Odd Jobs. They’re not tied to a specific career, so it’s possible for a Sim to be an investigator and have a normal career at the same time. As you solve cases, your star rating will increase, which will unlock harder cases that offer more money.

Most cases involve figuring out which of a selection of Sim committed a bad deed. When you start a case, the game chooses 2-8 (depending on the difficulty of the case) random suspects. One of them is the “culprit”, the rest are decoys. It’s up to you to figure out which one is the culprit. The game is more likely to choose Sims whose traits, skills and home world match the case description.

There are also other cases, such as rabbithole cases (works the same as rabbithole odd jobs) and stakeouts (where you socialize with other Sims to get information on them).

Using the phone, you can invite suspects over to the active lot, or travel to their home lot (only available for Sims who have lots).

There are various ways to find clues about a Sim, but the main one is socializing with the suspect to get information from them. That’s right, you can now make money from socializing with other Sims, you no longer have to choose between the two!

In addition to socializing, there are other ways to find clues.

As of writing this post, the currently available methods are:

Becoming friends with the suspect and convincing them to give case information

Tricking a friend* into giving case information (*I also plan to make this available for disliked Sims)

Seducing a romantic interest for information

Asking a friend in the suspect’s active household for information

Demanding case information from a disliked Sim

Rummaging through the trash can on a suspect’s home lot

Researching suspects on the computer

Hacking for information on a computer with high Programming skill

Using the chemical analyzer from Get to Work to analyze clues found from rummaging

Listening to Sims using the Listening Device from StrangerVille

All of these methods have cooldowns. The cooldowns haven’t been fully decided yet, but social methods will have lower cooldowns than non-social methods.

As your Sim finds clues, their “Confidence” that the other Sim is the culprit increases.

When performing an interaction, there is a random chance it will point to the suspect being the culprit, which will increase confidence. Clues aren’t always correct! There is a chance of getting false confidence on a decoy, or failing to get confidence on the culprit. That being said, the chance of the clue increasing confidence is higher if the suspect actually is the culprit. If you notice a high success rate with a certain suspect, you may have found the culprit. If you notice a low success rate, it’s likely they’re not the culprit.

You can check the confidence rating of an existing suspect by selecting “View Suspect Log” on the phone or by clicking on the Sim. The suspect log also shows how many clues point to the suspect being the culprit and how many don’t.

Once your Sim reaches 100% confidence with the culprit, the “Report Suspect” interaction on the phone becomes available. This will complete the case. It is impossible to reach 100% confidence with a decoy. If a clue on a decoy would result in 100% confidence, it will revert to not increasing confidence.

Although I don’t have an exact release date planned, I hope you all enjoy the mod when it releases!

[zerbu]

The Sims 4 Go to School Mod V5

The fifth version of the Go to School Mod Pack is here an alpha form. High School Years allows you to send your Teen Sims to high school and now, with this mod, you can send your Child Sims to elementary school!

Following your Sims to school requires an Elementary School lot. You can either build one yourself, or download an existing one from the gallery. New in V5, there is a built-in checklist of objects that are supported as goals!

Each day is a different subject! The subjects are Problem Solving (Monday), Health and Fitness (Tuesday), Creative Arts (Wednesday), Environment and Culture (Thursday) and Performing Arts (Friday). Subjects have their own Likes and Dislikes. Sims will be Happy during the day of a subject they like, and Bored during one they dislike.

There is one normal class (works like High School Years) in the morning. In the afternoon, your Sims will receive goals to perform activities based on the current subject.

Change Log

23rd April 2023 - Fixed a bug where the teacher wouldn’t play their animation at the whiteboard during class.

21th April 2023 - Fixed a bug that disabled the option to follow Teen Sims to High School.

9th April 2023 - Major update with new features

Change Number of Students: You can now change the number of students the game through “Go to School Settings” on the mailbox.

Field Trips: Each day has a random chance of being a field trip, where your Sims will be sent to a random lot to complete goals. The goals are based on which objects are available on the lot, independant of the lot type.

Guest Speakers: Each day has a random chance of spawning a guest speaker who will teach the class. The guest speaker will always be a Sim at level 10 of their career.

Milestones: If you have Growing Together, there are custom milestones for each class for the first time, as well as for every instance of going on a field trip or having a guest speaker.

Costume Day: Every Wednesday is Costume Day, where students will show up wearing costumes!

Counsellor Interactions: There are unique interactions you can perform with the counsellor to get Moodlets and boost your mood.

There are more goals available during free time, instead of Socialize with Anyone being the only goal.

School faculty now have their own uniforms.

Additional Features

This mod gives you the ability to study skills online using a computer. This is available for all ages and can be done anywhere, not just at school. If a Child Sim studies a skill online, they’ll build the related Child skill, as well as the adult skill if it’s available to them. This feature boosts skills slowly and is not a replacement for actually performing skill activities.

Once you reach level 6 in most skills, you can share your knowledge of that skill with other Sims, which will give the other Sim a slight boost. You can also ask other Sims for their knowledge.

Download

Go to School V5

REQUIRED: Venue Changes - This is needed for the Elementary School lot type to show up in Build Mode.

This mod requires High School Years to work. However, unlike V4, it does not require Get to Work.

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The Sims 4 Go to School V5 Builder Tools

In case you haven’t heard, I’m working on a new version of Go to School, which uses the system for High School Years.

This mod unlocks the “Elementary School” lot type, so you can get started on building your own elementary school now! This version includes a built-in checklist of all the objects, both required and optional.

Tips to ensure players have the best experience:

Place the cafeteria somewhere that is easily accessible from the main classroom, so Sims won’t take too long to route there after class.

Every day is a different subject. These are (in order from Monday to Friday): Problem Solving, Health and Fitness, Creative Arts, Environment and Culture and Performing Arts. After lunch, Sims will receive goals to perform activities. It is recommended you place objects required for the same subject close to each other, so Sims won’t take too long to route between them.

All classes have a “Read” goal and optional “Study Online” goals, and some have other goals that require a computer. It is recommended you place computers and bookshelves close to other activity objects.

Note: If you’ve used V4, you might notice there’s no object for the counsellor. I have plans to bring back the counsellor at some point, but the NPC stickers will be optional, so custom schools won’t require any CC.

Since this only unlocks the lot type, it should be safe to have both this and V4 installed at the same time.

Download

Download Go to School Builder Tools

In addition to the main mod, you’ll also need Venue Changes for custom lot types to appear.

[zerbu]

The Sims 4 Mod: More CAS Presets V2

This mod adds more than a hundred new presets to CAS. The presets extracted from premade Sims, default Sims that appear when you load up CAS, and other Sims in the game files.

To make things easier, presets are sorted in a specific order depending on the type. For example, eyes go from smallest to largest. While the sorting isn't perfect, it's better than having them scattered all over the place.

Child and toddler presets are available for both genders. Some adult/teen categories (namely head shape, jaw and chin) are available for both masculine and feminine frames.

Known Issues

There are some duplicate presets, since filtering them out would be extremely difficult. A preset that is used often in premade Sims will have more duplicates.

Child Ear presets don't generate thumbnails properly. (Because of this, the mod doesn't contain pre-generated thumbnails for them)

Change Log

3rd March 2022 - Fixed a bug where presets wouldn’t show for Sims with opposite gender frames.

Download

Download More CAS Presets V2

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The Sims 4 Mod: More CAS Presets

Want more presets in CAS? More CAS Presets adds 100+ new body and face presets for you to choose from!

The presets included in this mod are extracted from Sims that are already stored in the game files (including Sims that come with new saves, default template Sims that appear in CAS, and more).

I first released this mod about three years ago, and a few months later, it got taken down by a false copyright claim. Since that post has been the main download page for almost three years, I thought I should create a new one. To prevent this from happening again, I’m posting this without screenshots.

The mod has been updated to work with Mermaids and Spellcasters (previously, the new presets wouldn’t show up for them).

Download

There is a new version of the mod: https://zerbu.tumblr.com/post/677647502694121472/the-sims-4-mod-more-cas-presets-v2

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The Sims 4 Mod: Unlimited Likes and Dislikes

Want your Sim to have an opinion on everything? This mod lets you give your Sims an unlimited amount of likes and dislikes! Well, technically, it just increases the limit to 100,000, which is so high you won't ever reach it, even with mods.

Change Log

16th March 2023 - Updated for the Infants patch.

Download

Download from Google Drive