Trivia / The Sims 2

• Classic Cheat Code:
  • Writing "boolprop testingcheatsenabled true" (the last word replaced with "false" to deactivate the code) activates a debugging mode. It's supposed to be entered in the neighbourhood, before entering the desired family (it only takes effect after a lot change) and lets you now mess around with it how much you want. You hold down "shift" and click on a sim to suddenly get very out-of-place options and go from there. You can do all kinds of things, from spawning wishing wells, turn them into vampires, mess with the sims' genders or names as well as spawn the Tombstone of Life And Death, where you can do things like move any Sim in the neighbourhood into the current househould or make a girl pregnant with anyone, even her brother. This is not recommended though if you have a crash-tastic computer as these cheats can make it hang. Also, no matter what language you play in, the options will always be in English.
    • While the code and most of the options are safe to use, misusing some options can result in corruption.
  • "motherlode" allows the family you play as to receive §50000. Writing "kaching" will give you §1000. Writing "familyFunds <family/household name> <amount>" allows you the certain amount you want.
  • "maxmotives" fills up all the need bars on every sim in the household.
  • "boolprop controlpetson" allows you to control your pets, and "boolprop petactioncancelon" allows you to cancel their actions.
  • If a woman just got pregnant (you hear the lullaby), write in "forcetwins" and you will have twins when she later gives birth.
  • "boolProp snapObjectsToGrid false" allows ignoring the grid completely, opening up new options for decorations and item placement.
  • "boolProp allow45DegreeAngleOfRotation true" enables turning objects "diagonally" and mostly works fine, at least with 1 tile objects, suggesting it was a planned feature that Maxis could never get right but kept in the game, hidden behind a cheat code.
  • "boolProp constrainFloorElevation false" enables raising or lowering build mode elements like foundations and walls as if they're terrain. It's very useful for more advanced architectural styles like underground garages or garages right next to a house with foundations, but can be relatively complicated to use.
• Completely Different Title: A number of the expansion packs go by different names elsewhere:
  • University is Académie (Academy) in French, Wilde Campus-Jahre (Wild Campus Year) in German, Studentenleven (Student Life) in Dutch, and also Studentliv (Student Life) in Swedish.
  • Nightlife is Nuits de Folie (Nights of Madness) in French.
  • Open for Business is La Bonne Affaire (The Good Deal) in French, Gaan het Maken (Go Make It) in Dutch, and Arbetsliv (Work Life) in Swedish.
  • Pets becomes Animaux & Cie (Animals & Co.) in French, and Djurliv (Animal Life) in Swedish.
  • Seasons is known as Au Fil Des Saisons (As the Seasons Go By) in French, Vier Jahreszeiten (Four Seasons) in German, and Året Runt (All Year Round) in Swedish.
  • Bon Voyage is Jorden runt (Around the World) in Swedish.
  • Freetime is Freizeit-Spaß (Freetime Fun) in German.
• Dummied Out:
  • There are hidden duplicate versions of some Sims in the game files, including Nervous Subject (the duplicate has a different face and appears in his mother's memory of giving birth and in the Beaker's family photo album instead of the playable one), Skip Broke (the duplicate appears in one of the photos of the Broke family album) and Michael Bachelor.
  • The Dinner with the Boss scenario would've involved a "Big Boss" NPC, which still exists in the game files in an incomplete state (they have no face nor character data). A different "Big Boss" NPC is generated by the game when a Sim calls in sick from work.
  • References to a couple of unused aspirations can be found in the game files. The first one, Power, can be accessed with debug cheats but is buggy due to its unfinished nature; some premade deceased Sims and universal NPCs (the Grim Reaper, Rod Humble and the like) have that aspiration. The second one, Craft, was abandoned early enough in development that very little references to it exist, though it was later recycled as the Creativity aspiration in console versions.
  • The Biotech Station career reward will occasionally produce a highly contagious virus. An option to sell the virus to the burglar exists in the code but is not available in-game.
  • The badge juicer, a debug item from Open For Business that can edit talent badges, references a "Security" badge. Considering that the expansion pack was about business ownership and management, there was presumably going to be a shoplifting mechanic at one point and the Security badge would help a Sim prevent it.
  • It was originally possible to add decorative waterfalls in neighborhood decoration, but Maxis cut it for unknown reasons. A mod re-enables them.
  • There was supposed to be a Power Outage Plot that would trigger during a heavy storm and would have required keeping your family's mood up without electricity for 7 hours. Succeeding it would have unlocked an electrical windmill that would have prevented further power outages.
  • Ownable cars and weather were considered for the base game, but cut. Eventually they were added in the Nightlife and Seasons expansion respectively. The official website also offered downloadable cars for those who didn't want to buy the Expansion Pack.
  • There is a hidden version of Darleen that can be found in the game files, with a scrapped haircut, a face that's a lot more similar to Dirk's and a different outfit.
  • There is a hidden version of Skip that can be found in the game files, with blue eyes instead of green, and a slightly different face.
  • There is a hidden version of Michael that can be found in the game files, with a very different personality, the medium skintone and a purple tracksuit.
  • The Curious siblings' grandfather Notzo wears a pair of glasses that are unavailable in-game without the use of mods. Pascal's glasses can only be used on adult men by aging up a child sim with them.
  • Loki and Circe have memories of a different looking Nervous than the one in the household. The hidden Nervous can be found in the game files although his character data was deleted. He did appear in a trailer for the game, however.
  • Bizarrely enough, some Lifetime Wishes (a feature introduced in the University Expansion Pack), were hidden on the following Packs, even though the feature was ported to every other EP, as University was the first one. It makes sense when one looks at the wishes in question: they were related to all the careers introduced on ''University'' (and the "Have X children abducted by aliens" one. Why the programmers didn't just not include those wishes in the other packs, that didn't have those careers, is unknown.
  • There exists lots of speculation on the original story and characters of Veronaville: at least five characters were originally meant to be alive (and are dead on the game), several characters would have different relationships between them, and even one character was Dummied Out: Viola Monty, teenage sister of Romeo and Mercutio.
• He Also Did: Jack Conte, who provided the voice for male teens, later went on to co-found the crowdfunding site Patreon.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The Sims 2 Super Collection is currently the only legal way of obtaining the game and it's only available for Mac. With the Ultimate Collection no longer being offered as of October 11, 2018, Windows users have to resort to piracy or used copies ^note (which are technically illegal due to the license to use the software being non-transferable as explained in the EULA, but the chances that you'll be arrested or served court papers for installing that used copy of The Sims 2 on your computer are pretty much nil) if they want their Sims 2 fix.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There's a persistent rumor that while the game was in development, there was a fire in the EA office that caused much of the original coding to be lost, forcing Maxis to have to completely recode the game. But, as discussed in this thread at Mod the Sims, it's just that - a rumor.
• Urban Legend of Zelda:
  • Several alleged methods of getting twins, including the nonexistent "twinzR2cute" cheat. A "forcetwins" cheat, as well as cheesecake that increases the odds of twins, were added to throw the fans a bone, but not until Open For Business.
  • Not to mention the abundant rumors that female Sims could WooHoo (and be impregnated) by the Grim Reaper. Though, the truth in that rumor is that a female sim can be impregnated, via cheats, by Grim. Though actual Woohoo is impossible as it would be game-corrupting. This one is on the programmers, though: the backstory of a premade character includes such an act (and even a child!) with the Grim Reaper.
  • There are several supposed ways to bring Bella Goth back, ranging from hanging a painting of her in your house, to meeting her after getting abducted by aliens. There is a way to get the real Bella back, though this requires you to edit her data in SimPE, which if done carelessly will corrupt the entire neighborhood.
  • A surprising amount of these came about for the Nintendo DS game, most recurring being rumors that you could marry other sims.
  • The discrepancies between early trailers and beta builds and the final product led some to believe that at one point Maxis/EA Games suffered a fire in a server room that wiped out their build, and with no backups, forced them to restart from scratch, which explains the differences. This is actually a myth.
  • There's a rumor that the "boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true" cheat code being activated for too long, or saving while it is active, will cause corruption. This is not true, and the code in and of itself is harmless no matter how long it's active, but misusing it can cause major glitches and corrupt the neighborhood. Part of the misconception may come from the cheat code generating error messages once in a while when something is bugged on a lot, and offers the option to delete, ignore or reset the offending object/Sim/controller. These errors actually happen all the time, but the game automatically handles them without generating an error message, so it's very difficult to notice these errors happening normally, leading to the illusion that the cheat code causes them.
  • A lot of the supposed ways one can corrupt a neighborhood or the entire game, such as deleting Sims from the Sim bin, deleting urns/tombstones or moving occupied lots into the lot bin, have been circulated as gospel for decades despite being debunked several times by very experienced modders with intimate knowledge of the game's internals. The Sims Wiki's article on avoiding corruption has more details on what can or cannot corrupt the game.
  • Many players will panic about severe and irreversible corruption as soon as they see "squiggly lines" in speech/thought bubbles, even though at best they are completely benign, and at worst they indicate minor and easily fixable corruption.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early screenshots of the Nintendo DS game show the player holding a letter from Daddy Bigbucks just outside of the hotel's entrance, in which he declares he's had enough of trying to run the hotel and that it's yours. In the final game, no names are mentioned for the previous manager, who takes off the day before the player arrives.
  • Early on in the game's development, a neighborhood called Riverside was meant to be the only one featured in the game. Later on, Maxis/EA Games decided to scrap it to make room for the three base game neighborhoods. A recreated version was completed by a modder in 2014.
    • At some point in development, there apparently were to be 5 premade neighborhoods included with the game: the three that ended up on the retail version plus Riverside and either Waterside, Sedona (a desert neighborhood), or an unknown fifth neighborhood. Several versions of the same characters in different neighborhoods seem to indicate this didn't leave planning stage.
    • In the game istelf, there remain clues indicating at least two more unreleased neighborhoods: Sedona (mentioned above), and Europa, which probably was an early version of Veronaville, and which has a flythrough coded into the game, but not a map.
  • Playable, open hospitals (and hospital births) were planned at some stage for the base game, as well as breastfeeding. Hospitals would phisically appear from The Sims 3 onwards and breastfeeding on The Sims 4; but modders Chris Hatch and Pescado, respectively, reintroduced this features on mods.
  • Jake Simpson, one of the developers, mentioned on Twitter that a expansion pack similar to the Superstar expansion for The Sims 1 was considered, but scrapped, because of the hassle in creating NPCs for real life celebrities. In that thread, other scrapped ideas are also mentioned, such as giving sims superpowers or replacing the plumbob with icons indicating what the sims wanted or what they were doing.