Rotational Gameplay in The Sims 2 is MORE FUN! 

This is what I imagine when people say “god has a plan for you” just Cindy at her computer looking confused through her spreadsheets.

Cindy: Have I lost you? Me: Kinda but tbh i just like to hear you talking about things you're passionate about.

Cindy, you really have figured out the best way to play this game. I feel like you deserve a special award from Will Wright or something, because you're single-handedly keeping this game alive and interesting for me and many others. As we both know, TS2 deserves so much more love than it gets, and you are doing an excellent job of that.

Playing rotationally actually kinda makes you think about things you normally wouldn't even add to your usual gamestyle. New possibilities, new kinds of atmosphere Yes, exciting it is

Cindy is the real game changer 💕❤️

"They just jump from one household to other..." I felt called out

It’s like the Truman show, they don’t know they’re being watched but you enjoy the drama in your Sims’s lives 👁👄👁

Here's a tip I learned that makes my life easier in rotations! So, when I have sims grow up and move out, I go into SimPE and change their household name according to the generation. So, for example, when Dustin Broke moves out, I change the household name to "Broke II" and when Beau moves out, "Broke III" and so on. It helps a lot, not only with tracking but with the family funds cheat as well. It doesn't change anyone's last name, just the household name :)

I'm a TS2 fangirl, but TS3 is where Story Progression shines. I used to love micromanaging premade families because I wasn't a legacy player until Generations came out. I don't want to keep track/age up/name babies from random people my sim knocked up etc.

I started playing rotational, one day in each family, and it is just so cooooooool. For example, one of my sims got flu, than in the other family I invited that sim to dinner and I forget she had flu, so she infected the other family, and so on, in the end of the rotation, the whole neighborhood was having a flu pandemic. It is so much more realistic and fun compared to playing with just one family.

Before I found your channel, I would play the same family for generations upon generations to the point where my sims could marry their long, long, lost cousins that I never aged up because I couldn't be bothered to play multiple families at a time. After finding your channel though and binging your pleasantview videos (both the og and reboot you did), I've begun playing rotationally and I gotta say it's like a breath of fresh air. There's nothing worse than filling up a neighborhood with your own sims and how many generations later, seeing your founders husbands ex wife who hasn't aged a day meeting the great great grandchild of their love child

You know what the worst part about clicking on this vid is? I can’t play Sims 2. So why am I watching a vid telling me about how much fun Sims 2 is? I watch your Let’s Plays, I watch your streams and I’m constantly reminded how much better this game still is. XD I can remake Sims 2 townies all I want in Sims 4, but it’s just not the same

I'm lazy. My rotations are 1 day so I don't have to do maths when moving Sims, marrying off Sims and the most complicated one University.

One season rotations FTW! Five days every time. Never need a spreadsheet or anything, you can tell which household needs playing just by mousing over the house and seeing which season they're in.

There is something so soothing about your voice.

Ever since I found and tried rotational play I can’t go back to the way I used to play. Thanks Cindy!!

Cindy is so cute and smart, I can’t get over it!

This is basically how I've been playing for years. I learned how to do it when I got addicte to the Build a City Challenge. It's either 7 Sims days or 1 season then I jump to the next family. I really recommend people to try it out.

omg cindy is so freaking cute, I love that lip color

I love how Cindy could write “actively enjoys recording thorough information on spreadsheets” on a resume and not be a liar. I love this type of content.

I was thinking about this gameplay, and wanted to know all answers. This helped me so much!

“Some people like to load up a family and torture them to death then quit.” That is one of the most accurate and hilarious lines I’ve ever heard

I've played rotationally for years, but I've never used any notes at all. I find it pretty easy to remember everything and keep up. My rounds are usually Mon-Thur, Thur-Sat, Sat-Mon, unless people are moving households and I have to lengthen/shorten some of them to keep things properly in sync.

Nice to know I am not weird for keeping meticulous journals of my Sim families.

The way you play Sims 2 has really influenced how I play, I enjoy it even more, thanks Cindy!

I am really thankful that I found your yt channel half a year ago. You basically revolutionised my play style and it is so much better now. Thank you for sharing your game rules.

This is so helpful, I feel like I get easily overwhelmed with families in the Sims and then put off playing it even though it's a huge comfort game for me, I'll definitely be using this method when I get back into the game!!!

Me: playing randomly with a family without control Cindy: *open spreadsheets * Me: 🤯🤯🤯

Rotational player here, mostly thanks to you 😂 I find a week too long for a rotation, since too many age discrepancies between kids/teens can occur. So for me 3-4 days are ideal. The struggle sometimes is to stop playing one family and move to the other, but that's another story. The whole uni gig takes 4 sim days (aka years) in relation to the neighborhood, so for example if Dustin left on Friday before 6p.m. he started college on Saturday and must be returned to Pleasantview on Wednesday morning, if he finishes all 4 years of college. If I want to marry a sim from one family into another, i could stop the rotation halfway to sync up both households. For example, if I want Dustin and Lucy to get married and her to move in on the second day of Broke's rotation, and the Burb household is not played yet, i will pause with the Broke's, go over to the Burb's and play them for the same amount as the Broke's, then go back and have a wedding/move in. This way their ages are in sync and all sims were played the same amount. It sound chaotic and complicated as i write it, but in reality really fun 😉

I miss the Sims 3 with the town moving around me too. I hope Paralives has the option to turn it on and off.

I literally never have played rotationally. I usually just play randomly which, honestly, desyncs the ages and that did bother me. I just don't like playing sooo many families. The fact that the story progression mod works at least decently, I have been playing like that and it has worked out really well for me!

"Playing a single family gets boring to me" Glances at own play style, where I play a single family without aging... To be fair, though, I also tend to only play the game maybe two months at a time before I drop it again

I 'm not really strict about rotations, but I like playing with different families so I can create small friend groups and have a full neighbourhood like you said.

You know you've hit a revelation when you watch Cindy's videos and you just go "why have I NOT been playing like that!?". I personally Thank you❤

If I ever lose my sims 2 fever again, all I'll probably have to do is watch this video. 🥰 It gets me excited about playing the game every single time. And in those 17 years of coming back to the sims 2 after a while, because I felt an itch to play, I've never been so excited about the game as I was after watching this video and finding your Edgewood series. 🥰 You really changed the way I play the game.

The micromanagement aspect is definitely a HUGE reason why I prefer Sims 2. My own method for keeping the neighborhood in sync is to keep track of how many days have been played, with "daughter" households sharing the days-played value of their "parent" household and any newly-created households being assigned to be in the same timeline as an established family. I do sometimes fudge the values a bit, though, or do something that interrupts a bit, such as aging Cassandra Goth down so that I can send her to University (the rationale being that after being left at the altar by Don and realizing her rebound with Darren is unhealthy, she decides to reevaluate her life and go to graduate school, where she'll discover a new aspiration for Knowledge and the true love of her life among the Uni Sims).

Ah, someone else that plays the Sims accompanied by a spreadsheet. I feel less alone now.

I play rotationally for similar reasons to you, mainly getting bored of playing the same family over and over again. I play every family for 3 days every rotation, not because of a particular reason, this is just what I’ve become used to after playing Sims 2 for 10+ years. I don’t really keep a spreadsheet over where I am in a rotation, I mainly just leave a Sticky Note on my computer desktop which family I’ve reached, with the amount of days left when necessary. Instead of doing this I usually just play the families in a self explanatory manner, like in a circle or from one end of the neighborhood to the other depending on the neighborhood composition. I do keep spreadsheets for other stuff. I tend to keep track of stuff like every sims age and when every sim died etc. Other stuff is from neighborhood to neighborhood basis. I currently have three different neighborhoods I play from time to time. Two of them are hood styles that I got into relatively recently (last year). They’re premade recreation hoods, meaning that I start from the premades oldest ancestors and then periodically recreate the history of those hoods. For this I’ve used spreadsheets to determine when each new family should be introduced to the hood. The two recreation hoods I’m playing right now are Strangetown and Veronaville. I’m currently playing Veronaville a lot more because it’s hard to go back to my first recreation hood, Strangetown, since I made a ton of mistakes by basically introducing most of the ancestors to the hood at the same time, whereas my Veronaville hood is a lot more organized. In terms of progress of these hoods, I’ve gotten to the point where most of the adult premades in Strangetown are at the beginning of the teen life stage and in Veronaville I’m about to start the infamous feud between the Capp and Monty family through the love triangle between Contessa, Consort and Patrizio. The third hood is a hood type I’ve been playing around with for a while. It’s basically a neighborhood where I sometimes kill sims every rotation based on luck to keep things fresh. The way I determine who dies from this has become more and more complicated over the years. The reason I started doing this is that my hoods usually become pretty crowded just a few generations in, and also because having pretty much all my sims die happy and of old age got a bit stale after a while. With this system I’ve managed to keep playing these types of hoods for up to 6/7 generations at times without getting bored.

I have always played The Sims 2 rotationally, and also never get bored of playing this game! I have a custom hood with DOZENS of households, with Bluewater Village and all three university sub-hoods attached, so a rotation takes me a long time. I rarely send my teens to university together, because I don't think that's realistic - college is for meeting new people! - and I don't even send them all to the same campus. (A rotation takes me a REALLY long time.) I play the rounds in two parts: Mon-Thu, and Fri-Sat, because the weekends generally feel a little longer with kids not going to school. I don't have a spreadsheet, but instead keep a note of the day in the household description, and I keep track of any important events using the camera and story mode. Then when I load up a new family I can have a look through the story book and catch up on what happened last time. I love your videos, Cindy. I've just caught up on the original Pleasantview LP and am so happy to see another grown-ass woman obsessed with this game and playing in a similar style to me. I've taken on loads of your gameplay rules and CC recs (hacked computer, No20k handout, rules for assigning aspirations), so thank you for making my game even better. (Signed - a 31yo engineer with a mortgage who's also addicted to the Maxis virtual dollhouse)

I created a rotational system by myself years before I knew anyone else did it, so my way has a few quirks! I also have a system with different social groups based on personality with university acting as a test to get in, so my system and spreadsheet is really influenced by that. But I do 3 or 4 day rotations: always Monday-Wednesday and Thursday-Sunday. I count everyone who becomes a teen during the same rotation as the same age and will go to college together. If you aren’t fussed about having families be exactly the same age or in the same season then I think 3/4 works well! I also do one college year per rotation with the un-modded amount of days, and all graduations, teens leaving for college and house moves happen at the end of the round. I’ve been playing one neighbourhood like this for almost 8 years now and have around 130 individual families, so each rotation takes months! But it works for me, especially as I play without mods (apart from the corruption stopping ones of course)! Great video as always, I love seeing how other people do it :)

Since I started playing rotationally, the game feels more purposeful haha I love making up stories for the families and thinking who will end up with whom. I play custom neighborhood that somebody put up for download on mts and with no townie regon it feels even more like I'm there with them and know everyone better, having full control.

I just learned this was necessary when Alexander Goth became older than Cassandra 😂

I love this type of gameplay. I was extremely bored with the sims before I ever watched your videos .. It really changed my way of playing and helped me enjoy more .. so thanks a lot

Its really good that you've decided to make content almost exclusively about things you're passionate about and that spread positivity. Youve seemed a lot happier in your recent videos, it's a noticeable change. It's good that you've been putting your happiness first, and I think the videos you've been making recently are great!

I play Pleasantview rotationally and use the length of the seasons to keep everyone in sync. I have made it so my university hood can be played that way too with mods, and then when my uni sims come back I take the 8 days to their lifespan to keep them in sync (which sounds like a lot of days but that was the shortest I could get uni without it being chaotic). Love hearing how other people play!

Part of why I love sims 2 so much is I'm a major control freak. I've never played on a strict rotation before, usually I go off say there's a few children in the town and a family has a toddler, I play till the toddler grows up so they can meet other children. I've recently been trying some new gameplay ideas. From you, I took some inspiration from how you use wants- and I love it so thank you! I don't use wants as strictly as you do, but I usually go by them. But, sometimes I go off what I want. I got back into the sims 2 more deeply this January and have been redoing all my custom content, learning to make some of my own cc, and changing up my gameplay in some aspects. My main goal in sims is I adore huge family trees! I'm thinking about trying more strict rotational play, I think I'm gonna do week rotations. I think that'll me the right amount of time to me as I like to binge and play fast. I don't need to use a spreadsheet because somehow I manage to always remember everything (if only I could remember stuff for school so well). I do like to make notes when making a new neighborhood for families and such before I make them, though. Recently I got sims city 4 for map building for sims 2. I'm working on a new custom hood to play and the map for it only needs the roads which I can't figure out how I want and have redone a million times. Finding my gameplay style has been really fun! I love how customizable the sims 2 is; the core gameplay is solid and everything else around it you can change to your preferences. Not a lot of games can do that so well.

Thank you for making rotational play an art form (in which you excel at). I have to play this way because one family at a time is BOORING and story progression messes up my beautiful families and the stories I want to create.

no wonder your Sims feel so alive. you're so thorough!

Since i discover you Cindy i started to play rotationaly too, is so fun this way!! 🖒💗

Like many others, I started to play rotationally because of you. I used to play the familes whenever I wanted but I recently started a clean custom neighborhood of 4 sims that I'm playing rotationally. I even added in some custom townies so they could marry haha. One couple recently had a baby! Like you said, I feel attached to them haha. I can't wait to see them grow up and play future generations! :)

I started playing rotationally when I found your channel like 3 years ago, and there’s just no going back for me!🧡 Definitely my preferred way to play now!

Somewhere in a box I have notebooks tracking plot lines and relationships from when I was younger. The big difference when I play is that I don't necessarily keep the same order, when I start a new round I decide which order to play them based on who's aging up or moving in or out. I'll also do a split turn if I have a sim moving across households so I can play up until when I'll have them leave, go to the house they'll move to, have them move in on the correct day, then return to their previous household. This is also much easier to keep track of playing the round length of one season as you can tell from the neighbourhood view who has and hasn't finished the round yet. I also noticed you do aspiration by star sign?! Could never be me. When sims become teens it's time to crack out the dice. So in other news I'm in the process of getting a formal autism diagnosis. I'm sure that's unrelated.

I was just on Sims 2 subreddit and I heard people talking about spreadsheets. Like you, I always just kept a notebook! After Googling, I found your sheets and then this video. Safe to say I found a new way to do Sims 2!!

I've just reinstalled the game and rotational gameplay just made sense since day 1. I'm combining my own family with premade sims both in lots and from the bin. I don't keep track of time, but I usually play for about 3 hours and stop when something big happens like childbirth or going on vacation. Idk this way it fulfills all of my storyteller needs.

Your love for The Sims 2 is admirable. All of your videos have helped to steer me back; it's like RU-vid knew to throw your videos in my recommendations. Thank you so much!

I never used to play rotationally to the point where my twins would be so drastically different in age. Ever since I found out about your channel, I've been using a lot of your rules. Rotationally playing hoods, spreadsheets, and favorite colors..! I love everything you do here, but I can't give my poor sims taxes XD I find that playing for a season is the best! Everyone can celebrate holidays together, and 5 days isn't too long for me to get bored :P

I love playing this way because I am a spreadsheet junkie so when I discovered your channel waayyyy back in the day, I immediately fell in love with your play style! But it can get a little wonky sometimes and I'm intimidated by simPE, which makes it a little tricky at times to keep things synced. Thank goodness for season and day changer mods 😂

You inspired me to play the sims 2 again and in this way exactly and I look forward to playing every single day! I always got bored so quickly playing the sims 4

I haven’t played ts2 in a while, but when i revisited it in my adult life (after the sims 3 got so laggy it was impossible) i played pleasantview rotationally and LOVED IT. i always just kept track of how many days each household was played on a piece of paper but i would definitely do spreadsheets in the future! I kept my rotations shorter, around 1-3 days each so that ages/life changes didn’t get too far ahead relative to other households during each one, and i’d always work them around people’s birthdays so that if someone was about to age up (or go to college) i’d end their rotation and then make sure every other household was caught up to the same day before i play them again, so that the neighborhood’s ages were all synced perfectly with each person’s age up (if that makes sense lol)!! I felt that that made it better when there were kids and teens only a few days apart from each other so that their age groups stayed accurate at all times

this is so organized, i play my sims as if its a sims series. I focus heavily on two households at a time, sometimes three depending who the story ties with

I love the enthusiasm that you always have for rotational play Cindy! Though I now use the Story Progression mod, you were the one who got me to try rotational play when I first starting playing Sims 2 about a year ago 😀 Thank you for keeping the love for Sims 2 alive in your own way! ❤️

I play rotationally by weeks from Monday @ 8:00 am to Monday @ 8:00 am. I find that gives me enough time with each family. I keep a spreadsheet too but I see some things from yours I really want to add to mine. I count one year of Uni as one day and I also “stagger” sending the teen sims to Uni to keep their ages properly synced. I keep track of the day of the week I sent the teen to college (4 days before they age to adult) and then calculate the day they should come back. I then either 1. Play the household the sim is moving back to up to the day the graduate will return and then stop or, 2. Use the day setter if the graduate lives alone to put them at the correct day they should be at in the rotation. That works fantastic for me, personally. For example, if Bob lives with his parents and I plan to move him back after Uni, I’ll send him to college four days before he ages up to adult - let’s say Monday @ 8:00 am. I then play Bob’s family up to Friday @ 8:00 am and stop. I then go play Bob through college and once he graduates, I move him back in on that Friday @ 8:00 am, then I finish playing that family for the round. If I decided to change my mind and have him live alone, I’d move him to his own lot and set the day to Friday and play him out for the rest of the week. I’d also go back and finish playing his family.

That is such a cool idea for rotational play and very organized. I play rotationally as well but what I do is when I start a new family the season is summer. Then I play that family until winter. Then save and go to a new family who is on the season Summer and I will keep playing different families until all their seasons match up.

i love how passionate you are about playing as many families and stories as possible

I've pretty much been playing your way for about a year (with spreadsheets and all) and I've never been happier with my game. It's more satisfying, it feels more complete. I used to hate playing in custom neighborhoods and now it's all I do because I feel like I'm doing it right!

It’s nice to watch someone who is as serious about the Sims 2 gameplay as I am☺️

My rotational game actually started with a legacy Challenge. I wanted to make things different and keep the siblings and their families growing up in same pace. Every now and then I have added new blood to the neighborhood, but after about 15 years of playing on and off, you can pretty much find a connection to the original founder of the family, from every single sim in my neighborhood. I do keep very detailed record of the families, I use flashnote to keep up with everything. The duration of one rotation changes up quite a lot, I have had 2 simday (2year) rotation, which makes it easier to also keep up with University, also I have done it with one week (7 simdays), but I prefer the 2-4 simdays. Love that you keep Sims 2 alive here in RU-vid!

I've played rotational gameplay since 2008, but I've never thought to use a spreadsheet. That is brilliant! Usually I just just check the days in each neighborhood I'm playing

This is so cool. I love the spreadsheet idea too, thanks for the tip!

Love to see you making the content YOU love. 💙

I love how much detail and care you put in when you play. :)

I LOOOOOVE how organized this is! Thank you the tips Cindy!

Cindy I’m obsessed with your channel and your current series I’m here for it and I love it 💕

As someone who was already keeping spreadsheets for my games long before I found your channel, Rotational Play slotted in perfectly! Thanks to your channel, I finally found a way to play the Sims 2 in a way that really shows me the full appeal. Before, I played a lot of sims 3 (usually a single family for a legacy), and trying to play the Sims 2 in a similar way just felt like a bit of a downgrade. Now, I've come to really appreciate the existing families, their stories, their struggles, and so on. I tend to play for 4 days, with 4 day seasons. My favourite bit of drama I've had so far was with the Goth family - Cassandra had caught Don cheating on her with Dina, and after he tried to get married to her regardless, SHE left HIM at the altar. A few hours later, after Dina and Mortimer got married, it turned out that she was pregnant by Don. Luckily Mortimer is a total sweetheart and, once he got past his initial anger, he decided to care for the little girl as if she were his own.

Really enjoyed your video, Cindy. Love the new formats.

I’m going through a lot of depression and anxiety right now and I thought this might be a good thing to occupy my mind. I took your recommendation and made a custom hood with two bin families and one sim I made myself. I named my town Distractionville and it’s living up to its name.

I REALLY LOVED THIS VIDEO, DEFS! I'll try this way to play

Your gameplay style makes so much sense and its so much fun! Since your first LP you change the way I play the Sims 2, so thank you so much!

I love how detailed you explained this! I have played this way for awhile but you do it so much better lol

Watching your videos always spurs me on to play my own game!

I love how organized you are!

I got super excited when i saw your t-shirt, I love the last podcast on the left!

Adopting your style of play and it’s sooooo fun! Following your rules especially has been so interesting and a lot of random things I never even thought to do have popped up. Thanks for your website it’s the best!!! ❤️

omg yay!! i’ve been using your rules and rotational play since i found your channel and love it 💘 but i was always confused about how to add in my uni sims or keep their ages the same 😅 thank you for making this in depth vid and all of answering my questions! loving your let’s play vids too ♡

Cindy, you're a legend! I've done almost this same thing for 13 years as well, and always thought I was alone until I found your channel. I started out with making my own first family and growing from there, as I didn't know what I was doing, haha. I'm now almost on my 8th generation and play around 60 households (Not including University households), but for one sim day at a time. Each of my sims have very individual personalities and crazy storylines, so I never get bored. I just don't have as much time to play as I used to! It takes a very specific type of person to enjoy playing like this, but I know there are a lot of us out there! Keep up the LP!

I didn’t know this was even a thing, and I’m so excited to try it out. Thanks for the inspiration!

You have really been pumping out the awesome content lately (I mean, you always do, but *damn*). Thank you so much Cindy!

Cindy, you're magical! Thank you so much for the amount of love and energy you put into Sims 2. Thanks to you I'm back to playing it and I've found another reason to be happy in such dark times. I really wanna try playing rotationally, but I'm waiting to do it with my own neighborhood. I think it'll be a nice change of air for me!

I only recently discovered your channel and now I'm addicted to Sims 2 again :D Thank you so much for these awesome videos

This is giving me ideas to do with my sim 4 households. Loving this content I was so curious

Your username is very apt. Your voice and gameplay is so relaxing! I put a playlist on when I'm working and it makes a stressful day much easier!

This is exactly how I play and it’s so nice to see someone else enjoy this kind of gameplay as much as I do ♥️

love the way you play sims 2 cindy! really makes me want to pick up the game again

Sims 4 can't hold a candle to the Sims 2! I never knew the term "rotational gameplay" until I saw your videos, but this was absolutely way I loved the Sims 2 growing up! Watching the generations grow up and start new families, playing matchmaker with the next round of teens, that was always the fun of the Sims 2 for me. Great video, I definitely learned some tips and inspired me to go back to playing the Sims 2 again!

I was thinking on doing this... thank you! It looks soo much fun!!!

!! Thank you for explaining how to play rotationally because it seems really cool and I'd love to try it

Thank you for this video! I was so surprised and intrigued watching how you played your newest LP! I’ve never heard of this style of Sims gameplay before this but now I really want to try it! Personally I think I’d be okay doing with in tS3 with the story progression. Being present for each important moment sounds really nice but coming back to a family and seeing what fresh new hell they’ve created while I’m gone sounds really fun too lol.

The way you play is very admirable tbh! The amount of dedication

This is so cool! I’ve never heard of this method before. Gonna give it a try 😄 thanks so much for this video!

Thank you for making this guide! I struggle with boredom in the sims, and I feel like this will help keep me engaged.