Happy Birthday the ‘The Sims‘ series! You re 20 years old today, which means you re finally old enough to throw an old boot full of soup right at a cop s head, and be totally immune to prosecution (seriously, it s true! If you didn t know about that lil trick, you should try it). You re also old enough, apparently, to have released an unfeasible number of spinoffs, ports, add-ons and DLC packs over the years: I just checked out your wikipedia page to remind myself how many games had been released under the name, and had to have a little shout because I was so surprised.

I never really played you much, if I m honest. I had some fun with your original instalment in 2000, but the only thing I remember doing is making a bloke called something like Pete Strongman or Grief Wellington or whatever, who lived in a grey cube just large enough for him to lift weights in 24 hours a day, while occasionally bursting into fits of racking sobs, or thinking about the army. Now I think about it, I basically delivered the definitive roast on incel culture, years ahead of time. Anyway, even though my only experience of the series was unwittingly creating Jordan Peterson s soul 20 years ago, here I come with 10 ideas – one for every two years of your beautiful life – for what form the much-discussed Sims 5 should take.

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A year ago or so, I re-downloaded The Sims. My partner and I wanted a low-effort game to play together, and I introduced them to the life-changing videogame craze: Make yourself in The Sims and live the life you ve always wanted!!! We made ourselves, built a beautiful little home, and adopted a cat. I became a professional writer or something, and they went into the Music Industry. We sputtered and blustered when our Sims declared to us, through the magic of in-game whims, that they wanted to get married. I quickly red-X ousted those desires from our Sims minds. Instead of acknowledging their desire for wedding bells, I had our Sims adopt a dog. That sinking feeling remained, however, and much like the incisive qualities of predictive text and pre-cog algorithms, I began to question how serious our relationship was. Let me repeat: The Sims made me reevaluate the seriousness of my very happy and committed long term relationship with its terrifying-yet-compelling simulacra. Y all. This game is haunted.

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