Last week Windows Phone Central brought you a guide to the In-App Purchases of The Sims FreePlay for Windows Phone 8. Today we’re back with part one of our exclusive and thorough Achievement Guide! It will take many, many hours to get The Sims FreePlay’s 200 GamerScore, but we’ll help you do it.
Before we get to the strategies, note that Sims FreePlay does have some Achievement glitchiness. The game MUST be connected to Xbox Live in order for an Achievement to unlock. Sometimes it drops the connection during gameplay – without warning the player. If that happens, any Achievements you unlock won’t count.
To avoid unlocking Achievements while offline, always save and exit the game by pressing the Save and Exit button at the bottom right corner of the main menu. You can also do this right before you expect to earn an Achievement. That way, whenever you restart the game you’re sure to be connected.
Buildings required for Achievements
Here’s a handy town map I made and the list of buildings you’ll need to buy. Use it as an early roadmap towards the Achievements; you should buy every one of these buildings before the others unless required to do otherwise by a goal.
- Science Lab
- Hobby Store or Park (not required but recommended)
- School
- Children’s Store (not required but recommended)
- Community Center
- Pro Skater’s Dream Pad
- Car Dealership (or Mansion)
Miscellaneous Achievements
Lucky Dog!
Have a dog dig up 1 lifestyle point.
The first Achievement you’ll earn is a total gimme. A stray dog will move into your first home early in the game. It digs up items every minute or so; tap the dig icon that appears above the dog before it disappears. The first thing it should dig up will be a free Life Point. Dogs and cats can find Life Points later on too, but it doesn’t happen very often.
Ka-Boom!
Get 5 Sims promoted to Mad Scientist at the Lab.
The first building you buy should be the Science Lab. Then have your first five Sims start to work there by tapping the Job (briefcase) icon from the sidebar on the left side of the screen. The Scientist job has five levels to progress through:
- Test Subject – Pays 250 Simoleons and 400 XP per day of work
- Lab Assistant – Pays 350 Simoleons and 500 XP per day of work
- Science Teacher – Pays 450 Simoleons and 650 XP per day of work
- Inventor – Pays 600 Simoleons and 900 XP per day of work
- Mad Scientist – Pays 1,000 Simoleons and 1,150 XP per day of work
Your Sims earn experience in a career by attending work or using work-related hobby items. Using a hobby item doesn’t pay money, but it will help advance in a job far quicker than actually attending the job.
The scientist’s hobby items are the Chessboard and Telescope. You can buy a Chessboard from the Living Room section of the Home Store for 300 Simoleons or the Telescope from the Hobby Store for 3,490 Simoleons. Two Sims can share a Chessboard.
To make this Achievement go faster, buy 2-3 Chessboards and tell your scientists to use them repeatedly until they reach Mad Scientist rank. The Park includes several free Chessboards to use in its northwest corner, if you want to be really conservative.
Life of Excess-
Buy the Pro Skater’s Dream Pad.
The Pro Skater’s Dream Pad house costs Life Points to build. The costs of all buildings goes up as you progress through the game, so I suggest buying this one as early as possible in order to conserve Life Points in the future.
You can build the Dream Pad on a regular or premium lot. The cost for premium is a little higher, but it gives you a much larger yard to work with. Because you’ll generally use this as one of your main houses, you might find the extra space useful for assigning multiple Sims to gardening or outdoor hobbies.
The Achievement SHOULD unlock after moving a Sim into the home (as it did for me). This one has been particularly troublesome for some users though. If it doesn’t unlock the first time, all you can do is buy another house and try again.
Deep Pockets
Save 50,000 simoleons.
Just earn 50,000 Simoleons over time or purchase a large Simoleon package in the store. We outline the various ways of making money in our In-App Purchase Guide.
When you have the time to pay close attention to your Sims, having multiple Sims hunt ghosts is a great way to make money. As long as one Sim has reached the maximum level of ghost hunting, everyone can find high level ghosts. You’ll need one haunted item per ghost hunting Sim for this method. When you don’ have much time for your Sims, gardening is the best money maker.
Activity Achievements
100 Miles
Drive a total of 100 miles.
There are two ways to get a car: build the Car Dealership or buy a house that comes with one (the Mansion). Because the Mansion is so expensive, the dealership is the faster option. But this isn’t a super time intensive Achievement, so saving up for the Mansion might be the more fruitful choice in the long run. If you buy the dealership, the least expensive Prius will cost 8,900 Simoleons.
After acquiring a car and assigning it to a Sim, it will appear in front of that Sim’s home. Have any Sim select the car to take it for a drive, which lasts for three minutes. You can follow the car around on the map and tap the music notes its produces for money, but it’s not necessary or especially profitable.
You can’t actually track distance driven. Just send the Sim driving repeatedly and the Achievement should unlock after 30-45 minutes.
Popcorn, Anyone?
Watch 8 movies.
You can choose to watch a movie by choosing the appropriate option after selecting a television. The Marathon option does not count towards this Achievement.
Multiple Sims viewing the same movie will only count as one movie watched. But you can make it go faster by purchasing multiple TVs and assigning a Sim to each one. The Achievement should pop after the eighth movie finishes.
The Diet Ends Here
Bake 5 chocolate puddings.
After a while you’ll receive a goal to buy a stove. Once you own one, you should be able to bake a chocolate pudding. It takes two hours to bake one. To speed this up, you could buy multiple ovens in order to bake more than one pudding at a time.
Sim Negotiator
“Negotiate” with 3 Man-Eating Plants.
When you plant genetically modified seeds, there’s a significant chance that a Man-Eating Plant will grow in place of one of the target fruits or vegetables. The tomato is the first genetically modified plant you can get. It takes six hours to grow.
Once your modified plant is ready to harvest, a Man-Eating Plant might grow. If it does, your only choice is to negotiate with it. You can speed up the process by having multiple Sims plant modified seeds; the Gardening Patch is actually quite cheap.
To be continued
That’s all for part one of our guide, boys and girls. Check out Part Two and our full review. And don’t miss our Sims FreePlay In-App Purchase guide!
- The Sims FreePlay – Windows Phone 8 (1 GB of RAM) – 427 MB – Free – Store Link
