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The Sims 4’s new Nifty Knitting pack is too realYearning for yarn

Yearning for yarn

The Sims 4seems to be pivoting toward content that is, firstly, tailored specifically to my interests, and, secondly, designed to allow the creation of strange and reclusive weirdos. Whilst EA’sattempt at a new reality show about playing The Simsrumbles on in the background, and after the Eco Lifestyle expansion pushed me towards creatinga stinky, trash-gobbling Oscar the Grouch, here comes new Stuff Pack Nifty Knitting.

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I started crocheting last Christmas, because the only thing in the room I stayed in at my mum’s house apart from a bed, and a book about Victorian torture, was a kit to make some Star Wars amigurumi (little stuffed crocheted or knitted figurines). Cut to: me untangling a four-strand cotton thread while watching the Sopranos, because I have to finish this shawl before I can finish the project that is going to be a project basket to put my unfinished projects in. There are, right now, three large sacks of yarn behind my sofa. Eventually it gets to the point that making something called a Fandango Bobble Cape seems like a rational thing to do.

So it goes, it seems, in The Sims. Like all Stuff Packs, this one adds a clutch of new things for Create A Sim (mostly hideous knitwear, obviously), as well as some cute new build items for Sims to use as a signal that they are well into crafts. It’s mostly pastel shades of shelving with lots of clutter slots, but I love the clutter bits themselves - project bags and half-finished knits and so on. There are also four different rocking chairs, the better for sittin' and knittin' in.

I love this project bag, specifically because it includes a crochet hook and that’s the thing that I thing!

A screenshot of some new furniture from The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting, showing a new sideboard from the stuff pack that has lots of little cubbies for craft things. On top of it is a pot of flowers and a drawstring bag full of balls of wool, with crochet hooks and knitting needles in pockets on the side.

I randomised a Sim with some of the new CAS items, built them a home with the new pre-designed granny cave living room, put all the Nifty Knitting furniture in, and set them a-knitting. So far, so good, so “oh yeah, I got it from a market stall, it’s a plant pot made of wool”.

The craft-obsessional issues arise with the new Aspirations, life goals you can build into your Sim when you create them. With Nifty Knitting, you can give your Sim the Aspiration of Lord/Lady of the Knits, which basically translates to “I want to knit a load of shit all day, every day, forever.”

When it snowed on my knitted mailbox all I could think about was it getting wet and slowly rotting over years because it would never get thrown away.

A knitted mail box cover from The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting. It is purple, with a knitted striped roof in pink, purple, turquoise and yellow, and has fake flowers made from yarn also. No real person would have this outside their home. Also, it has been dusted with fresh snow.

Also, many of the things you can make are actually lovely, particularly the little toys. Here is an extremely cute little tortoise that has a strawberry shell. I love it.

A screenshot from The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting showing a tiny tortoise plushie made of wool. It has pink skin and a red shell with seeds and leaves on top like a little strawberry. And it is smiling because it is very cute.

That is, however, the only thing in her life my Sim does at all. Nifty Knitting turned her into a weird knitting obsessive who sleeps at odd hours, gets up fretfully in the night and takes naps at 6am, discards meals in the middle of eating them even if she is at the point of starvation, abruptly hangs up phone calls, and eschews getting dressed even in the middle of winter. She just returns, like a moth drawn to a terrible flame, to her rocking chair, cold, hungry, bereft of social contact. And she knits.

OH GOD

A screenshot showing a rocking chair in The Sims 4 Nifty Knitting. The action radial menu is open to ‘Resume Knitting Project’ over it. There are many projects to resume, including ‘Black & Grey Women’s Sweater With Dress’, ‘Teal & Yellow Bear Beanie’ and ‘Medium Length Pink Plant Hanger with A Brown & White Pot’. In the bottom left corner, the Sim’s character portrait is looking sad and stressed.

And it’s not even my fault! I’m not making her do this! All my time goes into making her attend to her basic needs beyond knitting! I cannot begin to make you understand how hard it is to make this woman eat an entire sandwich. She will walk away from it four or five times and have to have her faced pushed into it, like how you teach a puppy to wee on newspaper, before she will finish it.

It’s basically an extremely specific horror story. You have wandered the wrong way in a quiet neighbourhood, possibly after leaving a party, and find yourself trekking through a field that… wait, it’s not a field, it’s an untended garden, and there’s a house with a light on. But it’s 4am! Who would still be awake now? And as you approach, the snow muffling everything, you hear just one sound. An unceasingcreak… creak…. creak. Dare you peep through the window to see?

Like, yes, she can make herself a jumper of Excellent quality. But at what cost? AT WHAT COST?

The Sim stands proudly in front of a craft shelf that has rolls of ribbon, some wool, and some project baskets in its shelves and cubbies. She is wearing a red knitted jumper with an inbuilt charcoal grey scarf. She looks proud of her weird knitting life.

Anyway, the Sims Nifty Knitting Stuff Pack is out now for £10/€10/$10, viaOriginandSteam, and it’s pretty great. If you like knitting. If you don’t, it’s probably super weird.