I’ve been wanting to post something about what I’ve been doing for quite a while now but haven’t because a) I haven’t got anything to actually show you in terms of visuals and b) I’m shy.  There has been a lot of progress though and the exciting development of some new sideline projects.

   
New logo - how do you like it?   It's a draft.  I'm going to have to have a proper version made at a later date.

When I originally made Polgannon as a TS2 neighbourhood, I had lots of ideas, many of which I was unable to implement in the sims game environment as I would have wished.  The essential part of Polgannon – the murder mystery – was there as was the setting and characters but some other features were not.  So, when I left England four years ago and stopped teaching two years ago, I decided to return to it.  I had ideas about making a new version trying to bring in the materials I originally wanted in order to round out the story and complete it to my satisfaction.  I also decided on a new format for it.  So the new version of Polgannon is not a Sims thing – not at all, it’s going to be a standalone story thing and, I hope, interactive – that’s the plan.
 
I have now completely rewritten the story.  The central mystery remains but the characters have been fleshed out considerably, the plot thickened, the setting developed and, I’m pleased to say, I’ve successfully incorporated (I think anyway) most of the things I wanted to include in the original plus added some new material.  The result is much closer to what I originally wanted to achieve.  I’m now at the stage of trying to put it into its final form which is another mountain to climb, not least because I am going to have to learn lots of new skills.  The idea is this is eventually going to be a commercial product though the finish line is still a long way off (and maybe I’ll never get there). 
 
Other projects
Even more exciting (for me), is the development of two new ideas coming out of my work on Polgannon.  One is the Fairplay Mysteries* and the other is a new project based on cold cases.
 
Fairplay Mysteries
The Fairplay Mysteries (its current name though that might change.  It’s already had two or three names) is my first mini project.  This idea developed as I was trying to work out how to make Polgannon’s mystery work: that is to say how to get the interactive story elements to work and allow the ‘reader’ to choose the path they take through the story.  It’s been a bit of a tricky problem but I think I have worked out mostly how to do it. 
 
The Fairplay Mysteries are more like short stories but are also puzzle challenges and I have already got the firm outlines for four of them with two of them more or less fully written.  The first few of these will be free to play as I use the project to work out in detail how I am going to get the story systems to work.  I think eventually I might use these to ask for support as I develop Polgannon which is a much bigger project and more time-consuming and, frankly, I’d like to have a little income to support me while I do it.  I guess I might use Patreon to do this though I don’t particularly like that site. 
 
Second Project
The second new project is less well developed as it is a much newer idea but I have fallen down an absolute rabbit hole recently reading and learning about real cold cases and forensic science.  I already have some ideas about things I might do with that.  In particular, I am finding the ingenious ways you can extract information in an almost academic way from actual data/evidence absolutely fascinating.  I think I might be regressing there to my academic past here but I think it would make for a really interesting format for presenting puzzles to readers.  I don’t have a name for this project yet though: Second Chance Mysteries?  Maybe?  (Suggestions welcome).
 
Upcoming
I really am at a crossroads with these projects.  I have done a lot of writing in the last two years and a lot of research (it’s been fun) but I am just now settling down to work out how it is I am going to present these stories in their final form.  They’re interactive which means they do not come solely in written form.  I’m actually using the Unity game engine to piece it all together.  It’s a challenge for me but I am hoping to get something on the chocks for release later this year.  This will likely be a pair of the Fairplay Mysteries followed by other stories either of the second chance mysteries or more Fairplay.  Polgannon will come at the end of the process and is likely quite a long way off. 
 
If I’m successful, there should be more to follow on (also, there’s been a second Polgannon-type story in my back pocket for some time now).
 
White Willow
Because I’d like to do this as a way of earning a little money for myself (instead of being just an indigent housefrau), I have created a sort of little company for myself.  This will comprise an online entity for me to operate through which is separate from my personal online presence.  The name of the new entity is White Willow.  Further down the line, there will be a website, Discord server and so on. 
 
I’ll post later once these get rolling so you can follow what I’m doing if you like.
 
If you are interested in play-testing the first Playfair Mysteries for me, you can get in touch with me via my email at:
whitewillowstudios@gmail.com
I will be needing some help testing the new systems and will be grateful to anyone who is willing to give me a bit of feedback.
 
* A fair play mystery (whodunnit), is a type of detective fiction where the author provides the reader with all the necessary clues to solve the crime alongside the detective

I was talking once more to Calibrat over at the Sim Crafters Discord about these colours for a model of the 2003 VolksWagen bug.  

   
Colours L-R: Mellow Yellow: Harvest Moon; Cyber Green (back); Galactic Blue (front - this is the Mesh file); Tornado Red; Reflex Silver.

Oddly, Purplepaws seems to have made the recolours as clones rather than actual recolours.  This may be simply an error: they were made pretty early on after all.  Anyway, the Galactic Blue colour is the original mesh and I remade the other colours into proper recolours.  This has two effects: 1. it tidies up the catalogue for these cars since you only get one version in the catalogue itself with the other colours available as regular recolours and 2. it reduces the filesizes of the recolours quite a bit.  These files have not been compressed so might end up an even smaller size if you compress them.  I have used the original names of the colours in the filenames - by which I mean, the colour names as designed by Volkswagen themselves as detailed in the picture caption.  That's the first rar file below.

I also, for fun and because they are SO easy to do here, made some more recolours (if you would like them).  These are also original colours (for the most part) from VW except for the purple and hot pink.  I made those because who doesn't want a purple or hot pink VW bug?  That's the second rar file below.

   
Colours L-R: Black Magic Pearl; Malibu Blue; Metallic Orange; Purple (back); Spice Red (front); Bright Green Pearl; Campanella White; Hot Pink


  0H - MTS - Purplepaws - VW Bug RC.rar (Size: 507.42 KB / Downloads: 490)

  max_Purplepaws_VWBugRC.rar (Size: 12.28 KB / Downloads: 466)

So I was talking to Calibrat about this set of recolours for Parsim's Oxygen Kitchen - quite an old set now but nice.  The set was originally up at asSIMilatedSims (I think that's correct) but the site is long gone.

The recolour set was missing some items plus, as can be seen in the picture below (bottom), the lights must have been made before ceilings were put into the game.  I originally just did a couple of recolours for Calibrat but I've made a few extra adjustments to the set so have put them all up here so people can DL the small corrections and additions if they want to and, of course, to make the set available again for those who want it.

   

Changes and additions include:

New recolours of the slatey grey colours for the 

• dishwasher
  
• island counter
  
• counter with drawers
  

This is my entry for the SimPearls Wallpaper Makes the Room contest for February 2023
   
I have been meaning to post this set for nearly 18 months since I made it but I stopped making stuff for TS2 and didn't finish it.  Well, now I have so here is the set.  It includes the two walls I put in for the contest (above) plus three more pairs (patterned wall with toning plaster).  They are all taken from patterns offered by John Lewis.  For those of you who don't know, this is a large British retailer that specialises in homewares and is thought to be good quality and tasteful without being over posh.  I like the shop anyway.  

  max_JohnLewisFlowerWallpapers.rar (Size: 331.64 KB / Downloads: 46)
The patterns can be found under wallpapers and cost $8, while the plasters can be found under paint and cost $7.  They are Cow Parsley, Pomegranate (the one used in the contest), Pom Pom Pink and Harlequin.  The textures are taken from the John Lewis site though all of them are rather older now.  

Swatch:
   
As is usual with walls I make for TS2, the top of the wall and fittings (crown) are made to work with the ceilings in game and therefore will have a blank strip at the top of the texture.  You can see this if you play with ceilings turned off or if the ceiling is not visible.

Swatch for contest
   

   
(most hated man in Polgannon)

So Polgannon.  I’ve been doing a lot of work on it.  For those of you who have played the neighbourhood (and solved the crime! or tried to anyway), you might think it’s done and dusted and wonder why I’ve been working on it.

Well...

I’ve been thinking about this for ages and it has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  Late last year, I finally launched a new project with Polgannon and its follow-up story Market Bannaby, to convert it into a new format.  I have some very modest financial backing to get me started.  This is going to be a sort of interactive story. 

The work I have done on it has been in developing the end of the story which was (naturally) left open-ended in the Sims version since what I was providing there a neighbourhood to play from the murder of Blaise forward.  Your own version of Polgannon, if you would.  I’ve also done a lot of work on the characters to develop their tales, especially Ruan and Margaret who were deliberately left somewhat blank as characters in the Sims version.  And I have been working on the supernatural theme for the story (yes, there was one) which got somewhat lost in the Sims version because I couldn’t work out how to make it work in the Sims neighbourhood.  It’s the same story but a fuller, more thoroughly realised version of it.

   

I don’t want to say too much about it all at the moment as I’m not sure I can even do this.  But I’ve been having an awful lot of fun planning things and writing stuff.  The aim is to produce something commercial (though I’m hardly expecting it to make my fortune).  I have even set up a Patreon page for the project (NB I am NOT currently looking for Patreons but will post the link later if you’re interested.  I’m not sure I’m going to use Patreon anyway since it doesn’t allow for a zero cost basic level membership).  There’s probably going to be a dedicated website down the line too.  For the time-being though, information about Polgannon will be posted at tflc in this section and also on my Polgannon tumblr here.

There, I did it, I finally made The Annoucement

I’ve been meaning to post this message about changes with me and progress with Polgannon since December but have been finding it difficult to work out what exactly I want to say.

There are a couple of things here: I want to post about what’s happening with Polgannon, which I’m excited about, and to announce my ‘retirement’ from making stuff for Sims 2.

   

Let’s take the latter first.  I’ve been involved with the Sims community since the first game and have been making stuff for Sims 2 from the beginning.  The first version of Polgannon was for Sims 2.  However, I have not really played at all in the last two or three years.  I can’t anymore, I no longer find playing interesting.  I’ve been making simple CC for the last few years but that’s been about it.  I decided finally that I should stop – mainly because I want to concentrate on what’s going on with Polgannon and other stuff in my life (piano is being neglected). 

This does not mean though that I won’t be around because I’ve made a number of friends in the Sims community over the years and I don’t want to lose touch.  It’s also a fact, since deciding to stop that I’ve been making some new walls and pictures. 

This is a bit of a conundrum.  I think what I’m trying to say – or perhaps more importantly tell myself – is that I want to stop ‘officially’ making stuff for the Sims so I’m not always telling myself I need to do something.  I think there’s a good chance I will, in fact, make more stuff for the game but as something I just want to do that day.  The reason I like making walls for the game so much is that I just love messing around with colours and patterns.  It’s a go-to activity when I get stressed or just when I want to do something creative without being serious about it.  So I think I still might be doing more of that but won’t be doing much else – and not on any kind of schedule.

See the Polgannon section for updates about that project.

Isn't that picture hideous?  It's a quick glimpse of stuff I've done over the years.

I posted this on the Polgannon tumblr blog in Decxember 2022 HERE

Polgannon News 1 - December 2022
I have a couple of things to report about Polgannon and, to some extent, something to say about what I’m doing at the moment and will be doing in the future.  I’m going to put the update into two posts to break it all down a bit.  

Polgannon, Hall of Fame and the True Solution!  

   

Polgannon Stream
Earlier this year, Tea Addict – a much loved member of the simming community and Sims 2 streamer – played through Polgannon live on her Twitch stream channel (linky).  I attended most of the streams providing background encouragement and the occasional bit of help.  I really, really enjoyed it.  I’m not kidding.  For me, it was a lovely experience seeing people having fun with something I’d made.

TeaAddict and her cabal of watchers looked at the murder scene, deplored Blaise, collected information from all the residents of Polgannon, went through all the evidence and motives and discussed the many shady and dreadful characters – suspecting many along the way.  However, they worked very, very hard, TeaAddict did her homework(!), they sorted through the evidence and, collectively, they (streamer and watchers) came to a successful conclusion.  Hurrah!  The streams are a lot of fun: lots of laughing, tea drinking and pointing collective fingers at sus characters.  

So following on from that..

Hall Of Fame
Following on from that, the true solution to Polgannon has now been in the public domain for some time.  For this reason, I am now closing the Hall Of Fame with TeaAddict and her stream community members the last on the list of successful solvers. 

This is the final list of successful solvers of Polgannon's mystery (or the ones who contacted me with a proposed solution that was correct):  HERE,   Congrats to them.

This does not mean you cannot contact me, if you want to have a shot at the solution by yourself.  I will still respond with a breakdown of why you are wrong (or possibly right) but I will not now add your name to the list of glory.  Sorry.

The True Solution
Tea Addict has now uploaded all of the streams to her You Tube Channel and you can go and watch them if you’d like to.  If you really just want to know whodunnit, you may want to skip to the final broadcast in the series with the solution:



The point where they actually got to the solution is from about 1hr:20mins.  They’re searching for the murder weapon and find it!  They knew it was there somewhere because it’s in the CC collection for the neighbourhood!  This lead them, bearing in mind the evidence they had uncovered, to the correct conclusion about who it was who murdered Blaise Penhaligan on All Hallows Eve!

TeaAddict’s UTube Channel where you can watch the whole series (along with other things she’s done and is doing) is here.

And her Twitch channel is here.  She broadcasts 2-3 times per week.

These are some recolours of the A, B and C Stroke paintings.  

The yachts was the first picture I thought of doing something with - it's an image from one of those phone picture games I was idly playing to pass some time a little while ago while waiting for an appointment.  I thought when I finished the puzzle: 'you know, that's a pretty nice image.  Looks like a nice watercolour.'  So I used that image and then decided to make a small set of it - the pictures are unrelated but are ones I have collected in recent months that I liked.  

   

There are six paintings in all; two for each painting ('cos I'm a bit tired of having recolours for just the blue one).  They are, from r-l, top-bottom: Sweet Peas; Sea Yachts; Sun on Landscape then Wild Women; Lily Pads and Lake Eyre Coastline.


  max_StrokePaintings.rar (Size: 372.41 KB / Downloads: 571)

This is my entry for the SimPearls' Wallpaper Makes the Room November 2022 

The prompt was "warm and cozy" and having fiddled around a lot with various graphic bits and pieces I decided on entering the gold full panel and half panel wall as seen in the picture (swatch for the contest at the bottom).  But the set was popular with the people I showed it to when it was in progress and so I decided to make a full set using the shaker panelling as the base.  

   

There are now six base colours: black; green; blue; red; cream and gold.  For each colour there is a full panelled wall, a half panelled wall (both of these are found in Panels in game) and a full wallpapered wall using the same crown and skirting (found in Wallpaper).  All cost $8 per panel.

   

As is usual with my walls, they are designed to work with the ceilings in game so the crown will appear to be a little large at the top if viewed from above or without a ceiling showing.


  max_ShakerPanelsWalls.rar (Size: 891.59 KB / Downloads: 875)

Swatch
   

So you might be wondering why Mercer was so bad, what happened to Cecilia and how did the Sororah sisters end up with one dad apiece.  It all started in October 2004.  I managed to get a whole lot of play in in Little Carping, before the release of University in March 2005 when, finally, I brought in some new characters so the following stories are about the early residents of Little Carping.  The Goths, Vaughans and Phoebe Sororah all moved on quite considerably during that very brief time just after the game released and the arrival of the University expansion.  It’s kind of strange writing up these stories more fully after so much time.  The original events were much more fragmented of course, and I kind of melded the sims responses into a story for each family based on my interpretation of what they did.  When I talk about Randolph’s response to Cecelia’s boredom and frustration below, for instance, he did actually have the gall to lecture her one evening.  If I had been Cecelia I would have punched him but she just apologised at the time.  Still, Cecelia’s frustration stuck at home looking after Gunther, as a knowledge sim, was very apparent at the time.

--------------------
 
The senior Goths quickly settled into a large square house (based on their house in TS1) on the most exclusive road (Buckingham Road) in Little Carping.  They had almost no money left after the purchase of the house and grounds and much of the interior was not even furnished but they still just managed to buy it.  Randolph though thought that it was important for them to live in a property commensurate with his social standing and Cecelia’s for that matter – Randolph had married in Cecelia, a scion of the Crumplebottom family of course.

   
 
The house has an impressive entry with two story windows and a double stairway to the upper level.  To the right is a large dining room at the front and a kitchen behind.  The kitchen had some furnishing (in blue!) but the dining room was unfurnished at first.  To the left of the hallway is the lounge (or drawing room probably for the Goths), furnished in red and cream.  This was also unfurnished at first.  Behind that is Randolph’s study and then across the back of the ground floor is a music room (nothing in there at first, LOL) and the downstairs bathroom.  Just in front of that is a set of stairs which lead to the cellars.  Going upstairs, there is also a large landing space with five bedrooms to the sides.  The master bedroom is at the front of the house to the right with an en-suite bathroom.  There is another large bedroom on the left frontage.  Three smaller bedrooms are at the back of the house.  Only two rooms had beds at first – there was nothing else up there apart from bare wooden floors and one small wall light on the landing – they couldn’t even afford to decorate the walls.  Randolph and Cecelia got depressed just going to bed.
 
I’ve always liked having sims earn absolutely everything they have – I don’t use money cheats all that often.  In buying the plot of land and building the shell of the house, the Goths were practically broke.  They had one toilet and a fridge, counter and sink downstairs and a bed and crib upstairs.  There were several rooms where the windows had not been put in and the upstairs landing had no bannisters (so watch your step in the one light dark up there – sadly sims don’t fall off edges).  So although Randolph had a place to live that was sufficiently impressive and reflective of his status as a representative of the Goth family, they were flat broke and he had to get to work pretty quickly. 
 
   
 
Randolph naturally went to see his father

• “I need a job, father”, he said, “or Cecelia and I won’t be able to manage.”

• “You will need to learn the ropes my boy, if you’re to be any use to the firm” said his father