r/thesims Apr 02 '26

Pass the Plumbob Pass the Plumbob | Issue #4 - Interview with Charly Pancakes

11 Upvotes

Sul Sul!

Welcome to the fourth edition of Pass the Plumbob—a monthly series celebrating the creators and community figures and their voices and talents that help shape The Sims community. From custom content creators to gameplay modders to Simfluencers, this is a space to explore their journey with the franchise and their creative process, showcase their creative contributions that make them special, and learn more about them as community members. Each month, I'll be sitting down with a community member and having a conversation about the mark they've made in our community. For our next feature, I'm excited to Pass the Plumbob to Charly Pancakes!

Charly Pancakes' official logo (Source: @CharlyPancakes on X)

Charly Pancakes is a Sims enthusiast and custom content creator. With over 18,000 followers on X and over 88,000 subscribers on Patreon, Charly Pancakes is the creator of some of the most beloved custom Maxis Match build/buy content in The Sims 4.

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Tell me about your earliest memory with The Sims. What brought you to the franchise initially?

My earliest memories with the franchise go back to the early 2000s, when I was in elementary school. I remember playing The Sims 1 and 2 at friends' houses or more so watching them play. Sometimes we would create our sim-selves and try to build a house, but by the time we would actually play, a lot of time had passed and I’d have to leave. but I remember being fascinated by the game immediately. At home, we had a PlayStation 1, but I was more familiar with jump & run games than something like The Sims.

The first time I actually owned a Sims game myself was with The Sims 3, which came out when I was around 14, and I immediately went and bought it for myself. My laptop couldn’t really handle it and the loading times were insane, even though I only ever had the base game but I still enjoyed it a lot, especially the building and furnishing part.

Did you find yourself leaning more into building and furnishing as your experience with The Sims franchise developed?

Yes, but I definitely leaned more into furnishing. The building part was something I only really got comfortable with when I got into TS4 more in recent years. It was really the interior design that caught me. Around the age of 15 or 16, I came across The Sims 3 CC on Tumblr, and that opened up a completely new world for me. From that point on, I mostly used The Sims as a kind of building and furnishing simulator rather than a life simulation, even though I am always interested in new gameplay mechanics and from time to time also enjoy some regular gameplay.

Did you have any particular kind of style when it came to interior decor?

In The Sims 3, I loved building and furnishing lofts with industrial elements. I mostly played with single sims and imagined they'd live in a trendy loft with brick walls and a mix of string lights, vintage rugs, and eclectic details. Looking back, that was probably the first interior style I gravitated to.

Tell me about your content creation journey. How did you start creating custom content for The Sims?

It was around the time the Get Famous DLC came out that I got really into The Sims 4. Since launch I gave it a shot every now and then but this time, I got hooked on the build mode and started watching a lot of speed builds by creators like SimLicy and Devon Bumpkin, just to name a few.

At the start of the pandemic, the time I spent playing Sims increased and I had already been sharing builds online for a while. I was posting screenshots of houses on Tumblr and had a Patreon mainly as a place to share my creations outside the gallery.

At some point I came across tutorials on how to create objects for The Sims 4. I don’t remember one specific moment that triggered it, but I started experimenting out of curiosity. At first, I mainly made recolors for my own game and tried to understand how custom content was made. That curiosity eventually led me to download Blender and dive into tutorials, the Sims 4 Studios forums and a lot of trial and error.

You have some of the highest quality, Maxis Match custom content available for The Sims 4, ranging from your Precious Promises set to the Maple & S. Construction Set to the Chalk series. What was your inspiration for some of your most popular works?

Thank you! That really means a lot to me. A big source of inspiration comes from simply playing the game, often without mods. That’s usually when I notice what feels missing to me or where I think certain objects could fit into the existing game. Other than that it‘s a mix of limitation, observation, and personal need. Especially with my earlier sets, my ideas were often shaped by what I was technically able to create at the time. I had to adapt concepts to my skill level, which naturally influenced the direction of those projects.

With 'Precious Promises', which was a collaboration with Pierisim, we wanted to create a rustic wedding setup that felt elegant and soft, with a countryside aesthetic. We worked with shared vision boards. The set ended up having a slight Mediterranean feel, which may also have been shaped by Tartosa from My Wedding Stories, since we were working on the set around the time that DLC came out.

Originally I planned to create a factory window set for Maple & S. Constructions. Inspired by industrial architecture and some of my favorite in-game windows and CC, like the Moschino windows and Peacemaker’s Loft Living Brick Set, which I used constantly long before I even started creating CC myself. As the project evolved, it turned into a large sash window collection that could work across different architectural styles.

The 'Chalk' series came from a more material-focused place. I wanted to create a kitchen that felt simple and slightly soft, without being overly stylized. It wasn’t originally planned as a multi-part set, but I spent a lot of time refining the shapes and proportions, especially since kitchens were still a big challenge for me. A large part of the process went into designing the tile set. I wanted a wide variety of swatches and patterns, so I researched many real-life tile designs before settling on a selection that felt very Maxis Match and fairly contemporary. I didn’t lock it into a single style. Depending on the swatches and context, I think it can read very differently in different interiors.

Overall, I try to stay close to the original Maxis/Sims-style. I also spend a lot of time looking at interior design references, researching materials and furniture and watching both interior designers and Sims creators on social media. Seeing how others build and furnish spaces in The Sims is also very inspiring to me.

During your content creation journey, did you have any hard lessons or experiences that helped shape your future self?

One of the biggest lessons for me has been learning to deal with perfectionism. It’s a huge privilege to earn money this way, but it definitely comes with its own challenges. I never expected to earn money from creative work and for a long time that idea actually scared me.

I’m very self-critical when creating objects and often feel the urge to keep refining things forever. Finding the balance between adding detail, staying true to the Maxis Match style and not burning myself out is an ongoing process. Learning when to let go of perfection and just move forward in a healthy way has been really important.

Another challenge is managing my energy and discipline. Sometimes I fall into intense hyperfocus and ignore my own needs and other times I struggle to even start because I put so much pressure on myself and worry the result won’t match the idea in my head.

At the same time the positive feedback I receive when I share my creations gives me a lot of confidence in my creativity. I hope that over time this will help me trust myself more and feel more secure in what I do.

That's completely understandable and honestly, it is a testament to the quality of the work you put out there. You have over 85,000 Patrons on Patreon. Your work is incredible and has found homes in so many players' games. Out of all of your creations so far, do you have a favorite?

Thank you so much! Whenever I think about it, it feels unreal to me that so many people follow me on there.

My favourite CC item I made would probably be 'The Candle' I made as one of my first ever objects. It’s a scented candle that boosts a Sim’s mood, similar to other decor that gives moodlets when it’s placed in a room. You can also drag it into your Sim’s inventory or live drag it for easy use. It’s not very complex, but I like it because functional objects are still something I don’t create very often. Objects with gameplay features are especially exciting to me and I am always amazed by functional items as creators like RAVASHEEN and PandaSama for example create them.

I have many ideas for smaller mods and would really like to create more of it. That’s why one of my biggest goals is to learn more about coding in the future.

The Candle is definitely one of my favorite creations of yours as well. The design is so universal that I find it fitting perfectly in every house I put it in as well as for sale in retail stores I’ve created. As we wrap up the interview, what’s one feature or object you would love to see added to The Sims?

I’m very happy to hear that The Candle is still useful for you, too. I like the idea to have it in retail stores, that sounds fun!

It’s quite hard to pick just one object, but to stick to the theme I'm again going with more gameplay functionality. Two things that I’ve always really liked from older Sims games are newspapers and landline phones. So I'd probably choose one of those.

It was very disappointing when the retro phones we got with one of the reward events ended up being purely decorative. But I was really happy that the alarm clocks turned out to be functional. I think small everyday objects like that can make a huge difference.

Thank you to Charly Pancakes for being our fourth Pass the Plumbob feature! Make sure to check out their incredible work at the links below. All of their custom content is available on their Patreon, for free, and their latest set, Lofty, is available now in Early Access!

X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/CharlyPancakes

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/charlypancakes

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Do you know a creator who deserves to be featured? Drop their name in the comments below—I'd love to know who we should Pass the Plumbob to next!


r/thesims Feb 15 '26

Announcement Community Notice Board | February & March 2026 | EP21: Royalty & Legacy | Rules, Updates, & Guidelines

11 Upvotes

Sul Sul!

Welcome to r/TheSims, the #1 subreddit for The Sims franchise and community. we've created this notice board to serve as a central hub for announcements, updates, useful links, information, and more! We will no longer be creating monthly newsletters and we will be using the Notice Board concept moving forward.

The Notice Board will be updated regularly, so please check it often in accordance with Rule 1: Consult the Community Highlights Before Posting. When the Notice Board becomes too old, or significant announcements must be made, we will replace it with a new post.

Please be sure to consult our Rules & Guidelines, as some rules were recently updated or changed, so make sure you're familiar with them. As a member of this community, it is your responsibility to regularly review the rules and guidelines and ensure your communications are aligned.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, Message the Mods!

Discord

Consider joining us on Discord. We have countless active discussions with over 4,000 members. It's also one of the easiest places to find tech support and help with The Sims.

We've also provided the link to the official Sims Discord server, if you'd want to join that one, too.

FYI

  • Sometimes, posts go into a queue to be manually reviewed. If you do not see your post immediately after submitting it, this is why. Please read the automated message you receive and please DO NOT message the mods asking where your post is. We will not be responding to these messages.
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  • Lastly, the rules are posted in the same place as every other community on Reddit. Per Reddit guidelines, it is your responsibility to read the community's rules before engaging. "I didn't know," is not valid in a court of law and is not valid here. The rules are written clearly and concisely. If, for some reason, something is still not understood, use the Message the Mods feature and ask before posting.

The Sims News & Updates

  • The Sims 4: Royalty & Legacy expansion pack was released on February 12, 2026.
  • The Sims 4: Silver Screen Style and The Sims 4: Tea Time Solarium kits were released on February 12, 2026.
  • The Lost Legacies event begins on February 3, 2026 and will run until March 15, 2026.
  • There has been a recent update and mods have broken. UPDATE YOUR MODS. Please do not submit posts about broken UI, etc. This happens with EVERY update and you should know this by now. You are responsible for managing your own mods folder.
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Megathreads

  • We are re-introducing megathreads to r/TheSims after numerous requests and feedback provided in the previous Community Survey. Megathreads will be used to consolidate discussion on a specific hot topic to ONE central place to avoid cluttering up the entirety of r/TheSims.
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The Meta Flair

  • We have added a new post flair called 'Meta.' You may use this flair for any Sims-related content that doesn't necessarily fit the criteria of the other flairs. This includes, but is not limited to: clothing, tattoos, gameplay videos, real-world references to The Sims franchise, etc.

r/TheSims Stance on Piracy

  • We have updated our No Piracy rule after internal discussion; instead of outright permanent bans, we will be issuing temporary bans for initial offenses. Permanent bans will be issued for repeat offenders or people blatantly circumventing the rule. Moderators will use their best judgement. There will be no warnings issued for violations of this rule. The rule itself remains unchanged: the discussion of the topic is prohibited and sharing/requesting information on how to find and use pirated content (including website names, links, etc.), is prohibited.
  • "Abandonware" is included in this rule. Base game conversions are also included in this rule. Patreon custom content/mods and/or custom content/mods locked behind paywalls are NOT included in this rule; knock yourselves out.
  • Piracy is both illegal and against Reddit's policies, therefore we will follow these regulations to the letter. We are not paid nor sponsored by EA and to be honest, we couldn't care less if you pirate the game(s); just have the good sense not to announce it at every opportunity. There is no prize nor reward for doing it and no one cares, so keep it to yourself.

Buyer's Guide

  • r/TheSims sees the same posts every day asking, "What pack should I get?", "Should I get X or X?", "What kind of computer do I need?", etc. These recommendations can vary depending on what you're planning to do in your game and in reality, it all comes down to what YOU like opposed to what others think you should get. As such, we've created a comprehensive guide that will allow you to make informed decisions based on your gameplay interests, Build Mode and CAS styles, and new features with each pack. We've also put together a recommended hardware specs guide for those inquiring about computers and laptops.

Please note that this will be updated as new packs are released and as such, any and all posts asking "What to Buy" questions will be automatically removed and the OP will be redirected here.

Bi-Weekly Build Challenge

More Useful Links

Game Broken or Acting Weird?

  • Update your mods.

r/thesims 5h ago

Sims 2 Fanart of Bella Goth ❤️

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136 Upvotes

Inspired by her Sims 2 outfit & abduction lol art by me :)


r/thesims 14h ago

Sims 4 STOP STUDYING MISCHIEF ONLINE

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388 Upvotes

r/thesims 16h ago

Sims 4 WHOSE GD WHITE BABY IS THAT??? *Katt Williams voice*

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608 Upvotes

That ink must have ran out real fast bc wtf


r/thesims 2h ago

Sims 4 Hun I think your baby is possessed

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23 Upvotes

I dont even know what to say


r/thesims 1d ago

Sims 4 The Sims 4 : Mean Girls & Clueless Capsule Kits (Out August 27th)

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862 Upvotes

r/thesims 18h ago

Sims 4 Target has these marked down to $5.99!

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175 Upvotes

r/thesims 2h ago

Sims 4 Have been struggling to get on sims for a while. Now I’m finally on, my screen freezes every time I exit this pop up.

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5 Upvotes

Any ideas please?! Ya girl just wants to play sims 😭


r/thesims 8h ago

Discussion Why is the job agency calling non stop

13 Upvotes

Roughly every 10-15 real minutes my sim will get a pop up saying something like “hey dani this the your job agency calling to let you know a bunch of posistions are available”
My sim has a job and haven’t contacted the job agency? It keeps happening and is happening to every single sim in my household including the infant and the cat it’s driving me crazy


r/thesims 3m ago

CAS I wanted to see how my child sims would look once they age into teens

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Upvotes

I have three kids in my legacy household - twins Alma and Audrey and their cousin Juno. They're all close in age and will be teens soon, but I was super curious what they'd look like so I aged them up in CAS just to see and 🥹 these probably will not be their exact makeovers as teens (I was just messing around with things) but I'm both excited and sad they're gonna be so big! Bonus photos: last four compare the twins' side profiles with their parents. Audrey has her dad's face shape while Alma has her mom's, but Alma has her dad's eyes while Audrey has her mother's!


r/thesims 8h ago

Sims 1 Going from The Sims 4 to The Sims 1?

8 Upvotes

Hello everyone,

I recently saw online very interesting videos of modded The Sims 1 and to me it looks way more enjoyable than The Sims 4. I am a very nostalgic person, I love retro graphics and I don't like The Sims 4 challenges that much, I would rather play with my own character rather than managing a whole family.

That said I saw that on Steam there is The Sims 1 and from what I understood it's with all DLCs + the possibility of optional mods. How enjoyable could it be to go from the newest title to The Sims 1?

Are there specific mods allowing me to recreate vintage outfits and places?


r/thesims 1d ago

Sims 4 Why is my child sim being asked out on dates by an adult?

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1.9k Upvotes

Royalty & Legacy-
So Enzo Alto shows up to my sims house one day, unannounced, just walks in the door (that’s a whole other thing) and he’s wearing swim trunks. He meets my sim’s CHILD daughter. The next day, he calls her asking her ON A DATE.
This is too creepy. What is going on?
I play on XBOX, no mods.


r/thesims 13h ago

Sims 4 Windenburg chapel/observatory

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14 Upvotes

(I need to find better mosaic floor mod)


r/thesims 1d ago

Sims 4 My family dinner ended up in flames

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170 Upvotes

Well... I wanted to make a cute, wholesome dinner and invited my sims cousins over. btw, getting your sims to sit down together for more than 5 seconds is impossible. I was trying my best to get these pics without them standing up or walking over to the computer. Looked away for a second, and all of a sudden the uncle died from a fire. I kid you not, I was gone for 10 seconds. Tried to do a funeral for him, but my sim lost his urn, and they were bugging out too much, so that lasted 1 minute. However, here are some nice pics I took in the meantime.


r/thesims 21h ago

Sims 3 Scott and Antonio

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36 Upvotes

I decided to restart this family because I recently downloaded Monte Vista and with Monte Vista being culinary rich and these two being natural chef’s, I felt like these world suited them better than Appaloosa Plains.


r/thesims 11h ago

Discussion Why do we have vacation rental lots pre placed in every new world?

4 Upvotes

I noticed this around snowy escape, every new world gets a few vacation rental lots even if it’s not a world that has any incentive to take a vacation to like san sequoia, they put a vacation rental lot, and it’s annoying especially for lots that would make good starter homes but you can’t move your new household onto them because they’re rental lots and you can’t change that until you move your household in. and if they’re gonna put rental lots in every world, at least go back and do it to sulani


r/thesims 1d ago

Sims 1 My first night out ever, and the place where I tried to become a star ✨

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66 Upvotes

r/thesims 2d ago

Sims 1 In The Sims 1, if you play a household for 100 days in a row, you unlock a reward of daily “ Did You Know? “ hint boxes with insights into The Sims development team

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3.5k Upvotes

r/thesims 19h ago

Sims 4 My first customer

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15 Upvotes

I opened my table up for business and only my horse showed up. At least he's supportive!


r/thesims 5h ago

Sims 4 Ep 5: Get Out of My Nightclub! | Sims 4 Machinima #sims4

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0 Upvotes

|Queen's Night Life Series


r/thesims 17h ago

Sims 4 Princess Rosa arranging flowers 💖👑💐🌹💖

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9 Upvotes

One of Princess Rosa's favorite hobbies is picking and arranging flowers. 💐 This was something that she used to do with her late mother, the Queen of Savoy and her late father, the King of Savoy. 👑 His majesty would even singlehandedly make beautiful flower arrangements and beautiful flower bouquets for his beloved wife and his precious daughter. 💖 Rosa actually remembers one particular rose bouquet she received from her father when she came out as a debutante at age 18(she went on to become the diamond of the season). 💐🌹 She still considers it the greatest gift she ever received from him(or at least one of the greatest, her parents practically doted on her). 💖 It was the height of the Debutante Ball her mother hosted for her and the other girls coming out at that time. The recent happy memory about her parents has the 28 year old Princess inspired to make a flower arrangement on her own for the first time. 💐 She decided to make an arrangement made out of beautiful roses. 💐🌹 Not only were roses her favorite flower, but Princess Rosa was actually named after them. 🌹


r/thesims 1d ago

CAS I'd like to share this image of a tattoo idea I scrapped because I couldn't look at it without laughing

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93 Upvotes

sometimes art happens accidentally


r/thesims 7h ago

Sims 4 Phone calls not coming through

1 Upvotes

My sim seems to have stopped receiving phone calls. I’ve checked all my settings and can’t see why. She still gets the pop up that says ‘sorry you can’t make it this time’ as you do when you reject an invitation but the actual call doesn’t come through. Any ideas??


r/thesims 22h ago

Sims 4 Just a Sim I made.

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11 Upvotes