Another life stage, another character trait. Once again, if you sim has had a very good childhood, you will get to choose what this character trait will be. In Melody's case, we were fortunate and she chose "Angler" to continue her interest in fishing.

Simteens, as I am calling them, are not children but not young adults either. They have a bit of both going for them. They still have school to go to and homework assignments to complete and hand in, but they can also get the opportunity to take part time jobs, deal with what opportunities come their way and to start looking for romantic relationships with other teenagers.

Lifestage Duration - 12 days, which is usually long enough to start to find romance or to get used to going to work.

Education - Simteens still go to school although they get out from school at 2pm, which is an hour earlier than she did before. All part time jobs begin after school finishes for them. However, they still have homework and they still have the honour roll, which affects whether the player gets to choose that fifth trait. What I do find annoying, however, is that their existing academic grade is reset to C. It might be alright if a simkid had bad grades, but if a simkid was already on the Honour Roll, they have to start again in order to get back there.

Opportunities - Simteens are presented with opportunities from time to time. Melody was given a Work/School Learning Project, which it was said would improve her grades. She had to go to the Doo Peas Corporate Towers for some "work experience". Although she found it a bit stressful, she did it nevertheless.

Part Time Jobs - There are various places in Sunset Valley where someone can get part-time employment. These include the Spa, the Bookshop, the Supermarket and the Mausoleum at the cemetary. There are three levels to each job. These are not dissimilar to the teen/elder jobs that were in The Sims 2 although in The Sims 3, part-time jobs are open to everyone. They are just most suited to teenagers. Having a part-time job, however, and trying to keep on the Honour Roll is not an easy task.

Romance - Simteens can now flirt and otherwise engage in romantic interactions with fellow teenagers ... unless the game has been hacked, but as Mr. Springer would say "let's not go there". As things basically stand, teenagers can only romantically interact with other teenagers. Fortunately, as sims grow older together, teenage sweethearts get older together. Ultimately, the romantic goal of the teenager is to get to that first kiss.

Jonah's diligence to his career paid off and he became the Team Captain. However, the situation at home was not improving. Bronwen's new job as back-up vocalist was not going well, mainly because she was not putting in the time to get to know her fellow band members.

Throughout her teenage days, Melody continued to work hard at school. After going into the Divisadero Bookstore to buy a book on fishing so she could find the right bait for goldfish, which is a lettuce, she then asked if there were any part-time jobs going. She was hired immediately, which was to be expected, and was to start on the following Monday at 4pm as a Cash Register Specialist.

Melody worked hard to get back to having an A-Grade and got onto the Honour Roll. However, she was unable to successfully balance the job at the bookstore and her schoolwork. She kept on the Honour Roll for only two days before she started to slip back. Also, she did not feel that she was making any headway at work.

About four days into the working week and just hours after the Llamas won a crushing 13-2 victory, Jonah became an elder. He did not want to give up on his lifetime wish, although he also had a wish to retire. He immediately made some minor changes to try and hide his seniority.

By the end of Melody's first week as being a teenager, she had managed to get back her A-Grade but was feeling miserable. All she wanted to do was sleep when she got back from working at the bookstore. In that week, she had made no real progress towards getting a promotion, nor had she found any opportunity to meet other people. Hopefully, the weekend might make things better.

The weekend ended in tragedy. Jonah took it on himself to try and repair the television and despite getting electricuted once, he continued to try and fix it so that he could see the cooking channel without having to call out a repair man. Instead, he received a call from the Grim Reaper and this one cannot be reasoned with.

The next day, Bronwen "aged up" and immediately took retirement so she could focus on her lifetime wish. She received a pension of §120/day. However, for the first few days, she seemed to spend more of her time improving her artistic skill and selling some of her artwork to help augment their income.

Naturally, she got to work changing how she looked.

Finally, the day came when Melody became a young adult. Having had a successful life, I was again able to pick her next trait ... only to find that the last one when she became a teenager had not been accepted. I have noticed 4-trait adults before and I am somewhat disappointed as I feel that a lot of work has been in vain. So I picked Angler again and when I got the choice of Lifetime Wish, I chose "Presenting the Perfect Private Aquarium" ... just try saying that three times quickly.

We will be looking at Death and the Afterlife in our report on "Weirdness", which will be coming at a later date.

In the next report in this series, we will finally be looking at Story Mode Progression. We will be looking at how to change the active families, finding out what is gained and what is lost during this process and generally seeing how back stories can be built and how the other families are developing.