Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip
Of unlucky Sims that found themselves on a doomed ship
The weather started getting rough, the Sims were turned and tossed
And as the game starts out, you see, your whole boat's crew is lost
That's right - The Sims are getting lost in a deserted island in Sims 2: Castaway.
Initially, you'll create one to six different Sims, manipulating everything from their appearance to their personalities by determining what their star sign happens to be. Unlike some of the other Sims titles, you initially select an occupation for each character, which determines their skills at specific activities. For example, Mechanics are good at building new tools and items from materials, while Executives are good at communication and Chefs are obviously skilled in the kitchen. It's up to you to figure out how many Sims you want on this voyage; some players may find that having a Tom Hanks "Castaway"-style experience is a much more engaging time, while others may want to embark on a Gilligan's Island-like adventure, selecting a primary Sim to play with. Regardless of what you choose, your story unfolds in pretty much the same way; told via cell phone photos, you see your Sims having fun on the boat until they're thrown from the vessel in the middle of a storm. (It's strange to see a phantom photo taker snapping shots if you're the only one on the boat, but I digress…)
Eventually, you find the Sim character that you selected wakes up on a beach without any of their friends apparently nearby. It's here that the game begins, with your character trying to find a way to eke out an existence on this deserted island, hopefully find their friends and eventually figure out a way to leave for civilization. Of course, doing this is a pretty daunting task for just about anyone, even an experienced survivalist. To get around this concept, Castaway introduces a series of books that your Sim stumbles across. Apparently, your island has had its fair share of shipwrecked inhabitants, and the books that are scattered around indicate a number of goals to for your Sim to accomplish. These range from rather basic goals, such as making a basic fire pit to warm your Sim on cold nights to more elaborate ones, such as building shelter from the elements. There are even more fantastical tasks, such as gathering pieces of treasure maps and hunting for lost gold that you can take on.
While having these guidebooks is a decent way of pointing out some of the goals that you need to accomplish, they tend to be within the realm of too easy to accomplish or very distant checkpoints to fulfill. As a result, you may discover that you crank through multiple objectives at the beginning of the game, feeling like you're completing many tasks, only to slam into a brick wall because a large number of projects will require much more skill in certain traits than your Sims currently have. As a result, the game then grinds to a halt as you sit and try to figure out what you have to do to reach the next milestone, before picking back up again. What's worse, you only receive an indication that you've gained a brand new skill level once in the game, making it very hard to know if you can proceed in the game by building new items or acquiring new tools.
Tools are the key to help you through your island existence, but you won't simply find these items washing up onshore from the wreckage of your boat. Instead, you'll need to acquire items in your surroundings, such as bamboo, vines and palm fronds to create different objects. However, you can't simply make things at will - you'll need to acquire plans for different items based upon the resources you gain and the skill that you have. These blueprints dictate what you need, where you can build these items and what skill level you'll need to successfully create them. There are fifteen separate categories that you can build items from, ranging from tools and clothing to furniture and building walls.
