Grace Duncan on gaming

  I am a gamer. I love playing video games, though I have limitations on which ones I can play. I don’t do well in first-person. My brain and my stomach disagree on what is happening. However, there are still quite a few games I can play and one of my favorites is The Sims (currently mostly The Sims 3). There seem to be a few very specific types of Sims players. There are those who get into the content creation side of it and spend way more hours designing and building extra stuff for the game than they do actually playing. There are those who, of course, actually play, making the Sims in the game go through daily life (and/or kill them by removing the ladder from a swimming pool or the door from a room…). And then there’s the third type, lovingly referred to as The Sims Architect. I fall into this third category. I love building houses in The Sims, especially the houses and locations in my books. I’ve done it a few times. My latest creation is the cabin Mark and Duncan take over in the time between Healing and Overcoming Fear. Today, I thought I’d share it.

He held a hand out at the round wooden table in the portion of the great room that acted as their dining area. The room itself stretched two stories, with a loft bedroom on one end, a study on the other, and a wide balcony open to the lower floor connecting the two that ran along the front wall above them. A large stone fireplace sat cold on one end of the first floor, outside the master suite. A spiral staircase next to it led to the study above. On the other side, two doors opened off the main room: one for Mark’s exam room and one for another half bathroom. Stairs between the two led to the second floor on that end.

I don’t describe the front of the cabin, but in my head it had a large glass window in front, to give lots of light.     No matter how hard I try, I can’t always make something look exactly as I had it in my head. I started thinking about what the cabin had originally been for—a vacation spot—and realized a few of the things I’d been thinking didn’t quite work. For instance, originally, I had just the two doors on the left side of the great room. However, when I went to build the house, I realized they’d have more—a mud/laundry room, and a door to the back.     You can also see the living area, the dining table Duncan leads Bryan to, and the fireplace off to one side, along with the balcony on the upper level. I kind of go a little crazy when I start building these things. I’ll even draw the layout on graph paper. I won’t subject you to my scribbles, but here you can see the general layout of the first floor:     In the story, there’s a point where Duncan is sitting in some chairs in their bedroom, looking out the window. There, he can see the lakeshore. Unfortunately, the way the geography was in the game, I couldn’t orient the house the way I wanted to so I couldn’t make the window face the shore. Still, I couldn’t leave them out.     You can see the whole album of screenshots including their kitchen, the upstairs, and more here. Thank you so much to Kim for the space today! I really appreciate it. And I hope you enjoy Overcoming Fear.   About Grace: Grace Duncan grew up with a wild imagination. She told stories from an early age – many of which got her into trouble. Eventually, she learned to channel that imagination into less troublesome areas, including fanfiction, which is what has led her to writing male/male erotica. A gypsy in her own right, Grace has lived all over the United States. She has currently set up camp in East Texas with her husband and children – both the human and furry kind. As one of those rare creatures who loves research, Grace can get lost for hours on the internet, reading up on any number of strange and different topics. She can also be found writing fanfiction, reading fantasy, crime, suspense, romance and other erotica or even dabbling in art. Website ◊ Facebook ◊ Twitter ◊ Youtube ◊ Goodreads