Activities include buying and placing up to 150 unique items for households and offices, selling and replacing worn out furnishings, and otherwise building and maintaining the world in which your Sims live.The interface is mouse-driven, with points-and-clicks that works in conjunction with a myriad of development tools offered for use in establishing your Sims' environments. From physical environmental layouts (homes, rooms, paint, tiles, floors, walls, window placement), to mental outlook (personalities, motives, needs), emotional makeup (jealousy, marriage, having kids) and skills (cooking and mechanical abilities, charisma, mental and physical levels of development) of your Sims, you'll be immersed in their daily lives. Management in The Sims revolves around decision-making. Five personality traits are rated from zero to ten and include basic areas of sloppy to neat, shy to outgoing, lazy to active, serious to playful, and grouchy to nice. Characters are developed from the ground up and you infuse and mold them with personalities, looks, desires, moods, urges, living arrangements, career and personal choices, life styles, and reactions. You are in control of nearly every aspect of the lives of the individuals who make up your chosen population in the neighborhood.
The Sims is a life-building simulation with emphasis on intimate details of individual characters rather than expansion of an entire society or civilization.