Sims Dollhouse

Vima - Oh! I've never been here before...a new club for me :) Since the site isn't split into categories but rather rooms, I just had a look around and will give an overview.

Some of the wallpaper is nice, but I did notice some didn't have a good repeat pattern. The floors are pretty good. I like the tiles and the room ensembles are really nice.

The object recolors are mostly in good taste, perhaps the next step would be adding patterns to the livingroom furnitures. I did like some of the kitchen objects, but some of them looked very hand painted on. Some of the lines weren't straight, like on the dining room bookcase, but the mini table is very cute.

The skins are packaged correctly, but that mermaid skn file is a definate crasher. Now, unlike some of the other problems I've mentioned in previous reviews, this one has an even bigger problem. It isn't named the same inside the file.

Otherwise, I have my usual complaints about lack of shading, shadows and hightlights. The colors are just too solid, lack texture and detail. It's great that they are providing different body sizes, but what happened to the sims in the pictures? They are either stretched out or squeezed to death.

If you want to pick up a few pieces from Sims Dollhouse, you can find some nice things here, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. The navigation is fine for now and the design is very pleasing.

3 martinis and I'm going to find Dane...he didn't want to be seen in a Dollhouse.

Skyler - My first impression of this site was nice, the only thing that annoyed the heck out of me was the T&S banner flashing, but that what the esc. button is for ;)

All the news right in your face with the very easy navigation. I started out in the living room. The red on the sofa was a wee bit bright for me, but the paper has true class to it. Maybe sometime when you have nothing else to do (LOL) you might match the sofa and chair closer to the deep red in the border? Just a thought.

She has some wonderful papers and floors here, definitely worth a look! Most of them tile up quite nicely too.

She has something for every room in the house and the majority of it is good! If she lacks items for a room then she makes sure she has papers and floors for you :)

The skins department isn't a huge selection but I did download a couple dresses. I liked the camouflaged one, and the white one with the tiara I know I'll have some place to wear it, it even came with the tiara and a whole new face for me, not that I need one, in fact mine is quite lovely ;) How are all you tonight? Why CC I haven't heard from you in a few days, I do hope your in good heath and spirits, NO NOT THOSE SPIRITS! I just know you had a grand time with the Doll House theme tonight, so sweet and innocent. Hey didn't Donny Osmond have a song by that name? Oh Donny Osmond (sigh)

3 martinis with extra bubbles and a bookmark!

Storel - The Sims Dollhouse has a simple design that is easy to navigate. This is a good way to use frames: a small section on the left edge of the page that contains the navigation links to all the sections of the site. (Frames on the top of the page use up too much valuable screen space for those of us with smaller screens.)

Walls, floors, and objects aren't kept in separate sections. Instead, they're all grouped together by room: living room, dining room, and so on. This works well for the objects, but some people might prefer to see all the walls and floors in one place. I like the screen shots that show how things actually look in the game, which is especially useful for walls and floors. Not all the walls appear in screen shots, though.

Many of the walls and floors are quite nice, in a simple yet elegant way. There are some cute walls in the children's section, especially the ones with aliens on them. All the walls are accompanied by floors that go well with them, which is a very welcome touch. I especially like that the floors don't necessarily match the walls, which can easily be overdone; they just complement them.

The objects are generally pretty good looking. Things I especially liked include the columns, short bookcase, and blue sofa (in the Living section); the red dining chairs (in Dining); the blue tiled shower (in Bath); and the greenish bookcase/cabinet (in Bed). The Kitchen section has some unusually creative things: a shelf unit/bookcase that has different food items on its shelves, and a counter with no undercabinet that matches up nicely with the regular counter of the same color.

I did spot one or two object glitches, though. In particular, one counter with a built-in microwave stand (in Kitchen) needs some work on its z-buffers, as you could see in the screen shot that the side of the stand didn't hide the side of the microwave the way it should. This was an exception, though; for the most part the objects seemed well done technically.

The skins are divided into Large, Fit, and Skinny sections, which is pleasant. Too many sites have nothing but Fit. Most of the outfits appear in all three sizes, which is also pleasant. The skins generally have pretty good texture and shading, although some of them (especially the ones with black skirts) could have used more variation in shading. Some pictures looked a little distorted, too.

Unfortunately, while all the pages look fine in IE, they don't do so well under Netscape. On many of the pages (but not all, oddly) the large screen shot at the top of the page completely hides the wall and floor just under it and covers many of the download links as well, when viewed through Netscape version 4.75.

Overall, not bad. A little better than average in creativity, but a little lower in the technical area -- some of those z-buffers and textures could use a little work. I'll split the difference and call it three martinis, plus a bookmark.

Simantha - I used to want a dollhouse, but then I got the Sims. I see the Sims Dollhouse has taken the concept of the Sims-as-dolls and run with it, although I sort of expected a different layout actually along the lines of a house...with dolls...but anyways. I appreciate the FAQ right smack dab on the front page. Too many people still have questions about where things are supposed to go and that is a great way to make them figure it out.

Objects first, since that's listed first on the left...some pretty decent recolors here, with a couple interesting new type objects. Now THAT'S a good tv-in-a-bookcase. I have some confusion though. I know it's mentioned on the front page what the Sim Adviser [sic] is supposed to be doing, but I don't really understand how it in any way is helpful. Yes, links are always fabulous, but since it's supposed to direct you to other possibly matching things for the set being displayed...shouldn't it be linking to a particular page on the linked site instead of just the general site itself? Doesn't help to know there's a matching thing elsewhere if you can't find it. I think I'm catching on now, the third page of each objects section is devoted to walls and floors. However, I don't really understand *why*, since each wallpaper and floor is also on the page with the object set it matches. Most objects look pretty decent, the recolors at least. The *new* objects tend to look a little...hand-drawn, not very solid.

Dolls (I keep wanting to type dools!) are...well...why separate the three fat, fit and skinny sections? Why not say every body type and every skin tone is in the .zip? Especially since there is no difference in what skins are being displayed in each section, fat, fit or skinny. Not too bad, I guess. Wish there was credit to the mesh makers though, a simple link to Threnody's doesn't cut it in my mind.

Eh, nothing spectacular, but nothing too terribly bad, so two and a half martinis for me, and two and a half martinis for you, Sims Dollhouse!