Have also been sucked in by a Sims Challenge which is the most evil thing imaginable. The short version is: no electrical items, no plumbing and no food-making items, and spend no money on food. But keep your sims alive & happy. (It turns out that by careful use of loopholes, it's very possible, and indeed, addictively fun. My stories have been temporarily abandoned, as I can play this Challenge while in possession of no functional brain, whereas setting up shots & scripting require quite a lot of bandwidth.)
Today's User Friendly is worth seeing :)