The Sims 3 – Cheats
There’s plenty of cheat codes to change things in your game, so we’ll look at what they are and how to use them. Also, there’s a lot of lists of various cheat codes, some of which work, some don’t. I have a fully patched game, up to and including Town Life stuff and I promise that if a cheat is here, I’ve tried it and it works!
First things first, how to use them?
In order to enter cheats, you need to activate the cheat console. You do this, but pressing
CTRL + SHIFT + C
on your keyboard. The game screen will pause and darken, and a dark blue band will appear at the top of the screen. You will need to do this each time you want to enter a cheat code. Take care to spell cheats correctly, or else they won’t work! If this happens, you’ll normally get a message saying “Unknown Command”. Using the UP arrow will reshow the last cheat, useful if you want to turn off something after using it.
Basic Cheats
| Cheat | Action | What it does |
| Kaching | Adds §1,000 to the household funds | |
| Motherlode | Adds §50,000 to the household funds | |
| Resetsim | Sims’s name | Clears stuck sims and sends them to the mailbox of their home lot. Can be used on any sim, active or computer controlled. Example resetsim Claire Ursine |
| Moveobjects | On/off | Allows you to move objects you can’t normally move. Make sure this is set to OFF before placing windows and doors. |
| FreeRealEstate | Enter on neighbourhood screen | Allows your sim to purchase any lot, regardless of cost and funds. |
| Help | Displays a list of cheats | |
| HideHeadlineEffects | On/off | Hides graphic effects such as speech balloons; useful for screen shots. |
| unlockOutfits | True/false | Unlocks hidden outfits, such as work uniforms, in CAS. Must be entered before going into CAS |
| constrainFloorElevation | True/false | Used for building lots, and altering how the terrain acts next to walls etc. Best covered in its own building tutorials! |
| disableSnappingToSlotsOnAlt | on/off | Press down the Alt key, and you can free-position objects, rather than them snapping to the grid |
What’s this TCE?
In Sims 2, this was often referred to as the debug cheat, or boolprop. It allows access to some extra cheats, and gives extra actions on certain objects when you shift-click on them. We’ll look at the shift click options some other time, but the cheats below require TCE set to true before they’
| Cheat | Action | What it does |
| Testingcheatsenabled | True/false | Turns on debug mode, and is needed for the cheats below to work |
| Family Funds | Family Name and Amount | Used to alter the amount of household funds for the chosen family to whatever amount you choose. FamilyFunds Ursine 100000 would set the Ursine family’s funds to §100,000 |
| Buydebug | Opens up the hidden items in buy mode, like tomb objects, and spawners | |
| RestrictBuildBuyInBuildings | True/false | Used from Late Night onwards, and allows build and buy mode in public areas of apartments. |
Non-code cheats
If you want to influence your sim-baby’s gender, watch what Mommy’s eating! Eating at least three Apples – the fruit, not anything cooked with it, like apple pancakes – will give you a baby boy. On the other hand, eat watermelons for a baby girl. Also, reading baby books, watching kids TV, and generally keeping Mommy happy increases your chances of a multiple birth, even without the fertility reward. The happier the pregnancy, the more traits you get to choose when the baby is born.