Strip Clubs - Let's Dance

This feature originated in WickedWhims v166.
Requires Get to Work expansion.

Start a new business of managing a Strip Club! Prepare the stage, hire alluring dancers, turn up the music, and watch the money flow!

Create a Business

Create an entirely new business - Strip Club. Just like retail stores, restaurants, and veterinary clinics, assign a lot for your Strip Club business and build it up from scratch. Simply take out your phone, open the Strip Club category, and Buy a Strip Club!

Strip Clubs are not a venue type, you are required to use your phone or computer to purchase one.

Build a Strip Club

Strip Club businesses don’t come with any requirements, you can build it however you want, but some objects are required for certain functionalities. Consider placing down the usual Strip Club objects, like a Bar for drinks, Dancing Poles/Spots and Seats for dancing and watching, and Extra Seats in private places for lap dancing.

You are free to build your club however you want, but the Dancing Pole and the Dancing Spot objects require some extra attention. After you decide where you want your dancers to dance and placed a Dancing Pole or a Dancing Spot there, remember about the clients’ comfort as well. Every client looks for a seat to occupy once they begin watching dancers, so make sure to place multiple seats around every Dancing Pole and Dancing Spot.

It’s not necessary to purchase a Dancing Pole or a Dancing Spot for every hired dancer, as they will be busy with other tasks like Bartending and Charming.

Tip: If you have built a stage for your dancers, it’s recommended to isolate it in a way that will prevent clients from climbing up on it instead of looking for a seat. If the club is constructed in a way that makes it difficult to find a suitable seat to watch dancers, it might cause clients to stand at undesirable locations.

Manage a Strip Club

All of the managing functions are controlled from the special club managing category on your phone. Including designing employee outfits, handling open hours, and viewing financial reports. You can even hire yourself as a dancer in your own club.

Your club is configured by default to open at 7 PM (19:00) and close at 4 AM (04:00), as these are the busiest hours for strip clubs. You can configure the open hours by using your phone and clicking on the “Manage Open Hours“ option under the Strip Club category. You can make your club open at all times by selecting the same open hour and close hour.

Hiring dancer employees doesn’t come with any limitations, except that they cannot already have a job. You’re allowed to hire up to 6 dancers (unless extended via cheats) and assign them to any tasks you want during work hours. If you want to work in your own club, the ‘Hire Yourself as Dancer‘ option will do just that, as long as you have an available job position and your Sim is not already working somewhere.

Tip: The menu with available Sims to hire can be extended to display more options by using the “ww.set_stripclub_employee_pool_size <amount>“ command. And you can extend the number of dancers you can hire up to 12 by using the “ww.set_stripclub_dancers_employee_limit <amount>“ command.

When hiring a dancer, pay attention to their skills. Dancers with good Charisma skill will be better at charming clients. Dancers with high Mixology skill will be able to offer better drinks which increases profits. And Dancers with high Fitness skill, one of the Nudity skills, and the Dancing skill will be better at Stage Dancing.

All of the hired dancers define the type of your club with their gender and preference, allowing you to make a regular club, a gay club, or a mixed club. This affects what kind of clients will visit your venue. Carefully selecting your employees will prevent certain clients from showing up.

Dancers hired in your club will perform one of the three main tasks: Stage Dancing, Bartending, or Charming Clients. Each task can be assigned manually or you can let the dancers decide on their own depending on the current situation in the club. Micromanaging or helping out yourself will improve the performance of your club, but the dancers are fully capable of doing everything themselves.

To assign a task, click on a Dancer Employee and select the ‘Assign Task’ option under the ‘Strip Club’ category. When playing as a dancer, simply start performing a certain task to automatically change into it. 

Stage Dancing & Watching

Dancers with the Stage Dancing task will look for the nearest or specifically assigned Dancing Pole or Dancing Spot to dance at. Each dance routine is randomly generated and can be altered at any moment by clicking on the dancer. Stage Dancers are one of the biggest reasons for clients to visit the club, so make sure you always have at least one on the stage.

Every dancer on the stage brings attention to clients that are willing to pay to watch some impressive moves. Dancing performance is the main factor that decides about the attention span of clients and the number of tips the dancer receives. The main elements that contribute to the dancing performance are dancing skills, relationships with certain clients, and currently playing music. If a dancer is performing poorly, you will surely notice some uncontrollable yawns.

The better the skills and relationships with clients, the higher the performance, which directly affects how high and frequent are the tips the dancer receives. The more tips a dancer receives, the fewer clothes are on their body.

Good performance is nothing when it doesn’t last long enough. Dancer Fitness, Striptease, and Dancing skills are a major factor in how long can they perform. Each dancing routine is aiming to last as long as possible, so once a dancer is done, they need a few minutes to rest. That obviously doesn’t stop them from talking to clients and offering lap dances.

Tip: The Dancing Spot Marker is used as an alternative to the Dancing Pole. It offers a whole new set of dances that do not involve a dancing pole. Dancers dancing on the Dancing Spot Marker are free to move their bodies however they want. Additionally, the Dancing Spot Marker comes with an invisible swatch that hides in Live Mode but is still clickable. Give it a try!

Dancing Poles made by Azmodan22, Noir, and MJ95 are supported by default.

Dancing on a pole or a spot is available outside of Strip Clubs and allows you to progress the Striptease skill.

Bartending & Drinking

Dancers with the Bartending task will focus on preparing and serving drinks. Selling drinks is the most profitable source of revenue for the club, so having someone tending the bar is a must.

The process is simple enough, a client enters the club, orders a drink, finishes it... and leaves an empty glass behind. Wait a few hours and your entire club will be filled with empty glasses. To manage this chaos, consider hiring a Janitor. Leaving empty glasses around doesn’t only take up space, it makes everybody quite uncomfortable as well.

Although the bartending dancers are handling the process of selling drinks, managing the bar prices and supplies is left for the owner.

Each prepared drink consumes Bar Supplies which are required for the bar to function. Drinks cannot be sold when your club runs out of supplies. It’s wise to order Bar Supplies beforehand so they can arrive the next day. Additionally, fewer Bar Supplies mean fewer types of drinks that can be prepared. Clients that cannot order what they want will be very unhappy about it.

You can order supplies by clicking on any Bar to access the Strip Club 'Order Supplies' menu. Purchased supplies add up to the total of ordered supplies that will be delivered the next day at around noon. The cost of supplies depends on the base price of the drinks ordered by clients. Selling expensive drinks requires purchasing expensive supplies.

Selling drinks for the base price and buying supplies to refill the bar isn’t the most profitable loop. As the owner, you should adjust the Price Markup of drinks so each sold drink comes with profit. Although selling drinks with a 100% price markup sounds great, it will very quickly fail when clients are left with buying drinks that they do not want.

High Price Markup and Low Bar Supplies decrease the likeliness of clients purchasing drinks. Shortage of supplies means fewer drinks to offer, and increased price makes them less appealing for purchase. When you can't sell the client's favorite drinks, lower the Price Markup to make other drinks an attractive offer... at least until the Bar Supplies arrive.

You can adjust the Price Markup by clicking on any Bar to access the Strip Club ‘Price Markup’ menu. Don’t feel discouraged from setting the markup as high as you want. Unless someone complains, what’s the harm.

Strip Clubs come with a special feature that extends the number of drinks Sims can order from 4 to 39, including drinks made by icemunmun. And if you’re using Basemental’s Real Drink Names, that’s fully compatible.

Charming & Lap Dancing

Dancers with the Charming task focus on looking for clients who are interested in socializing or getting a lap dance. Lap Dancing is the biggest source of revenue for dancers and the most commonly occupied role in the club. In most situations, a socializing client will seek an available dancer and ask her for a lap dance.

Lap dances are performed on manually assigned seats. Assigning Lap Dancing Seats is required for clients to ask for a private dance. Any Loveseat, Sofa, Recliner, or Chair in the club can be assigned as a Lap Dancing Seat. Simply build a private room, place a seat inside it, and click on it to Assign a Lap Dancing Spot. Any client asking for a dance will use the assigned seats to receive a lap dance. Note that all seats assigned as Lap Dancing Seats are exclusively used for lap dancing, so no sitting or napping is allowed.

When clients are not eager to ask for a lap dance, the dancer has to take the initiative. After greeting a client, 6 New Charming Social Interactions become available. Using a Charming interaction works like romancing, without actually creating a romantic connection between the dancer and the client. Instead Charming increases the level of Charm that affects how much a client likes a dancer and the club itself. The higher the charm, the higher the tips.

Charming clients affects all aspects of the club. High charm with a dancer doesn’t only increase the tips they receive. When a client orders a drink, they are more willing to pay a higher price. And when a dancer fails to charm a client, they might not be so willing to come back to the club.

During a lap dance, the same rules apply as for Stage Dancing. The better the skills and relationship with the client, the higher the performance, which directly affects how much will the dancer earn besides the usual pay.

Technical Details

All Strip Club settings are located under Nudity Settings -> Strip Club Settings menu.

• The “Dress Up After Dance“ setting is simple enough, after each dance, dancers will dress up to their career outfit if partially nude.
• The “Personal Lap Dance Cheat“ setting unlocks the ability to request a lap dance at any moment as the owner of the club.
• The “Static Clients Count Cheat“ setting lets you override the number of clients that show up at your club at all times. By default, the club is meant to be the most active between 7PM and 3AM, but altering this setting will make clients show up at every hour. To disable this cheat, change the number back to 0 (zero).
• The “Dancer Profit Share Percentage“ setting lets you alter the revenue share for each individual tip a dancer receives. After a client throws money at a dancer or a dancer receives money for a lap dance, part of that profit goes directly to the club. If you don’t want dancers to share their profit with the club, change this setting to 0%.
• The “Dancer Earning Multiplier“ setting lets you alter the amount of profit a dancer makes from tips and lap dancing. Changing the value to “200″ will double the profit, while changing the value to “50″ will half the profit.
• The “Bar Earning Multiplier“ setting lets you alter the amount of profit the bar makes from selling drinks. Changing the value to “200″ will double the profit, while changing the value to “50″ will half the profit.
• The “Native Undressing Behavior“ setting focuses on the way dancers undress during dancing. By default, dancers follow specialized rules that prevent them from undressing gloves, shoes, and socks when dancing. When this setting is enabled, dancers will follow the rules you’ve set in the Nudity Settings -> Outfit Settings.
• The "Dancer Task Auto-Assignment" setting lets you disable the ability of employee dancers to change their tasks automatically. When a dancer is performing a task that is not needed in the current situation, they will change it automatically, unless this setting is disabled.
• The "Focused Dancing Objects Interactions" setting, when disabled, unlocks all interactions to be available on Dancing Poles, Dancing Spot Markers, and Lap Dancing Seats. By default, this setting limits interactivity with these objects to dancing-related actions.
• The “Clients Visitation Limits“ setting, when disabled, allows all Sims in the world to visit the club no matter their current relationship status. By default, Sims who are in an established relationship are less likely to visit a Strip Club.

FAQ

• Why is the lot set to the “Generic” type?

To assure the most compatibility with the game, WickedWhims custom business lots are set to “Generic” on purpose. Everything should work fine.

• I don’t want my dancers to tend the bar. Can I hire a bartender?

No, to assure the most flexibility, dancers can tend the bar as well, as some clubs around the world do exactly that. All you need to do, to have a dedicated bartender, is hire a dancer that will only perform that task. Assign the bartender task to a dancer, they will remember it every time they work, and change their outfit to something that looks like a bartender. Done. Don’t want to take up a dancer employee slot for a bartender? Simply use the “ww.set_stripclub_dancers_employee_limit“ cheat command to extend the number of hireable dancers.

Involved Creators

Thank you to these wonderful creators who helped realize this feature by creating 23 new dedicated animations for Pole Dancing, Spot Dancing, and Lap Dancing. I really hope you will appreciate their work and support their efforts.

• Lupobianco Animations - Patreon, LoversLab
• Azmodan22 Animations - Patreon, LoversLab
• ooOLaLa World Animations - Patreon, LoversLab
• Mike24 Animations - Patreon, LoversLab
• Zorak Animations - Patreon, LoversLab
• wild_guy Animations - Patreon, LoversLab
• Anarcis Animations - Patreon, LoversLab

Thank you to Noir and Dark Sims for contributing the Dancing Pole object.

• Noir and Dark Sims - Patreon, Blog

And thank you to Nolan-Sims for designing the Strip Club icon.

• Nolan-Sims - Tumblr, Twitter

Technical Details - Animations

Animators are fully equipped to add new pole dancing animations, spot dancing animations, and lap dancing animations. The details on how to add new animations can be found in the 'Creating WickedWhims Strip Club Animation XML File' tutorial.

Technical Limitations

Initially, the Business Management window/tab was supposed to be used to manage the Strip Club, but its extremely limited implementation prevented that from happening. The alternative was then to completely get rid of it and make all business operations manageable with the phone.

Managing the Strip Club is done with the phone, but the Business Management window/tab shows up with a warning to not use it, as completely blocking it was causing errors with the game. The way business ownership is designed in the game doesn’t provide any other solutions.

Music & DJs [Future]

Music is one of the most important aspects of dancing, every move feels a lot less impressive when it’s not to the beat of your favorite song. Each dancer is meant to have their favorite music genre that directly correlates to the music played by the DJ.

Dancers will come with their favorite music genre, and when the DJ plays it, the performance of the dance is increased significantly. Playing the wrong music or no music at all hinders the performance which subsequently lowers the number of tips dancers receive.

Since DJs come with only a few types of music they can play, the plan is to extend that number and allow them to play all of the music the game has to offer. This is required if you decide to substitute the DJ with a stereo system and manage it manually.

Additionally, dancers should be able to befriend the DJ and share their tips to further improve their dancing performance. Friendly DJs will play the appropriate music for the dancers on stage and will work extra hard to make them look good while dancing.

Impact, Events & Security [Future]

The current implementation of the Strip Club feature is a baseline experience that aims to introduce the environment of managing a club. There is little consequence of running a Strip Club except for the potential loss of money. Dancer employees still require functions of emotional reactions and job satisfaction that could affect your business performance from neglecting your staff.

Running a business can be pretty boring, so the addition of random occurrences and events is meant to introduce more variety. Troubling and needy clients, emotional and confused dancers, random accidents, potential quarrels and fights, and other events that require player engagement. Each day of managing the club will be in some way unique.

When trouble arrives, the best thing to do is to let the security handle it. A bouncer that manages the entrance and charges for an optional entry fee, as well as a security guard that kicks the ass of problematic clients. Anybody that breaks the rules of the club will be met with the security and the pavement in front of the club.

Lack of impact makes everybody in the club feel empty. The introduction of a lasting outcome from going to the club for the first time ever, from drinking too much, from getting a lap dance, or from socializing with charming dancers is required to fill in that emptiness. Relationship modifiers, custom moodlets, and changing reputation will come into play after spending time in the club.

Meaningful Career [Future]

The biggest focus of creating a Strip Club concentrates around managing it. Building the club, hiring dancers, and reacting to what’s happening is the goal of this feature. Where it’s possible to hire a playable Sim as a dancer, the gameplay of a dancer is not the most fun experience.

Creating a meaningful playable career is its own separate challenge that comes with introducing interesting tasks, a variety of options, and reasonably engaging gameplay. The truth is, the job of a dancer isn’t very interesting, so turning it into the main feature requires a lot more attention and planning.

When playing as a dancer you will handle the typical tasks that the owner orders you to perform. You’re free to do anything you want, as any dancer is, but the club performance depends on you. The introduction of more tasks for dancers is possible, but not the exact focus of the Strip Club feature.

Hey! If you want to help support the development of WickedWhims, consider checking out my Patreon page. You will get a chance to try out the strip club feature and let me know what should be improved.