Fans of the life simulator (or vengeful deity simulator, depending on the player's mood) The Sims likely know about Simlish, the nonsensical-sounding language the people in-game speak. One voice actor, who worked on the second game as well as some other ones, spoke about his personal experience giving voices to these virtual people.
While the language of the Sims has a few classic phrases that originated in the first game and have stayed in the lexicon ever since (such as "Sul sul" for "Hello,") most of the language is entirely made up. Voice actor and singer Kid Beyond learned this fact when he signed up to help voice the people in The Sims 2 by working "hours + hours +hours" giving them voices for whatever mundane or shocking situations they may encounter. However, a key fact about Simlish is that it can't just be any old gibberish. It had to sound like American gibberish.
So. I was the male voice on The Sims 2, and a bunch of other Sims games.
— Kid Beyond — BLACK LIVES MATTER (@kidbeyond) June 28, 2021
I recorded hours + hours + hours of Simlish.
When I started the gig, they told me a lil’ secret:
🤯 There is no Simlish. 🤯
🤖 — And no script. — 🤖
The actors just make up gibberish.
But...
(1/4) https://t.co/ag0nmw6ex8
So what was Kid Beyond's method for voicing Sims? He would take a magazine, flip it upside down, and read some "juicy" backwards words. Almost every language sounds bizarre when spoken backwards, and speaking English backwards provided that American gibberish feeling the studio was looking for. Kid Beyond jokes that after some of those four-hour sessions, it took a while to get his normal English back.
The fourth and current rendition of The Sims is available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.
