- For town squares, see Park.
Concrete Floor bathroom tile from The Sims 2, in a state where it'd take up 1x1 square. Distance not to scale.
The square (unofficial name that is not universally agreed upon) is the predominant unit of measurement in SimNation and across all Sims games (except the SimCity games). It is roughly equivalent to around 1 meter or 1 yard, though neither have ever been known to have been confirmed in-game.[note 1]
The unit is very critical in house building and furniture placement, since objects take up 1x1 square (0.5x0.5 square in The Sims 3 onwards; a few slot objects can take up less space) or more, while flooring takes up a 0.25 triangle of a square or more. Additionally, all games in the series have some sort of lot size cap, 64x64 squares in the main series, and will refuse to allow lots larger than the cap.
Most games have a limit on wall placement at exactly 1 square away from the lot border, and The Sims 3 mandates a 1sq wide empty space or more between all lots (The Sims 2 did not mandate such a space, making close neighbors able to place fences for the both of them).
The unit is never referred to by name in any Sims games, but is highly visible in Buy mode and Build mode. The length of the unit appears to be consistent throughout the series. Various object descriptions and skill challenges[TS3] use metric and imperial distances interchangeably, but never uses squares.
Notes[]
- ↑ The Sims 3 game files indicate it is consistently referred to as 1 meter internally by the dev team(s).