While there are many content creators who offer their takes on The Sims franchise, YouTuber Plumbella – whose real name is Jesse McNamara – stands out as one of the most unique. With over 700,000 subscribers, McNamara is famous for her creative in-game challenges, honest game reviews, and the “Entire History Of” series, where she offers deep dives on Sims franchise lore. Recently, Plumbella took a huge step in her Sims career, collaborating with EA to release The Sims 4 Pastel Pop Kit.
Taking inspiration from an aesthetic called Avant Basic, Plumbella’s Pastel Pop Kit features fun colors, whimsical patterns, and pieces that feel both modern and vintage at the same time. McNamara’s Kit notably contains things that most other Kits – which are the smallest size of Sims 4 DLC – do not, such as wallpaper swatches that are meant to easily be used with one another, flooring, and an interactive corkboard for in-game postcards and pictures. Although a new Sims game currently operating under the name Project Rene has been announced, there are still many years left in The Sims 4‘s lifespan, and input from talented creators like Plumbella is incredibly important when it comes to preventing the series from feeling stale over eight years after release.
Jesse McNamara sat down with Screen Rant to discuss collaborating with EA on The Sims 4 Pastel Pop Kit, Sims lore, the future of the franchise, and more.
Screen Rant: First I just want to dive into what the collaboration process with EA was like – I know it began with you making your PowerPoint, which is amazing. Then from there, was it a lot of back and forth with prospective designs? How did that process work?
Jesse McNamara: It was actually a really long time, because I’ve never been in game development or anything, so I always thought it was not necessarily a quick turnaround but it really showed me how much work went into it. Because at first, I thought, like a month, maybe. And this was before Werewolves [DLC], so sort of like, April, May time. And the date they gave me was November, and I was like, “Well, I don’t even know who I’ll be by November,” and I did change my hair multiple times since then. So it was basically every couple of weeks meeting with the team and just going through objects and picking objects, and I had to veto some as well, and prioritize other objects.
Are there any vetoes that stand out to you?
Jesse McNamara: There was one lamp that didn’t work as a separate object, like you couldn’t put things on it, it was just a lamp that had a cup at the base, and it was really cute. But I thought if we were going to have a lamp, I’d rather have a salt lamp in game, because we already had these desktop style lamps.
There are so many small details in this Kit that I feel like don’t come up a lot in the Kit DLC. I know you made sure they included walls and flooring, including matching swatches to do an accent wall, and there’s an item for postcards and pictures, stuff like that. How do you feel like your experience with building in this series sort of influenced your choices?
Jesse McNamara: Well, I never actually used to be much of a builder, I used to actually hate it, and if I built a house, it burned me out The Sims for like months at a time. And then the Sims 4, because the building mode is so much easier with it and user-friendly, it was so much easier for me to get started.
But also when I’m building houses, there’s so many different types of houses I’ve built, and a lot of them are really just absolutely chaotic and don’t serve a purpose. But it’s also helped me discover parts of Build Mode that I wouldn’t necessarily do, and I really wanted to focus on the usability but also how much you could use one item in so many different contexts, because that’s something that I’m looking for while I’m building. Because I find that a lot of objects, like there’s so many settees in-game – which is a sofa in America – there’s so many sofas, but only a handful of them serve a specific context and I really wanted it to serve lots of contexts.
How much influence did you have over the item descriptions? I know there was the bin you wanted to include some Landgraab lore that didn’t make it in, but I’m curious if you had influence over any of the other ones.
Jesse McNamara: I unfortunately had none. I would have loved to have had some because I would have thought that like, Princess Cordelia, whose lore is told essentially only through Build and Buy, it would be really cool if she had a great-granddaughter or something who started her own company because she’d learned everything that Cordelia had done, and it could be like the young Gen Z version of Cordelia. Specifically, the bin with a Landgraabs, I was devastated that that wasn’t in it but SimGuruFrost told me that he’s going to see what you can do about that, because I think it’s such a good tie-in to the lore.
Over the past few months I know you’ve forayed into making custom content yourself, and I’m curious if you feel like that sort of changed how you look at in-game design at all or influenced how you approached the Kit?
Jesse McNamara: Well, I wish I was a pro at custom content. Unfortunately, a lot of the custom content that I’ve made haven’t been necessarily what I’d call fails, but definitely some things I didn’t consider if others would want to download, but it has taught me a lot of things. Sometimes I look at items and I’m like, “You could have just shifted the hue on that gave us a completely different swatch, or even just made it black and white.” So it’s definitely helped me understand more with that side, but in terms of actually making the mesh of an object, I know absolutely nothing about that, but I would love to try. That’d just be a great undertaking.
Jesse McNamara: I think that from the beginning, Kits have had it hard, because Stuff Packs – which were a hated thing in the community – they’d finally perfected it, and then brought out Kits. So I think they kind of had a bad start to begin with, and also the promise of them being gameplay Kits as well as build Kits, and then gameplay Kits getting axed.
I think that making the effort to do more gameplay Kits, because as much as Bust the Dust is broken, I think there’s so much chance for them to take it so much further with these little elements of gameplay. But I’m also a big fan of collaborating with the community, and not just with big YouTubers. They did that earlier, in The Sims 2, they collaborated with custom content creators, and then they got to see their items made in game, but they were just regular players.
And I think that would open it up a little bit more, especially when the Kits are so small, and even collaborating with just a couple of people, I think people could really benefit from that. And not necessarily just big YouTubers, all the same YouTubers all the time.
I would say, in general, just talking about content creation, you’re sort of an expert on keeping the Sims interesting. I know you’ve done a lot to sort of combat your own burnout, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the importance of players drawing ideas from content creators and vice versa to keep the game interesting after so many years.
Jesse McNamara: I think for one thing, the stuff that I might upload to YouTube that is really interesting to watch – and it is interesting for me to play – it wouldn’t necessarily be interesting for people to go home and play it, if that makes sense. Because a lot of times it just doesn’t translate, like my own play style is very different from what I upload to YouTube.
My style is very, like, the same family every single time, one kid’s popular, one kid’s a loser, the loser always comes out on top. [Laughs] So the way that’s translated online, that kind of had its height about 10 years ago with LPs. But I also think that it’s really cool having an audience and having an audience who interacts and also knows your content, because you can really reach out to them for ideas as well. Because sometimes you get so stuck in a rut, not even just for YouTube, like in your own life and everything, and sometimes you need an outside perspective or an outside idea to kind of break it.
One thing that I like to do as well as because I watch a lot of just YouTube content generally, I really like to look at all the trends and other things and take inspiration from them. Like Mia Maples is one of my favorite YouTubers, and she’d done a series where she bought items from Etsy, but then made them herself and told her mum that these were the items on Etsy. And I took that and made it where I built these builds, but I told my mum that children did it. So that’s some really cool ways to collaborate.
Sort of zooming out to the series in general a little bit more, I would love to hear your thoughts on Project Rene. Firstly, just if you think it’s The Sims 5 or not, because I know there’s a lot of debate.
Jesse McNamara: I didn’t want it to be the Sims 5, because the being able to play on every platform scares me a little bit. But I think I also know nothing about how games work. And The English Simmer reassured me that like, it still could be okay. So now that I know that it could be okay, I’m more open to it. But I think that I’m so excited for The Sims 5, because the Sims 4, she’s maxed out the timeline of how long a Sims game stays out before the next release for so long. So I’m really excited for her, but at the same time, and I think this is my autism, I’m absolutely terrified for her.
Because I remember when the Sims 3 came out – and I think if I was on a desert island, and they told me I could only play one game, it would be the Sims 3 – but when the Sims 3 first came out, I wouldn’t touch it for years. And same with The Sims 4, it takes awhile for my brain allow me to move on to the next game. So I’m scared of it in terms of YouTube, because obviously, everyone will want to play the new thing, and maybe I will, too, maybe because it’s a different context I’ll be happy for it. I just really hope that the gameplay is better, and also that the game is more stable, because they’re using a different system. I don’t know much about PCs, but I hope it’s more stable.
As fans of the series know, there’s the timeline in The Sims where Sims 3 is a prequel and then the timeline follows with Sims 1 and Sims 2, but The Sims 4 is an alternate timeline, which got rid of a lot of the lore. What would you like to see as a sort of return to form of lore in The Sims 5?
Jesse McNamara: I would like to see before The Sims 3, so technically even before that happened. Since it’s The Sims 3, The Sims 1, The Sims 3, I would like to see before the Sims 3, like before, maybe that Mortimer Goth’s mum is pregnant with Mortimer or something, or even beyond that. Maybe Mortimer’s grandma and really early Crumplebottoms. Because Crumplebottom at that point wasn’t like this horribly sadistic heartbroken lover, early Crumplebottoms could be a really nice family.
But most of all, I just want something that makes people stop and go, “Oh!” Because that’s what I had a lot, specifically with The Sims 2, I’d load up a family and the dad would be cheating with the maid, and I’d be like “I just wanted to play a family of Sims!” So I just wanted something that actually makes people stop and question the game and not have it have to come from themselves, and just be shocked by playing the game.
In terms of modding also, Project Overwolf is a really interesting development. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that and how it relates to the community, if it’s something that was necessary, or if it will be useful?
Jesse McNamara: I’m honestly not too sure on that one, because I just download custom content and mods, I don’t make it. I think that if it’s good for the modding community and everything, then I think it’s a good thing. But not if it impedes that, but I don’t know much about it, obviously, because I’m not a modder.
Some fans have been worried over the guidelines for the site, because there’s a lot that will sort of rule out a lot of very famous mods, like a lot of the TURBODRIVER mods and the Extreme Violence mod. There’s a lot of banned things from the platform, so it may be limiting.
Jesse McNamara: Yeah, and I don’t know if he’s got an exclusivity thing, but I think it could be a good thing, but it also might just be better to, rather than having it all centralized, decentralize it so people can go and support that individual person. But I’m not sure, I’d have to look into it more, I think.
You’ve done a lot of things that content creators typically don’t do. You’re very open about your home life, your family are essentially sort of regulars on your channel, and you’ve been very open about journeys with mental health and autism. Can you talk a little bit about what that means to you and your channel?
Jesse McNamara: Well, when I first started YouTube, I knew I had autism, but it was kind of something that I didn’t really think about much, I was still heavily masking at that point, so I didn’t even realize that it could be impacting my life. But then 2020 happened, and I’d been isolated in my house, and I didn’t really have anything to mask for, anybody to mask around, not that I even knew I was doing it. And then suddenly, it’s like, the curtain fell, and I was like, “Ah, I’m actually kind of messed up in my head a little bit.”
I never really set out with the intention to bring it all to YouTube, it’s just that YouTube’s always been a source of comfort for me. And also, I know that a lot of people that watch me kind of watch me because they relate to me. And, you know, it’s not always a good thing that they relate to me, because obviously I would want everyone to feel happy, but sometimes people do relate to me because they’re also going through something. But one thing that I didn’t expect from it, just by opening up, is the amount of people that are like, “Oh, it’s so good to be able to see someone with autism.” I got a comment just the other day where someone said they love how I just talk about it so openly. And sometimes I’m like, “Do I talk about it too much?” But also, it does impact every single day of my life, like every single thought I have, even when people don’t see it, it’s still there. So for me, it’s just natural to talk about it, because I’m at a point where I’ve really embraced it.
I didn’t expect people to relate to me in that way, but I’m really glad that they can see someone like that, because there’s not that many, like, known autistic people. There is more now specifically, especially with women there’s an uptick in it, but there’s still not that many people that you see online. As for my family, I’m really lucky in that I was born into the perfect family for me, and mental health is really an issue in my family as well, a lot of conditions run in my family. So everything’s always been open, and I think that’s helped with me being open online. Because I’m like, “Well, this is what I’m like in my private life, why shouldn’t I be like that in my online life?”
I’m really just a family-oriented Sim. I have a couple of best friends that are like family to me anyway, but my family are also my best friends. I love spending time with them. This is my mum’s house that I’m in right now, I have an entire bed and everything here, and I share this room with my niece, so I just love being around family. And every time they come on my channel, I’m like, “Look at them!”
I think all of it’s very inspiring, both in terms of the mental health angle, and also just seeing such a warm family environment is just very wholesome and encouraging.
Jesse McNamara: Yeah, my mum takes it personally too, because my mum gets lots of messages from a lot of people who don’t have a good relationship with their mums. And my mum always takes time out of the day to talk to them and reply to them. So that warms my heart as well.
Now I just have a few random Sims questions for you. Favorite and least favorite townie?
Now I just have a few random Sims questions for you. Favorite and least favorite townie?Jesse McNamara: You know what, my mind is saying I should say Bella Goth just because she’s so iconic. But I think, honestly, Olive Specter, because she’s killed so many people and isn’t even ashamed of it, because they have a private place and a garden. And also, she Woohooed the Grim Reaper, which is a feat in and of itself, and she didn’t even have to use cheats for it. As for least favorite? I’m going to have to think, because I hate a lot. [Laughs]
I always tend to think of Don Lothario first.
Jesse McNamara: Yeah, but I would like the Don Lothario experience, I would like to be wined and dined and have my heart broken by him, I’d like to see it. [Laughs] You know what, I’m going to say Max Villareal. I loathe him.
Any particular reason?
Jesse McNamara: He’s just a red flag. I think he killed his mum.
It’s funny, your favorite you like because they killed someone, but that’s also the basis for your least favorite.
Jesse McNamara: [Laughs] I support women’s rights and wrongs!
Favorite Sims spin-off?
Jesse McNamara: I really enjoyed Medieval, because I have a history degree. But I think Urbz: Sims in the City was just iconic. I remember that my cousin owned it when I was growing up, and he knew I was obsessed with The Sims. He used to play it, but never let me play it, just used to make me watch him play it. So I never got to play it in the end, so for that reason it’s up there esteemed in my mind.
What’s a future DLC of any size that you would like to see in the future?
Jesse McNamara: For a Stuff Pack, I would like a return of IKEA for a Stuff Pack, I think. For an Expansion Pack, I would really like a theme park kind of holiday place. I think that could maybe go in a Game Pack, but I’m not sure. Even where you have to ride a train to get there, I really think The Sims 4 needs to utilize vehicular transportation! But yeah, I would love to see a theme park or something, because it’s kind of a thing in The Sims 3, but I’d like to see like a dedicated, Disneyland sort of aesthetic. But not in the way of Journey to Batuu!
I know you’ve done tier rankings before, but I’m sure like most Simmers your opinion on different DLC sort of changes as you play. Currently, what are your favorite DLCs that you’ve been using the most stuff from, besides your own Kit?
Jesse McNamara: High School Years gameplay really fell flat for me, the gameplay didn’t live up to what it could be, but the Build Buy objects I’ve been using a lot from there. But gameplay wise, I think one of the main things that I use are clubs from Get Together. I just find that really useful when you have multiple kids in a household, or even like, one of my students is currently at university right now, so I’ve got a club with him and his mate going so I can just click the “Start Gathering” and they’re socializing.
Do you have a favorite object from the series?
Jesse McNamara: It’s got to be the vibrating love heart bed from The Sims 1. Because I was too young to even know what it meant. And it’s just become so iconic my mind, that now that The Sims has gotten so successful now it’s kind of being watered down, and it’s a little bit more like generally friendly now. I would love to see it return in the Sims 4 because I think I would love to see the younger generation’s reaction to it, and if they have the same experiences as well at first, like, “What is that?”
I know many fans love your “Entire History Of” series, and you just released the first one in a while a couple of weeks ago. I’m curious if there are any plans lined up for future ones, or what some of the most requested ones are that you see from fans?
Jesse McNamara: So I’m kind of hoping to change things up a little bit, because my Entire History Of series, out of everything that I’ve made on my channel, that is the thing I’m most proud of. It takes the most work, but I also enjoy it the most, and I enjoy researching it. But also, when I’m watching YouTube myself, a lot of content I watch is long-form videos. So me and Brittany actually – who’s on the call right now – we’re working on a really long script about the entire iceberg of The Sims franchise.
So I’m hoping that that’s going to be really, really long. And I hope that in between the little short ones, where it’s just like character snippets, we have these really long ones going in, whether it’d be like Sims drama, or Sims lore, or just facts about the Sims. So that’s something that we’re focused on.
I know you are a Simmer who likes occults, which is something not everybody is into. I’m curious throughout the series what your favorite occult is?
Jesse McNamara: Unfortunately, I think it’s werewolves from The Sims 4, and I didn’t want it to be, because I didn’t want to like them. And honestly, it’s not the werewolf suit that is appealing to me, I much prefer the werewolves of The Sims 3. However, I do think that they really nailed the gameplay and the lore, and they nailed the world in a way that Realm of Magic didn’t, because Realm of Magic just felt like a random small world with a secret realm, whereas it does feel like you’re kind of in a werewolf world with Werewolves. And I think they put a lot of thought into it, I didn’t expect Werewolves to be one of my top Packs, but it was really good.
Yeah, it was quite good, I didn’t expect to like it more than Vampires.
Jesse McNamara: Oh, Vampires! Okay, scrap that, it’s Vampires. [Laughs] Because it had all kind of just been very surface level in The Sims 2 and The Sims 1 and stuff, and vampires in The Sims 4 – as much as I love vampires in The Sims 3 – vampires in The Sims 4 were executed very well. The world is a bit too small, but the world sells a story. And Caleb [Vatore] – I fancy him, so that’s that.
The Sims 4 Pastel Pop Kit is out now and can be downloaded from the EA Play app for PC, or with EA Origin for Mac.