Neighborhood: This expansion adds a new pre-made neighborhood, Belladonna Cove. It features many apartments, and San Francisco's Painted Ladies townhouses. Other buildings in this neighborhood include a trailer park, libraries, coffee shops and grocery stores in addition to several parks. Several of these lots showcase major gameplay elements not available in previous expansions or the core game. There is also a new icon, when there is a family living in an apartment building, there will be a green apartment icon over the house.
New interactions:This expansion adds multiple social interactions, including "High Five", "Earthy Hug", "Fake Out", "Kiss Kiss Darling", and "Tough Handshake". Children have new special interactions to use with their peers, as do toddlers. Parents and teenagers can now also play "Peek a Boo" with toddlers. Sims of all ages (except toddlers) can participate in the "Classic Dance" or "Jump Rope".
Witches and Warlocks:This expansion gives Sims the opportunity to become Witches (female) or Warlocks (male), similar to The Sims: Makin Magic. While playing as a magical being, Sims may choose to be Infallibly Good, Good, Nice, Neutral, Mean, Evil or Atrociously Evil, each of which has a unique costume. A sim may become a witch or warlock by building a strong relationship with an NPC magic user until the option to request the transformation becomes available.
New objects and toolsApartment Life adds a number of playground objects, including a jungle gym, playground slide, merry-go-round, and monkey bars. New furniture items include a Murphy bed, open mic stand, break dancing mat, trash chute, apartment mailboxes, vibrating bed, vending machines, witch-themed furnishings, in addition to new TV sets and a large fish tank.
Build mode adds new types of objects and tools, such as spiral stairs, a new elevator (this expansion pack also includes all of the elevators from Open for Business if it is not installed), built-in wardrobes, visible ceilings, ducts, vents, and heating and cooling windows as well as the usual assortment of new wall, floor, garage door, and door styles. New modes of transport available are helicopters for purchase and Witch brooms.
While the Sims are living in an apartment, they will only be able to change the floors and wallpaper within the apartment, as well as place miscellaneous Build Mode objects like marble columns. Also new with Apartment Life is the ceiling. A new 45 degree angle view in build mode will make it possible to view the Sims' ceiling which can be covered in the floor tile of the player's choice.
New NPCsNew NPCs include butlers, landlords, roommates and NPC neighbors. When players move playable Sims into an apartment, NPC characters will move into the other apartments if the player doesn't move other Sims into them.
Compatibility with other Expansion PacksPlayers with both The Sims 2: Pets expansion pack and Apartment Life will be able to have witch's spectral cats, and with the Pets expansion pack, the player can have pets in the apartment. If the player doesn't have Pets, 'Lap dogs' will be available for purchase in buy mode without the Pets expansion pack.
Heating and cooling will actually make a difference to a Sim's temperature gauge if Apartment Life is played with the The Sims 2: Seasons expansion pack installed.
Roommates:This expansion pack offers Sims the chance to live in apartments in low or high rent districts, and allows for four user controlled families to be within an apartment building. The player also has the option to look for roommates whom the player can choose, but not control. When the player reviews potential roommates the player is given a basic personality to help the player decide which roommate would best suit. Though roommates can't be controlled, the player can view a scale that tells the player how satisfied they are.