I agree with most of the suggestions that have been made, and I'd especially like to see some improvements to make sitting down and playing the game more interesting. I know this is supposed to be a casual game, but we get really attached to our villagers, and there should be more to DO when we want to sit down and "play" with them for a while, even after the puzzles are done. (It seems as if VV is growing beyond the limits of a casual game, anyway.)

I have some suggestions for the collectibles (along with a few other things) since that is what you can do in VV2 to actively "play" the game. However, there would be many other ways to make the game even more fun to play, such as making some areas in the village more interactive or unpredictable.

In VV2, the collectibles don't appear very often, and it's tedious to keep scrolling around the map looking for them. Often you can't find one for 15-20 minutes. That's so boring! At least make it so that each time you find an item, more of them will show up (during the next 20 minutes, say). It would be less annoying to have to wait so long to find an item if I knew that things would pick up after that as a reward.

Also, there should be more motivation for collecting the items. Once my tribe has mastered the first few puzzles and secured their food supply, there's no reason to bother with the collectibles any more. I can't use the extra population cap since my Mac can't even handle 80 people without slowing everyone down to a crawl. (And yes, I have enough memory.)

I have played several tribes through all the puzzles, and at first I seriously tried to complete the collections, just to reach that goal--but the missing items never appeared and I had to give up. In all my tribes, I think just one collectible set has ever been completed.

It would help to know when a collectible has appeared. In Plant Tycoon you hear a sound and then you have to watch very carefully to catch the _bug_; that's good. In VV2, I have read that the laughter and chimes are supposed to alert you, but I have never found them to be helpful. Most of the time, nothing shows up when I hear that sound, no matter where I look.

Someone posted that once you have Exploration 3 you should be able to see the collectibles on the map. Well, you CAN see them IF you know they are there, but they are so small that all I can say is good luck finding them that way. Also, by that time I have completed the puzzles and am losing interest in the tribe anyway.

To keep the game interesting after the puzzles, I'd love to be able to use my accumulated tech points to buy things to decorate the island--like in Plant Tycoon except I want to be able to move them around to keep decorating the island myself. In VV2, the tribe can continue to thrive indefinitely, but the people have no purpose. They need a reason to keep developing their hard-won skills after the puzzles are done. (Changing clothes is a start.)

Also, please improve the villagers' appearance--add more skin tones, get rid of all those UGLY dudes, and bring back the wider variety of faces from VV1. In the VV2 game I just played, of the first four or five kids, three had the SAME face/name combination as an existing villager (the tribe was still quite small, of course). That sort of thing happens a lot, because there aren't enough different faces and names to go around. I can (kind of) understand the faces, since you're trying to have kids resemble parents, but why do the names keep repeating? Why aren't all the names used just once before they are repeated in another order?

Last but definitely not least--like many other players, I have carpal tunnel problems, and I would enjoy the game a lot more if I was able to move around the island by rolling my mouse. The number keys are a big improvement over VV1 (and the arrow keys would be a nice addition), but clicking anything repeatedly is still a repetitive motion.

I love the concept and nonviolence of the two VV games; I just wish they were more interesting to actively play. Still, VV2 was a big improvement over VV1, and I'll buy VV3 just to see what you come up with next. I'm sure that eventually you'll have the ultimate game that is truly addictive--so keep up the good work! Thanks!