Hi, after installing the latest version of VS 1.1, I had to start the game all over again. Somehow luck was on my side and quicky I solved all 12 puzzles. The last being puzzle #11 at 287 hours.

Today, however, I had a shock of my life. I realised my huts were gone and I checked the puzzles, #1, #3 - 6, #8 - 9 and #12 became unsolved again!!! I was so worried that my Tech levels were lost but luckily they're still at level 3.

I checked my status and it still record that I have solved 12 of 12 puzzles. And though I have level 3 for all tech, my villagers are still confused about the giant rock?!

Is this a known bug or something completely new? Pls advise, thanks.

i cant believe it, you scared me...i'm breaking my head trying to solve the puzzles, i hope nothing like this will happen to me.....email the LDW friendly staffs, i'm sure the'll come up with something...

Could you possibly provide a few more details surrounding that situation? For example, did an Island Event occur shortly before you had that shocking reversal in your game?

Nothing abnormal happened before that as far as I can remember. And I can't remember if it happened after an island event or something. The only thing I have observed since v1.0 to the latest is sometimes when I tap on the screen to zoom in or do my dragging around to view elsewhere, I have some errors that prompted me to reset my device. I can't remember if the reversal happened after a reset. It didn't for v1.0. But for v1.1, I have only experienced once such reset and after that I realised that some puzzles became unsolved. I am not absolutely certain that they are related.

Now I have solved all the unsolved "solved puzzles" except the boulder. It has remained solved after the "reversal" but the boulder is still blocking something until now! This is so crazy!

Yesterday, I dragged an Adept Builder over the boulder. At first, the comment was "She sees the boulder blocking something". Then the comment became "She sees something unusual" and started walking away. I tried to simulate it with a Master Builder to no avail. I followed the Adept builder until she reached position of Puzzle #12 and she knelt down around that area a few times and came about to nothing. Please note that I've re-solved my Puzzle #12 as well by then. I thought there is a new puzzle or surprise hidden for v1.1! What a disappointment!

Update: The error that I mentioned above just occured while I wish to drag the screen. Here is the error message:

Quote:

---

MemoryMgr.c, Line:3635, NULL handle

You may need to restart the handheld by performing a soft reset. Please press the RESET button.

---

Can't press the Reset button on screen. I always need to use the reset pin in such cases. Anyway, checked the game after soft resetting my device, it's ok. Nothing is amiss except my boulder is still blocking something eventhough it's been solved earlier.

I had a similar thing happen. Nothing odd like crashes or resets happened before. I had completed the game again with all 12 puzzles solved and one day I turned on the game one day and it told me that my villagers had just put up their first hut. My villagers were on the whole rebuilding thing but now all puzzles are solved except #5.
Hopefully, this is an easy problem to fix.

Peter

Another thing that I can remember doing probably before some of my puzzles became unsolved was I changed the difficulty level from Medium to Hard. But that never has any problem in v1.0.

I have never paused the game. It used to be on Slow when I sleep and Normal on my waking hours until I solved all puzzles. Then I left it permanently on Normal real hours.

Will I ever get to move the boulder again?

Until now, it's over 962 Realtime hours played. On the Puzzle Status, the boulder has been moved but in the game, it's still there.

Arthur could say for sure, but it's likely that the game "thinks" that the puzzle is already completed. It's clear that the game has become "confused" about its status, due to some sort of bug. The problem lies in determining the cause of this bug.

Maybe Village Sim cannot write the save file, and it restores the previous game?

No, because these are long-running games that have been saved many times before the bug happened. They wouldn't revert to the status of a new game. Besides, the puzzle screen shows that the puzzle is complete, in conflict with the conditions in the game - that wouldn't happen if it was an issue with writing the savegame file.

That's true. If it isn't a problem with the savefile, then... where is the bug?

That's why I was asking about what happened right before the puzzle screen was messed up. We haven't been able to recreate the bug.

I am so sorry that I couldn't give the exact event that happened before this occured to my game because I wasn't sure myself. Hmmm...the longer it passes, the less I can remember what happened. Sign of aging huh? Ha!

I am wondering if I should start a new game and see if it will occur again. But at the moment, I am still keeping this going because I am waiting for my population to decrease. v1.1 makes them very adept in breeding...sigh! If I only I have VS Editor for v1.1 then it would have speed things up a bit. Or VS Toolkit, so I can save this game and start a new game and switch between them to monitor them more easily.

Btw, I got the storm washing off the food storage again yesterday! I have been getting it almost everyday or every two days this week! This is not exactly random, is it?!

I have also had this occur - exactly as described above. The boulder will not get removed by the Golden Children - I have two of them now, since the 'bug'.
Now that would be something if they could breed - Superman flying around, or something

Since completing the 12 puzzles, after about 180 hours, I returned to the game to keep it ticking over on a daily basis. After about 320 hours I found all the buildings reset. There was definitely no 'event' on that occasion, when I returned to the game.
I had assumed that normal wear and tear had wiped out the buildings (although that didn't explain the stone becoming uncarved. The boulder only returned the day after!

I'm not alone after all!

Hmmm...this can be potentially frustrating for us and the developers. Sigh!

My solved puzzles don't become unsolved again. However, I rarely get the garden..with either version. Also, the third hut never appears. I have to bring over a builder who is the only person that can "see" hut 3. Once he starts building it, it becomes visible. The flowers and the third hut "events" happen on either version.
Gail

Hmmm...I never realised that the 3rd hut was not automatically detected like the rest because the builder(s) always never fail to find it and construct it without any effort on my part.

And for the garden, I didn't know you could use it up! Is it so since v1.0 or only starting from v1.1? Either I have missed it all these whiles or my villagers never get to use it up!

It seems that there are still "unsolved" mysteries within VS for me! Hurray!

My third hut always used to be visible. I just know now where to put the builder.

As far as the garden...I'm talking about the magic flower garden. I have completed the whole Village Sim and still no garden. I'm assuming the hut and flower garden are glitches of my Treo 600. I don't want to spoil anything, but a certain villager must be placed at a certain location; however, the hut isn't it.
Gail

I know my code by heart, so that I can zap it in when needed. With both versions glitches started to happen...which I said I personally attribute to my Treo. I was worried about housing whwn the third frame never appeared. For some reason, it MUST be a builder who sees it and starts building---the third hut then appears to all.

As far as my magic flowers...if they are watered and appear is "iffy". My crops are the first thing I attend to since the berries don't last forever. I don't even show the villagers the crop field once I have enough points to purchase it because then they will stop foraging and uselessly water the crops...the crops will appear anyway. By the time the crops are gone, I make them forage and stop their silly watering while their food goes down. By about the third cycle I'll have enough points to get them fishing.

Oh yes, I do alternate foraging and crop people so that they all have experience and don't panic when I plunge them into the water.
Gail

I wrote a long reply but forgot to post it, so this will be short. The third hut's beginnings are supposed to appear after you hit 25 people.

Also, I always rotate my villagers so that they can all do foraging, harvesting and fishing. When I have enough points to buy the crops, I don't show it to the villagers since they will spend all their time uselessly watering while the food bin goes down dangerously. The crops will appear without the water. I also never breed a huge amount of people until I have the fishing to sustain them.

Yes, I do know that the magic garden does indeed have to be watered...that I have never stopped. Alas, it rarely appears.
Gail

Sorry...it was posted. My apologies.
Gail

For the price I paid for my Treo 600, it is driving me crazy! Trust me, if I didn't know Village Sim so well, it would be absolutely impossible to solve on my Treo. Anyone have any suggestions on a hand held that is reliable? I don't use it as my phone...only to access the Internet, address book, etc., and for games. My Mobipocket isn't even working now (it deletes everything), so I can't even use it to carry a book. I had the biggie on Fish Tycoon..I'm afrai to even look at what's there now.
Gail

Hi Warren,
That's part of the problem; I haven't had any "problems" with the palm platform which is supposed to be better and more stable than Windows. I did have the Palm 705 where I was able to get my Internet clippings whenever I wanted to. Palm charged me the same price for the Treo when my Palm crashed and I had ordered an upgrade which never came in. Another alternative for me, perhaps, is to check into the Treo 700 you mentioned down the road, and see what people are saying.

I think perhaps I'll do some more research on the Palm vs. the Windows platform...then I'll make my decision in November and tell hubby-san for Christmas. BTW, Fish Tycoon is gone on my Treo. I do remember the the fish formula, but I'm not going to reinstall it now.

One of the reasons I like Village Sim so much is that even if you decide to change your strategies, those little people do have minds of their own. I do know that the little man who bobs his head constantly, isn't going to be my "rocket scientist". Thanks for your input...any other ideas I will also gladly consider.
Gail

I think with the 600, it boils down to the type of memory it has. When the 650 came out they updated the memory to be static, which should make it more stable, but I had other issues with it.

One big advantage to the windows mobile platform is you can move files where ever you want. This comes in handy with these sim games. If I want to try something risky, I just make a copy of the save file and move it to another dirctory. I was a little worried when I changed to it, but so far I'm very happy with it.

Warren,
I don't understand what you're saying about the memory...I assume it's the memory that the Palm came with. I had most of my things on a memory card which blew up big time at the same time my 600 crashed. I put the memory ard back in, and the whole thing crashed again.
Gail

Gail, I would suggest you to get a Sony Clie PEG-TH55. It's obsolete now but I think you may still be able to grab new ones from eXpansys.com (I got mine there after it's pulled out from all distributors) or used ones from eBay and so on.

I have a Palm Tungsten E before I got my TH55. To cut the story short, I was pissed with T|E, that's why I got TH55. Now my T|E is a testing device and for games only. But I play Village Sim on my TH55.

If I didn't get TH55, I may have been tempted by T5, LD and TX. But I just read that T5 has a lot of issues on Palm247, so don't get it! How I wish Sony is back on the Palm bandwagon again and start to be more generous with the RAM given!

That's food for thought, Warren. My stepdson, who is a computer geek...and that has a very lucrative business, always uses a Sony clie.
Gail

I'll have to check out Palm247 to see what they say exactly. I've had a T5 for a over a year now, with no problems so far. I love it! But then again, I love my daughter's iPaq too, and want one of them too. lol!

I agree with Warren on a major point... not to put all of one's eggs in one basket with an all-in-one phone/PDA thingy. It's too risky (still) to have all that stored info "online" constantly.

lol, yeah... Windows NEVER does that! :P

I'm not too sure, but I don't think you can even have another program running in the background with Palm. No multi-tasking whatsoever, lol! Maybe the Lifedrive is different, or some of their newer ones, but mine is one and only one program at a time.

My third hut's foundation has always been visible...until my glitch. Now once I reach the necessary population, I just place a builder there, Once he starts building, the hut then becomes visible. There is a trick, but the appearance of hut 3 is not it.
Gail

Ok this is really weird. Some of my puzzles became unsolved again for the SECOND time yesterday!!! This time nothing happened, no reset whatsoever. Didn't even install any new softwares. As the 1st time, all constructed structures are undone with no apparent reason.

I still have a copy of the SaveGame.pdb that I hotsync on 18th March. And I have the SaveGame.pdb of 19th March as well if the LDW team will like to look at them. This is a serious glitch IMHO!

Just checked my game, puzzle #4 and #5 is shown to be completed but in the game itself, they are still unsolved. Because I've set my builders on construction, puzzle #1, #3 and #6 are completed for the 3rd time now. Puzzle #8, #9 and #12 are yet to be re-solved. Sigh...

Ok I can't edit my post, so I have to do a new post to update my "plight".

My villagers have now re-completed all the constructable structures except clearing the blockage, restoring the garden and move the boulder.

These three puzzles appeared solved in the Puzzle status. However, they are all unsolved in the game itself. The 1st time my puzzles became unsolved, I was not able to move the boulder ever again because the status said it has been solved.

This time my puzzles became unsolved again, my lagoon and garden became two unsolvable puzzles because they're also considered solved by the puzzle status.

If I pull the villagers over the site of the blockage, they are confused and said more researched may be needed. But they will automatically go clear the blockage by themselves and then they are not confused by it. But it can't never be solved because the foundation is never built. So they just kept clearing the blockage to no end.

They are also curious about the field (where the garden is supposed to be restored) when I pull them there or they get curious on their own. But if I bring a nursing mom over, she feels very good in the garden?!

I have screenshots if you need them and also the savegame.pdb for yesterday's game and the last one before the game went haywired again for the 2nd time.

Ok I tried loading up the savegame.pdb before the 2nd time my constructed infrastructure became unconstructed and the corresponding puzzles became unsolved. I think I loaded it on Thurs or Wed.

Today, the puzzles have become unsolved again! So all in all it happened to me 3 times!!!

Because I load the saved game that I have saved after the 1st time puzzles became unsolved, this time the puzzles that remained solved is #2, #4, #7 & #11. But in the game itself, puzzle #4 & #11 are not solved at all. I'm gonna go soon!

Hehe, I have also have the same three puzzles now unsolve themselves and the same effect with clearing the obstruction - my game is now showing as being 1800 hours old.

The other thing that I find since the first time this occurred is that the time is not advancing properly when I'm away from the game. I leave the game on fast and the villagers get only maybe two years older after 2 days away!

'tis definitely strange!

Yes, it's happening to me. After a zillion hours of play (seems like it, I can get the exact hours), some of the puzzles were unsolved.

I assumed it was a bug - I think it really has to be. Since it seems to me that it was a bug, I didn't want to continue with the current instance of the game. I wanted to go back to an earlier save. At least 2 times, I restored a backup savegame file, sucessfully. I have backupbuddy, both the PC version and a version that backs up the data on my Palm (Palm TX) to the SD card where I also keep games, documents and stuff. I run Village Sim off the SD card, but the savegame file stays in Palm memory. This last time, I saw the game was bad (unsolved puzzles), so first I restored from the save on my SD card (the SD version of backupbuddy runs every night at 4 AM, and backs up the Palm memory to the SD card). That didn't work - I still had unsolved puzzles. So, then I restored the savegame file from an earlier save - using the backupbuddy restore function on the PC. It still didn't work - I guess my savegame file on April 21 was also bad. I'm going to go back further to see if I can find a good save.

After that - what should I do - restart the game? Do I also need to reinstall? I'd prefer not to reinstall, but if I have to, I will.

Thanks. Oh - I always run the game on easy, with a fast time.

Well, that did it! My restore of a savegame file from April 20 worked. Backupbuddy also insists on restoring the 3 music files, so I let it do that.

My stats - running now with the restored savegame file from April 20, 2006

Realtime Hours plays - 2820
Villagers born - 775
Villagers cured - 715
Villagers buried - 48
Oldest Village - 87
Max Village Population - 65
Food harvested - 5281957
Crabs Caught - 16895
Total tech points earned - 932851
Total tech levels completed - 12
Island events encountered - 108
Puzzles solved 12 of 12

My Preferences
Sound On
Music On
Music Volume Low
Difficulty Easy
Game Speed Fast

Puzzle 1 - 8 hours. Puzzle 2 - 11 hours. Puzzle 3 - 44 hours. Puzzle 4 - 49 hours. Puzzle 5 - 59 hours. Puzzle 6 - 69 hours. Puzzle 7 - 49 hours. Puzzle 8 - 97 hours. Puzzle 9 - 102 hours. Puzzle 10 - 119 hours. Puzzle 11 - 155 hours. Puzzle 12 - 90 hours.

I'm running Village Sime on a Palm TX. The game is on my SD card. The savegame file and the three music files are in Palm memory. I see the three music files are also on the SD card.

I also use a program called FileZ (fantastic program) to look at files on my Palm. On my SD card, Village Sim.prc is listed as being created 04/30/05, modified 12/29/05, and accessed 04/25/06.
The size of Village Sim.PRC is 3434557b. The Palm utility lists it as 3973K - bet they also include the music files.

I don't know what it is - it's been decades since I did any programming, and I never programmed on the Palm - counter overflow or something?

I started a new game when I installed the Village Sim enhancement. Before that, I ran the game for so long that a weird thing happened (spoilers) - the Golden Child died! That meant that there were no more group festivals with the dancing. I probably would have started the game again, without the enhancement, just to get a Golden Child back. There were no festivals - it was so sad!

I had that happen too... that the Golden Child died. It was also on a looooong running game. It was sad, with no parties, etc., but on the other hand, the villagers got more done. lol! But they didn't really need a whole lot done by then, just to keep good farming/fishing practice up to keep the food bin full in case of total wipe out by a storm.

Hmmm...so I guess I am not alone here. Well, I have had it happened to me twice. I didn't have the previous saved game, so after the first time my solved puzzles became unsolved, I resolved those that I was allowed to solve again.

2nd time when it happened, I can't solve the spring water and thus the garden. Luckily this time I have been saving my savegame.pdb every few days. So far so good except my boulder is still blocking the cave BUT nobody seems to bother with it. In the game status, it's solved, so I guess the villagers also assumed so.