For what it's worth, I'm enjoying Virtual Families. Though I do think it helps if you approach it from a Fish/Plant Tycoon type game rather than from the mission driven Virtual Villager's angle.

I'm willing to suspend "real" world expectations and logic, provided there are consistent virtual world model to replace them. And that's where I run into the time / money glitch...

If, with VF logic, it's 1 year for every 2 hours, (so it takes 4 real hours to produce a two year old child,) then the store should really be updated more frequently than every four years (8 hours).

Likewise, I have parents who are making $100+ a day each. If it's a real day, and I've been playing the game for 4 days now, I should have roughly less than a thosand dollars (taking into account sold collectibles, interest etc.), not enough to purchase anything other than limited food. On the other hand, if it is $100 a VF day, each parent should have an annual income of $36,500 every two hours. Instead, and I'm estimating here, the family seems to have earned about 4-6K (didn't track how much was spent in food, and I've got about 2k in "upgrades") in 4 days. I haven't lost a parent yet, but it seems that despite their listed daily income they probably won't even amass their projected yearly salary during the course of their entire working life.

And then there's the dog...
I spend less than $100 on spam software and that warrants a major family celebration. Spend $500 on a dog and there's no reaction at all? Very strange.

I absolutely agree - there seems to be little to no correspondence between aging, earnings, and store turnover, as well as that oddity with pets being expensive for NO reaction.

I also think the "puzzle" items (tape, plaster, etc.) need to be more regularly available - I have one family who are near death and still haven't seen a pump, a roll of tape, or a floor repair kit. and what's with that floor kit? 3 areas of damage, and you need a *separate* kit for each one? given that the kit appears every blue moon or less - not good.

I am pretty sure this game is made to be played through a few generations. Thats why things don't appear as often as you would like. Sure, it's a bit frustrating to wait for things, but there is no control over it. I just recently got the tape for my 1st family and they are nearing 50.

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I think the pet brings overall happiness to the family...but I could be wrong.

And EmmaAshlyn...please...really, you are not the first person to have adjusted your clock or looked for cheats. You're not being persecuted, honestly. Others have had similar problems.

Well, I don't mean for this to be taken as a complaint. I'm just requesting clarity.

As I said, I'm enjoying the game very much. In fact I'm exhibiting withdrawal symptoms as I sit here at work worried over whether two of my fathers will still be among the animated when I get home this evening.

As for the dog, I don't know how to check whether or not their happiness increased. They were pretty happy pre-dog. But while the family doesn't even act as if they realize the dog's there, he's kinda grown on me.

Tell me about it

I have the turtle...talk about unnoticed

I just keep sympathizing with the poor thing because it can never catch up with anyone until bed time

I don't know about the family but I sure think it's cute

I want the cat MEOW! I'm a cat-person! I love the game except for a few things like the easy killability. Is that a sad glitch or do they really die in a day or two?

Oh man, now I'm going to have to try the turtle... after the cat (which was what I wanted first, but you know how the market works).

An unmentioned feature of the invisible/visible dog is that he takes commands from the player-- which is only fair since I acknowledge his existence.

I give the turtle commands too...It'll stick it's head out, turn around, or clam up and go in it's shell if I bother it too much