Hi everyone! I've been playing VF for a few weeks now and have discovered some interesting things about it. Here they are!

Tiny boxes tend to contain ants. Don't open them.

Small boxes usually contain medicine, which you can resell at the store if it's not needed.

Sealed green bags contain organic food, which cannot be resold but can be fed to your family.

Brown bags contain standard food. See above.

Anything that bounces off a truck usually contains paintings, which happened to me once saving me major $$$.

Once in a while you'll get a benevolent neighbor who'll give you a hammock. The notice will arrive by email. (On a related note, the same neighbor will occasionally send you emails that rare collectibles are in your yard. But don't rely on this all the time.)

Occasionally, your peeps will win hot dog eating contests. I don't think this affects their hunger, though.

You have to have at least 3 (preferably 4 or 5) mature people in the house to be able to use wall compound before it dries up.

DON'T move your peeps when they're bringing a new collectible
to the collectible cabinet, but you can move them when they are selling one. The money will be automatically credited to you.

Not all lottery tickets are winners, but it's worth a shot.

The rule of kid beauty contests: if you think the kid's ugly, they probably won't win. But if they're pretty/handsome they probably will. (This is learned solely from experience. One of my virtual kids came in 8th out of 7... ouch) But, this could just be random. I don't really know yet.

Once in a while the "family fun magazine" will drop by to say your photo is featured in their magazine. There's nothing you can do to make this happen more often... it just happens.

Sometimes, the old male peeps will grow beards. They may also say they're shaving. But, the beard will not vanish. Don't worry about this... the beard is pretty much permanent, but it may disappear when they lift their head. That's a small error but it can be fixed by a mod (look around in the mod section).

Peeps picking up a wrapper/sock, if interrupted, will drop it where they last were. But, peeps interrupted while picking up the remote will drop it back where it originally was.

If you have trouble getting the salty candy trophy, try having your peeps have a couple kids. They will do misbehaving things, facilitating the need for salty candy.

Twins/triplets are random. I got a few sets of them without a baby boost for either parent.

I know this is obvious... but kids tend to look like their parents. So much so that one of my families was made solely of girls that looked exactly like their mom and boys that looked exactly like their dad.

The pets don't do anything but walk around the house and look cute, although they may help morale.

Profession magazines don't provide a visible boost in the career progress bar, but they will eventually help. They got one of my peeps to a level 8 career.

If you have the choice between buying a house upgrade that will net you a trophy and one that won't, get the one that will.

If a stranger comes to the door and will sell you career tips for $5, reject him. He will eat all your food.

If a kid comes to your door, adopt him/her if you want, but I've found that some adoptees can be more troublesome (drawing on walls, banging dishes) than the couple's natural kids.

If there's a power outage, don't throw out your food if you have a lot, but beware... it can increase the rate of sickness in the household.

If someone gets sick a lot, try the penicillin first, then the vancomycin. Both will get you trophies if matched with the correct illness. But, if you have enough money, go with the doctor consultation to be sure.

If you buy your peeps a different outfit, the new clothes won't show up in the family tree. They'll look like they did pre-clothing change.

Get the house fixed as soon as you can. It helps morale.

Sometimes, buying only one kind of organics can net you the "4 food groups of organics" trophy. I think it's a bug.

Buy lots of food before leaving the game overnight. I mean LOTS. They'll starve otherwise.. they eat overnight.

Yes, there are only 4 plates on the table. No, it's not a bug. Yes, they have to eat in shifts. Oh well.

If your peeps are weak, hand sanitizer is most effective if they were/are sick; vitamins are most effective if they are old; and fruit is most effective if they were/are hungry.

Peeps tend to die at 65. You can try to get them to reach that goal by a) keeping them happy and fed and b) buying them vitamins/food/hand sanitizer.

You can't go outside the gate. The domain of the peeps is limited to the house and yard.

Mothers don't like to swim while they're carrying a baby.

Most of the actions that are linked to trophies are random.. you cannot make your peeps do them. You have to have a little kid to chase the gophers, though. All others can be done by anyone.

If you can't pull a weed, drop a kid on it (don't know why this works, but it does). Kids can help clean up the house too.

If your elderly peeps are slow picking up weeds, you can buy the weed bomb (very helpful), although you may have to wait a while.

If you see an item in the store you may need in the future that you don't see often, BUY IT! You can always resell it if you need cash later.

Finally, take good care of your peeps!


Virtual Families is a fun game and I hope these hints will help players! If you have any other hints, post them on this thread please!