I just restarted a game yesterday, or maybe the day before. I left the game open and running when I left the house for school at 7:30 a.m., the last time I saw it it had fewer than 1000 tech points. I come back nine hours later, and after a few minutes I look over at the tech total. I'm at 1.4 million. I go to my ldwlog.txt file, and find that one of my villagers is gaining 2176 tech points every time she goes to the table. She is one of three that are absolutely maxed out on research skill, but the other two are getting 20 points every time.

I've closed the game, restarted it, and she's still doing it. 2176 points every ten seconds at the table.

I've probably put in 10,000 hours on VV1, and this is the first time that anything close to this has happened.

Normally when something like this happens, it's because the time on the computer got changed accidentally. I'm assuming that you are on Windows.

Unpredictable results can occur if adjustments are made to the clock, especially moving the clock backwards in time. Different games will respond differently under those circumstances, ranging from minor statistics anomalies to killing whatever is living in the game. Virtual Villagers has a much more complex real-time engine than Fish Tycoon, and you're much more likely to see problems with it when adjusting the system clock.

There are a couple of ways to resolve the problem: You could wait it out and see if the game recovers, perhaps starting another game in a different slot while you're waiting. Or you could just delete the malfunctioning game and start over.

The clock can also be inadvertently changed if you double-click that little Windows clock in the bottom right corner to check dates and times (a lot of people do that without realizing that it changes anything on their computer). Also, Windows has the ability to set the computer's clock using an Internet time reference, so if the clock was inaccurate the resulting time correction could affect the game.

Well, this definitely happened while no one was here, but it may have been an auto update. I also downloaded an alarm clock program about 6 weeks ago, and I don't know if that could've interfered somehow. I know the traps and perils of time travel, and I haven't done it (save for daylight savings)in years. I don't even like to pause, knowing that it can effect the nursing clock by a few minutes.

Anyway, a complete reboot of the system later, and it is back to normal, except for the 1.9 million tech points that I now have.