Between LDW game releases, I always put their preview pages in my 'check daily' collection of URLs.

Every so often I'll browse through the rest of the site to see if there's something new, but I almost never post to the forums.

Over the past months whenever I bothered to check outside the preview pages, I've been noticing the porting of the games to portable devices, I know that takes time and effort, particularly to learn a new platform and all it's quirks. And since the 'Mystery Game' doesn't list as a new VV game, I expected it would take longer to develop than usual.

I had rather presumed the new game is substantially different than Virtual Villagers, so LDW doesn't just have to overhaul an existing game engine, but perhaps develop a new one from the ground up. Or perhaps it is based around the VV engine but is sufficiently different that it's taken more work to accomplish. Personally I'd love a 'Plant Tycoon 2' with all new plants and a new secret method of breeding... But I don't expect that's what it is, as that too would have been more of an overhaul project I'd think.

The last I heard was 'Coming 2011', and we've got 2 full months left for that to happen. And who hasn't slipped on a shipping deadline occasionally? Besides that, I've seen their progress bar stall for months at a time before only to suddenly jump to almost complete. And I'd certainly much rather they spend their time developing than updating website progress bars. :~)

Personally I don't come here for the social experience of the forums, but certainly no offense to anyone who did, I do know that can be fun too. I come here for their games. If we get to 2013 and there's still no 'Mystery Game' release, then I might really wonder if it would ever come out. But I'd still probably leave their URL in my dailies until the day it offlines. :~)