Argh! I have enough food for two dozen villages to eat like kings for years, enough tech points to buy everything all over again, a stable population of 90, all 16 puzzles solved long ago, you name it--all because I've been watching and waiting and trying weird things to figure out how to get my villagers through that cave and onto the rest of the island. I got frustrated enough to come look for spoilers online in hopes of cheating my way through the cave . . . and now I see that there's not anything else?

It's over? Really? There's no more?

Nooooooooo!

I agree with mizmudgie. Is anyone writing a Part II for this game?

Why yes they are. See this post.

Well, you have a complete virtual villager action figure play set now. Drag 'em around and see what you can do with 'em. Make a big beach party. or a village lake festival.(can you get all 90 swimming in the lagoon at once?) Maybe if you are quick with the mouse, you can get a bunch of em into a conga line . Seriously though, we have noticed that many of you are quite imaginative in "role playing" with the villagers and we have been discussing what we can do in the next game to help enrich the creative play experience.

Walt--

My daughter had an interesting idea. I suppose she's rather more prudish than I, being only 13, but she's managed to maintain careful marital fidelity among all her villagers. Nobody gets to breed unless they're paired up on her scratch-paper marriage registry, and nobody gets to pair up with a sibling or first cousin, either.

Most players aren't going to want to invest this kind of energy tracking their births (and pausing the game so as to monitor who goes indoors!) . . . but you might want to hide a nice treat for anyone whose village children aren't inbred after a few generations! (Or maybe even just make the villagers refuse to breed with their siblings?)

Btw . . . she does allow widows to remarry. Generous of her!

(Some example I am. My villagers breed with whomever's handiest when I decide to encourage more babies. I've even managed to get eight of them in that hut at a time, which absolutely horrifies my poor daughter!)

Village Idiot--

Thank you, and hooray!

I want to make it through that cave and see the rest of the island. Maybe my villagers could even build a boat and set sail . . .

For whatever it's worth, beloved LDW game designers, you're absolutely right about Virtual Villagers inspiring community participation among very casual players. I've never visited a video game website before this one, never posted to a game forum other than here. But those little villagers are sooooo engaging!

Did I mention my two bickering mothers who gave birth to little boys within seconds of one another, and *both* named their sons "Koko?" What stories!

Btw, for other readers: It took a minute to find the good news from the link in the previous post. Here's a paste:

"... and we are also beginning work on a 2nd chapter for the Virtual Villagers series (yes, it is intended to be a series). With the infrastructure and AI we have invested in Virtual Villagers--not to mention how much fun we have working on it--continuing the story of the little villagers on the island of Isola is a natural choice."



Thanks to everyone!
Sterghe

Yeah , fidelity enforcement... I like that! Virtual Villagers is meant to be "loose" enough in structure to support that kind of role playing. Internally we talk about the "sand box" factor of the game. We're glad you guys are having so much fun with it! BTW, in the pictures thread I saw that one person got a pretty convincing conga line going!

anyone will swim in the lagoon, either by themselves or if you put them in there.

I would like to rebut a comment that I saw on a closed thread; this game is not a 'waste of money'. Although I was very let down after the puzzles and tech level advancement was over, I have spent some time playing the game in a relaxed mode for a while now. Even though I have posted my comments about the things that I would like to see enhanced in the game, I don't think the developers of this game should allow themselves to be discouraged by the 'waste of money' comment.

I have been letting one of my games run for a couple of weeks now. I have tried many social and breeding experiments, named the villagers after everyone I know, and generally have had some fun. I have even made some analogies to work processes by watching the villagers.

Right now my longest game has had 285 babies made, with 4 sets of triplets, and 18 sets of twins. I have watched the waves of population come and go. The GC is not really as big a problem as he once was.

I tried an experiment where I dressed all my twins and triplets in the same clothes so I could locate them easily, had them all continuously worship the idol (which did not increase any life spans past 86), and breed only amongst themselves. They have all passed on now.

I currently have 83 villagers. Four of them are runners, two of the runners are twins, and one of the twins is expecting triplets.

I should add that I am one of those people who is very easily bored by activities that are predictable and repetitious. Virtual Villagers is probably the most entertaining $20 game that I have ever seen.

its almost impossible not to inbreed in the beginning. there are only so many people to start with. i tried not to inbreed but no matter how i tried i could not get around it. how are you not supposed to inbreed when you start with like 6 people?

Try playing on the hard level and not inbreeding, you get four adults and one child.