I'll start by saying I enjoyed the game overall. As far as the "ending" goes however, it caught me off guard. I'm used to sort of never-ending, open-ended games (Sim City, Civilization, Age of Empires 3, etc.), but there seemed to be hints at more to come.

When I discovered (opened) the cave, the subtitle text and the accompanying visual scene depicting cave wall art really felt to me like an additional puzzle. Not only speaking of someone seeming to have been there recently because of the fresh bowl of fruit or whatever it was found in the cave (I did have a villager or two find and read a note and run off down a hidden path and disappear earlier in the game), but the cave art itself seemed to diagram how previous villagers found a way through the waterfall either to get off of the island, or to get to another part.

Aside from those teasers, I thought something more would have happened with the treasure - it's still sitting there. Of course, I guess they couldn't exactly take it anywhere and spend it. I had other thoughts/ideas, but I've got to get going, so I'll end it there for now. I hope I'm not touching on potential plot points for VV2, but I was wondering if anyone else had similar thoughts while playing.

I'm quite sure this is the lead in for vv2. My thoughts are that a small group of villagers is going to go thru that cave and come out on another side of the island. I'll know I'm right if my post gets deleted by admin. lol!!

If you look at the vv2 sneak peek you will see that the potential drawings promoting the second version show 2 villagers inside the cave. Most of us believe that the cave is the key to the upcoming next version of the game. The second version is called the lost children. Technically virtual villagers never ends, you may have solved the puzzles but you can keep playing endlessly or until you lose all of your villagers. You can also run multiple games as most of us do on various levels of difficulty.

Actually, if you read Arthur's developer diaries, you'll find out more about the game. You can find a link to his last diary in this post. It contains quite a bit of information about Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children, including the statement, "If you have read our previous developer diaries here at Gamezebo, then you know that Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children (sometimes referred to as Virtual Villagers 2), continues with some villagers who find a way through the cave."

Thanks for your quick responses everyone. I'll check out the info you've suggested.