Mystery Game on the Previews Pages

We've created this topic for everyone to post their comments on the upcoming Mystery Game. Edit: this game is the now released Virtual Town.
We hope you will share your thoughts about the game. We will be posting periodic updates to that page, so you'll want to check back every so often.

What can it be? It looks like a children's camp. It's great to see a new mystery game on the horizon. Well done LDW.

It looks like it will be like The Sims.

Have you all quit on Lonely Pets. Because it was removed from the preview pages.

I honestly just want VV 6

The game could be VV 6 in 3D!

I'm with you on this one. I was thrilled to see they'd updated their previews page and have got back to game development, but it was still a disappointment not to see VV6 up there yet.

Having said that, I kind of hope the 3D game isn't VV6; the 2D artwork and little figures are what made the games special for me. Hopefully this game is completely separate from both of them. It looks interesting; I'm eager to try it out when it comes!

I also would like a VV6. But since all the parts of the island have been explored I feel that VV6 would have to do with the already existing parts of the island or a new island. And I also wish that VV5's Heathen Mommy puzzle were available to everyone who bought it from LDW. Because I didn't know of VV in 2010/11 but I guess I could make a time machine, just kidding.

Actually, it hasn't by a long shot. There are plenty of inland places where the game could be set - it doesn't have to be on a beach - or maybe they could do something a little different.

Even if it had been, that doesn't mean it's impossible for more games to be set there. How about a VV where a group of people wander off and end up trapped in a cave system? You could build a whole underground culture with unique crops and other food sources. There could be other challenges too: if the fire goes out, your villagers all stop their tasks until it's relit (the idea being that it's too dark to see what they're doing).

Of course, this would seriously annoy those of us who like to leave the game running in the background, so one of the early challenges could be to farm glow worms. As long as one of your peeps is engaged in the noble calling of breeding beetles with glowing backsides, you have a permanent and rather cool looking light source.

Or hey, there's a mountain range smack in the middle of the island. Instead of always sticking with the beach, how about building a mountain village for a change, where you could construct bridges between ledges?

And when we really have gone everywhere on the island, above it and below it, it could turn out that in that tranquil sea is actually a volcano. The volcano could erupt, causing a huge chunk of new land to rise out of the ocean (seriously, this is what happened to my country some 20,000 odd years ago) and cause Isola to double in size. And, naturally, the villagers would want to explore this new place

So there's still plenty of potential, not just for VV6, but VV7 as well XD

I like the idea of building bridges to get to different parts of your village.
I've been a fan of the VV games for a while, and I'd love to see VV6+ at some point.
And the idea of an underground village also seems neat.

I am glad to know you are working on a new game. I've been waiting and looking forward to it! I know it's too late for this, and I know this isn't what you want to hear, but the graphics type will prevent me and many others from playing this game. That particular graphics is choppy, difficult to navigate, and difficult to see what's going on. I'm trying my best to find an example of another game with this particular graphics problem, and I can't. I agree with others, I would prefer a VV6, but I would also like it to be a little faster. I know that isn't your forte, and that's fine. It's not going to stop me from getting it. But I replay Gemini Lost, I do not replay VV's. The reason is I can play Gemini Lost, My Tribe, and others more quickly. I don't leave them running in order to get something done before I'm 90 and forget I did it, killing all my people. Again, this will not prevent me from purchasing a new VV, but it is a preference. But I won't even play a game with graphics like this Mystery Game, let alone buy it.

I think it's a little unfair saying that any game is 'choppy, difficult to navigate and difficult to see what's going on' when a) it's still very much in the early stages and b) no one's even played it yet.

I agree the 3D artwork seems a little clunky based on the screenshots (the night sky in particular could use far fewer stars) but we have to remember that this is their first true 3D game, and LDW is an indie studio without the resources of the game company giants.

That said, I also admit that since I strongly dislike the VF series for a number of reasons, so I'm slightly biased and it's nice to be able to look forward to a game that's not VF Fingers crossed the Mystery Game doesn't end up on the scrap heap!

I like that there appears to be more diversity in this mystery game. However, the graphics leave something to be desired in my opinion...

You really can't judge the graphic qualities of the game from the images on the Previews Page. Those are low-quality jpg images that were made to conserve space on the server. The actual game graphics are much better than that.

It's not so much the quality of the graphics that I'm not so keen on, more the style. I've become used the the 'LDW style' used in the sprites for VV and VF (and PT to a lesser extent) and will miss them, although I will probably get over it.

Don't get discouraged! There's always VF3, which will be in our usual "LDW style," as you referred to it!

I promise not to lose any sleep over it!

Really? Now I happen to be a pretty avid sims fan (owned S2 with I think every expansion) play S3 (with 7expansion packs) daily, have played Sims Freeplay but didn't care for it, and one day may be able to afford S4, but ain't going to hold my breath waiting.
Any way, my point is the Virtual Villager games do bear a mild resemblance in that you can interact with the "people" build houses etc, but they are no where near as detailed nor time consuming. To me that's one of their major draws.
Having said that, I utterly fail to see how you can look at those images and then say it looks like The Sims. -just saying

Actually, not owning anything with a 3D display, I'm far more interested to know what platform(s) it will be released on and what I will have to try and get to enjoy it.

I think we can be pretty sure that it will be released for iOS and Android first. Hopefully versions for Windows and Mac desktop/laptops will be released on or around the same time.

I'm pretty excited to find out what this game will be like. Will it have puzzles? Will it continue the Isola storyline, or be something altogether different? I love the clothes and the colors, but especially love the camera angle. Perhaps we'll finally get to see our little people face to face!

VV6 would actually be quite cool. VF3 3D would be cool but it looks like they are already making that a different game. Who knows? Oh wait.... the developers do.... :P

VV6 would definitely be cool, but I don't want it in that style. I want to keep the current VV and VF games in the LDW style

Hopefully the Mystery Game is something else entirely!

I hope for the same, Judas. I want it to be something new entirely, just like you do.

Virtual Villagers in Minecraft? lol. Just kidding, but it is cool. I hope it is a new series type instead of a recurring series (Especially VV6 ew) If you do choose a recurring series, choose Virtual Families. That only has 2 games lol.

Have you seen this post DeathDefy? There are 2 games.

Yeah, I saw it. I hope this is a new series

I sure wish the new game would be Plant Tycoon 2, I love that game. I've got all the VV's and VF's and have gotten bored with
them.

Well, super, I hope! If it is not, NOT related to the doggone VFamilies which have taken 100% of your time now for over 5 years.
TIME to get back to PC 's and more VV .... FASTER VV games....

OMG I cannot wait i'm sure it will be flawless good luck on making this game greetings from Turkey

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!
Percentage completed %80 !!!!!!
It's amazing, i wouldn't wait that quick LOL
http://ldw.com/mystery_game_preview.php

I hope that this will get released on android, because that's where I mainly play LDW games. In fact, I am typing this on my tablet right now! Anyways, even if it isn't released on android at first, I'm still looking forward to it and want to play it.

Agreed. Unless VF3 has something that actually resembles some kind of story or end objective to hold the player's attention (achievements don't count), but I'm not holding my breath and personally I hope that VF3 is the last in the Virtual Families series. It's true that VV5 caused a lot of controversy that LDW could easily have avoided by replacing "Converting the heathens" with "Making a new friend" and the Devotion bar with Diplomacy, and it's certainly not a game that I will ever replay unless I can find a mod to that effect, but like the other VV games, at least there were clear goals.

Getting back on topic though, I have to say I'm looking forward to the Mystery Game (when do we get to know what it's called?). It seems like something brand new and that's never a bad thing

Sorry if I missed something, but does this mean Lonely Pets has been dropped?

Are you implying that a niche of a niche isn't profitable enough to develop? Especially for a game that was released a decade ago? The remake probably has been dropped by now. /sarcasm

Is it confirmed that the Mystery Game is called Virtual Town, or am I missing something? I heard that it was going to be called Virtual Town, but I'm just double checking.

https://twitter.com/lastdayofwork/status/673576956680667136
It's official!

Awesome!

From the looks of the mystery game pics it could very easily be a new version of the pets. I could easily see pet training or possibly a pet park incorporating something like the Virtual Town and making it a pet park to explore and have peeps to take care of the pets with breeding different kinds of pets, growing food for the pets or possibly a town with pets.