We are attacking bugs on this game as fast as we can. If you see a bug that...well bugs you, please post it here. We may already know about it, but better safe than sorry.

It's not a big deal for me, but I've found that no matter how many times I click a preference for my villagers, the next time I go into the game, it appears that I've not selected a preference for them.

Also, sometimes when I switch between tabs on Firefox, I go back to find some or all of my villagers walking in place and the hand frozen as well. If I move the mouse, I can see other things being highlighted but the hand doesn't move until I click on something else. The people also do not become unstuck until after I click and drag them elsewhere.

Another problem I have is that I can't see the mouse moving around after I click on the quests and try to go to click on OK. I've also had that problem after clicking on the shop. This doesn't happen all the time though so I'm not sure why it's done it.

Several of the bad bugs (especially one of the most important - the babies disappearing between sessions) seem to have been fixed now.

As Houjin says, the issue with villagers' preferences not being saved is important. I've been routinely checking their preferences but each time I reopen the game they are lost.

Progress in skills aquisition also didn't seem to be saved, although when I opened the game last night I was surprised to find one of the villagers was a 'genius' farmer. The others were all novices, though.

I haven't seen the same problem as Houjin when switching tabs in Firefox, but I do see something similar when first loading the game. Although the game seems to be fully loaded, there's a delay of 15-30 seconds until it becomes responsive. I generally wait until the sound effects start before trying to use the game. Perhaps a 'loading' progress bar could be added to the screen for a short while?

I'm not sure if it's a bug or by design, but, when an item is bought from the store, another copy is still 'attached' to the cursor and the only way I've got rid of it is by clicking to reopen the store and then closing it again. I can see where this might be useful in the multiple purchase of small objects such as fruit bushes or trees, but it works the same way with large objects like the love shack, when only one instance can be purchased anyway.

Another oddity (not really a bug) is that there seems to be nothing for the kids to do - no mushrooms or collectibles for them to find. I've tried dropping them on various objects but each time I get the 'children can't work' message. However, they do seem to be able to collect berries of their own volition - just not when dropped on a bush. In other words, they won't do it when asked, but will do it if they feel like it. I suppose that is rather like real kids' behaviour ...

Hi there,

I new here and I just wanted to point out first thing.. I'm one of those people on the facebook forum you are saying "fix it now" and are basically shouting.. well I will have to say we are only trying to get someone to respond and in a nice manner.. we as a large group of people have a way of making this game stand out on facebook or sink it. Which would not be good for anyone.

I will give Zynga their dues.. they do have games that are way past this version of testing.. and no!! not every game is perfect at the get go.. but people do look for new things and Zynga is playing the energy thing to death as well as ask friends every 5 minutes to help you with something, which for me -- drives me crazy so I look for other games if I can, because I feel like I'm buggin my friends more than playing games with them..

As far as why we at the forum are upset is.. once we are stuck on a quest we can't get any father in the game.. whether we are in our first quests or 15th.. and the only thing we can do is clear wood, weeds, and flowers. And hope that you don't have that set up as a quest later on, because then we are stuck in another quest that we can't complete.. there for what's the point

Bugs that I know about and have seen people post are these..

1: Pages are now losing the mouse to move about the screen or freezing where you have to refresh to get it to work again.. this has happened to me twice, on a mac computer and using Safari 5.0

2: When you buy or try to move things you can't, because it still thinks the original is still in that spot so you have to move things far away, then move it back where you wanted it..

3: People are getting stuck in some of the quests and can't move on.. for me I've been stuck with the quest of adding a baby -- I filled all the rest of items to do.. but I must have had my baby to soon, because it never read that I had a baby. So I can't move on to the next quest at all..
Other have been stuck with the wood bin needed built, then they build it, but the quest never seems to think it has been done at all.

4: People trying to do the skeleton to revive it, takes like 4 or 5 tries, some get it done, others also did it before the quest came up and now are stuck with no skeleton to do.

5: Love shack when trying to build it, gets it built only for it to disappear or go back down in wood level and they have to get a person to complete it again.
Same goes for the festive food table..

6. Setting peoples preferences never has seem to stick, they work up in levels while you are in the game, but shut it down and go back they are back to the basics

7. Relics seems to be found only to disappear next time you open to play.. I have had this done to me once, one person had the whole sun dial completed and then lost it.

8. People seem to get lost just to do simple things like building a shack and you have to constantly drag them back to finish the work you wanted to them do..

The kid not working is really not that big of deal, mostly in the other games like this they just picked flowers, collected relics, mushrooms, etc...

People are just wanting to get a understanding of the game and I guess a outline of what this version can do..

How long does it take for a nursing mom.
How long does it take for a kid to grow.
What is the max population including babies/kids.
Can we do the quests out of order or do we have to do them in order.
Most people would like to lose the energy thing, because you only really get 5 minutes of play time.

I'm sure if you set up a main thread and had someone that checked every other day or once a week and state this.. because then you will have happier people and not all the negative reviews.. you might also want to state that this game is in a very early trial mode... but these are only my suggestions and what others are saying..

If you need a middle man, I would be happy to post a main thread and state what is happening, because i know keeping up with game is time consuming.. thanks!!

I've just seen the bug when switching tabs in Firefox. As NeoAnimeHaven says, it seems to be new, otherwise I'm sure I'd have noticed it before. Some of the bugs NAH mentions do seem to have been fixed, at least for me.

A new one to me is that I got a message that I'm at the population limit when I tried to have a second baby. I therefore bought and built a third shack. However, when I tried to get them to kiss, I got the message about the population limit again! GRRRR!

I'd also mention that I've finished all the quests so far. Are there supposed to be more? There's also no indication on how the villagers are supposed to carry out research, or even what the benefits are. The same really goes for the other skills in the details screen; what's the faith one about, for instance?

Actually getting the game to load is my only problem currently. This occurs (with all Flash updates) on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Explorer.

Sometimes I can't even get the splash screen to load, but usually the initial splash screen loads, then the "load island data" bar will quickly fill to a point (anywhere from 8% to 89%) and then hang. Waiting doesn't help, I refresh the screen and go through the same process again and again. Eventually the game will load completely and I can play.

Because of this, I've only been able to access the gameplay three times in the past two days.

They are trying to do some major fixes, and that might be what is throwing you off today.. have you also tried clearing you cache on which ever browser you are using..
I know a friend of mine could not get it to go through until they did that for some reason, after that they were able to load it.. just a thought..

I'm in the same boat as pjf. I have actually only been able to get into the game twice since discovering it because the loading screens hang up on me. I'll try again when I have a chance today.

The forums attached to the game in facebook are quite busy. If I cannot keep up, I am going to revert to checking LDW's forums first and foremost for bugs. I know the development team is checking the facebook forums, primarily.

So basically if you post here you will be heard by me. If you post on facebook, you will be heard by the dev team, and maybe by me.

Thanks for the bug reports so far. Some of these issues are definitely known, others are being watched thanks to you.

I was able to get in on my work computer. So far, I haven't run into any of the same bugs that I did earlier!

Will there be a help screen later on? My peeps are weakened because I couldn't get to them. It would be great to know what methods are appropriate to revive them.

I will surely write here if I find anything else. Other than missing the drag-and-drop exploration, I am enjoying the game!

I am happy to report that I did not experience any of the bugs that I had yesterday. And, IMHO, the game seems to be running smoother.

I was finally able to finish the baby quest because of the fix.

Immediately after that, I got the feast table quest which went without a hitch; followed by feed the villagers, again nothing went wrong.

I'm still not able to produce anymore children. Currently have 4 adults and one 6 year old but I still get the you have reach the maximum population notice.

The preferred skill still isn't staying when you leave the game.

Also, it might be helpful to the player to give some type of hint as to what faith and healing will do. I haven't been able to find how to learn healing. It has to be there.

I was disappointed that I didn't get anymore quests nor was I able to do anything on a neighbor's isle.

A couple of quest suggestions:

Chop down and remove stumps from XXX trees. 50, 100 or whatever
Remove XXX weeds.
Tend to xxx weeds on your neighbor's isle.
Pray at xx neighbors' Idol of Life.
Pray at xx neighbors' Idol of Thunder.

Thanks, Arthur, for being so responsive.

The only problem I am getting at the moment is when someone sends me a gift I accept it then I get a message to say there has been a mix up. Good game.

Just want to say thanks to Arthur and all the devs for how much hard work they've put into all the bug fixes so far

My biggest issues were with it being so slow and jumpy, and clicking 'get updates' button not bringing up more than an empty white loading window......but these issues are now resolved. Removed my Windows XP and am on Linux, and now it runs like a dream Really smooth, loads in about 4-8 seconds, and am subscribed for updates at last lol

Hanging around on level 8 at the moment waiting for the next lot of quests. Would be nice to see the good ole mushrooms for kids to collect, and perhaps something to do on neighbour's islands? But with regards to current bugs, they're not exactly critical. I'm not bothered by the villagers 'forgetting' what task I've set them or similar small issues.

What is more frustrating is the collectibles being so few and far between. Have only found 3 in about 4wks of playing. Be nice when they're a little more regular, and would be fantastic if there was collectibles for the kids too....perhaps ones a bit less relevant than to create sundials n the likes with the adults so it is an optional extra activity. Collectibles like in the pc games would be fantastic(one of my favourite parts of the VV games), but maybe sets of 5 or 10 kids collectibles could be found which pay out with some xp on completion of a set??

Dunno, I just thought of that off the top of my head while I typed there

In the other VV games I amused myself while waiting for the adults to do things by searching for items the kids can collect. It could be a way to amuse the people over on facebook that are yelling and screaming about how long the energy meter takes to refill. Searching all over the island for random collectibles and mushrooms with the kid would pass the time when waiting for energy.....and hopefully soon we'll have more kids when we can have a bigger population. I know, I know, that's probably a lot of hard work to implement in a facebook game, but would deffo be one way of making the energy bar less definitive over how long you can play the game in a session, by providing something further to do while it refills. You guys probably already have something easier to implement up your sleeves, but if you don't ask you don't get eh?

So far so good. I'm loving the game, but currently waiting patiently for more things to do

What seems to be the main bug for me is that the villagers can't have any more than one child, despite my buying and building an additional hut.

The other important bug is still that the villagers don't retain their skills between sessions.

I have also got the "mix-up" a couple of times when trying to accept gifts - and lost them! I asked the sender to try sending it again but she couldn't - my name didn't appear on the list of neighbours so the system obviously thought it had been sent.

Looking forward to more quests as there's nothing much for the villagers to do otherwise ...

I stand corrected......have found an issue...

Have been watching the discussions unfold over on facebook and saw a dev mentioning gaining rare loot drops by clearing trees, weeds, etc.....so I thought that this hunt might amuse me and help pass some time while waiting for the next update and more quests.

I was aware of collecting one piece of Antikythera previously as well as 2 of the Sundial pieces. So I spent a bit of time clearing weeds yesterday only to discover no loot at all. Than out of curiosity I went in this afternoon to see which pieces it was I was still to find so I would know what to keep my eyes out for, and discovered that while I still have the piece of Antikythera I now have no Sundial pieces at all any more.

Very disappointing considering in several weeks I had only came across those 3 pieces. I hope at the very least the loss of loot pieces is being tackled soon, and am keeping my fingers crossed that drops might eventually be a little easier to find than 1 every week or so too.

Looking forward to next update

When i was playing last night,the male and female were walking backwards.I guess that is a bug.I love it when they smile at you.I hope Arthur keeps that.

I've seen them walking backwards, too. Also they sometimes go through the motions of putting logs or food into the relevant bin while facing away from the bin.

I like their expressions, as well. There's one guy who, when I pick him up, has an expression of complete and utter amazement on his face. He must have a short memory as I tend to use him for special tasks just to see his expression. You'd have thought he'd have got used to it by now. He's also often loafing about "bored" so maybe he's a little simple.

I've been having some problems with mine too. When the people are walking they walk under stuff, like trees and weeds. I also can't have another child even though I have two shacks.

My food bin isnt showing all the food.My 14 year old girls bottom shows.

My adults cant swim.

Likes and Dislikes don't seem to have any effect (esp "Running". I made a point of selecting the one who liked "Running".

When I dropped a villager in the river, he "swam" halfway home through the grass
http://whiterose.org/test/swim.png

Sometimes (but not every time) when I click and drag long distance, the drag event stops when I stop moving the mouse. Other times, it continues to act like it's clicked. (Sorry if that description is unclear).

Lots of people are worried about the age of their villagers on Facebook. If it's like VV[1-4], then there's a risk that anyone who doesn't have a girl child may age out soon, given the population cap of 5.

My son-in-law is my nieghbor and the skeleton i brought to life is on his island,not mine.I would call that a bug.

I played the game for quite a while today,and i noticed some changes.The villagers dont walk backwards any more.I wondered why thy somtimes stand around and wave at you,i noticed they had run out of berries and coconuts to harvest.I bought more berry bushes,and cocanut trees.I am playing other betta games on facebook,and VV is the only one that looks like it is going to be a huge game.I know when Arthur gets it fixed,it is going to be great.

I just started the game and my two villagers gained farming experience. After I invited friends to the game, all of the experience was gone.
Its a fun game though!

I'd say that these are the most important things for the developers to do to make the game worthwhile:

• Fix the population cap. At the moment we can only have one child, even if extra shacks are built. My original villagers are now in their 60s, with the son in his 40s. It may be too late to save my tribe already.
• Fix the issue with skills and preferences not being remembered between sessions. Also, some explanation of how they gain some of the skills would be useful. I can understand parenting, farming and building, but not the others.
• Introduce more tasks. At present it's rather boring just watching them collect food and wood, or clear away weeds, etc.

Whenever I open the game the villagers are all standing around the village with nothing to do and I have to set them all tasks gathering fruit, coconuts, and wood. Shouldn't they be progressing when the game is off?

Tasks like clearing away plants and weeds take up an energy point; in addition, some thought ought to be given to the levels: I need 500 XP (and therefore 500 energy points) to go up to the next level which will take ages at current progress unless new challenges are introduced.

The last announcement of updates/changes was made on the FB site about three weeks ago. Although it seems a few minor modifications have been made since, there doesn't seem on the face of it any attempt to address the major issues.

I think it is progressing.I think when Arthur gets it fixed,we are going to need a lot of wood,and food.I am just going to keep colecting wood and food,and level up.I think i have built enough huts.I want to be ready.

I have the villagers chop trees and leave the wood piles,and have them pick the piles up later.They can chop more trees that way.when they run out of energy i get off thegame,and come bsck later.The wood piles dissapear.

I neglected my villagers and went into the game today to find them all dead. I used the resurrect on three of them but ran out of energy. I didn't want to buy more energy at that point so I just exited out of it to wait for more to appear. I just went back in and found all of the villagers alive again. At least the people are moving around. But I check their status and it says they're dead and they don't do anything, even if you tell them to. Yeah, just a little bit creepy having the living dead on the island.

I've also noticed that the details screen have not eliminated these dead villagers from the lineup so when I scroll through the villagers, the status from one goes onto the next one so it even appears that the healthy villagers are dead too. And that the dead villagers are healthy.

I also just tried to resurrect one of the dead villagers and the resurrect image of clouds doesn't show up nor does the villager get resurrected but the energy has been taken away.

Edit: I tried to resurrect one of the living dead villagers again and now my game appears to be stuck in a loop of resurrecting clouds. The countdown time for the energy amounts is counting down weird too as it skips about fifteen to twenty seconds going down.

I've been checking the forum on facebook for the fb version of the game. There have been a LOT of issues with the game not working for a lot of people. I am one of them. One of the complaints I just read mentions that the creators of the game must have given up on the game since none of them have answered any of the questions posted for some time now (I think Aug. 4 was the last posting?) I know you all are busy and I wouldn't normally complain because I love all of the VV games so far, but is anyone out there still working on the bugs with the game and will we be able to get some kind of response whether to delete this app or not? I really want to give the game a try, and it will load, but the game page still comes up blank. Sometimes I get music and sometimes not. PLEASE help. Thanks!

We are involved in the forums here and on Facebook, and we fully understand the issues. Since we are working with another developer, things are a bit complicated. We will respond as soon as we can, and we do apologize for the delays.

I love it.Some of the games i play on facebook now have the option to play with full screen.That is really nice.I think Arthur is doing a fine job.I know when he is done,it will be great.Some of the other games have more bugs,than VV.

It says at the bottom,if you have trouble seeing Virtual Villagers,update your flash player here.

I have an island event, but the text for the event is scrambled.
The event end up something like this:

Archipelago Event
Whales of Isola

(Missing image)

A pod of whales are traveling through archipelago
of Isola on their annual migration.

The gods must decide their fate.

(The option is shown as below:)
tBtnText
tBtnText

actually managed to find my first collectable....so far have not encountered any "bugs" as it were .my main issue is how the interface works. i find it rather finicky as to where and how i can place or move things

I got that event also. but on the whole i find the game to be great fun

I was playing vv and at the top of the game it said they are closing the game august 28th.I could not believe it.I am having so much fun playing it.I am getting a lot of nieghbors.I only hope it is not true.I hope Authur changes his mind.

I am still playing,and i have tons of money and bucks.Is that a joke?If Arthur decides to release it on facebook at a later date,i wont play.I spent to much time getting nieghbors,and chopping wood.I had villagers chop every tree on the island.I think he gives up to quickly.There are other games on facebook that are much worse.I think the game was progressing quite well.That is my opion.

Yes, it's a shame. I hope after a suitable period the game will be relaunched.

I was amused by the line

I had 1 Buck left yesterday; today I've got 2,001! I assume that's a bug, not a gift from the developers!

I had 0 bucks,and had the same amount as you,yesterday.It has to be a bug.

I thing they made a wise decision on pulling the game; it just wasn't ready and there were some really angry people who were just posting some over-the-top nasty stuff. LDW puts out a terrific product and IMO, the FB version and the posts could give them a bad name.

Although I wasn't a long-time FB user, I've been wanting a VV version on FB. I think it could be a perfect fit for all the LDW games. I don't know what it takes to convert the game over to FB but I believe that we will see it again on FB.

Looking forward to the new and improved FB Virtual Villagers.

Please don't remove the game! This was my most favorite game on facebook! this was a fun game(even though i ran out of quests after the second day playing :P) to play and i loved it very much. I hope you will put it back on facebook once it it done.

I think Arthur made a big mistake.I havebeen playing some of the other games on FB.VV is the best of them all.VV has the best graphics of them all.VV isnt the only game people were complaining about.I played again today,and i can see improvements.I know Arthur is very proud of his games,and does a great job.I think he should of kept the game on FB a while longer.

Well if Arthur feels it needs to come down and be worked on without all the aggro from people over on facebook, so be it. I'll be looking forward to it's relaunch once the necessary changes have been made without the pressure of fb users ranting for everything to happen overnight.

Hope they give some of the users on this forum a shout if needing beta testers before full relaunch though. Am Alpha/Beta testing a few things just now, but could easily spare a bit of time for LDW too if they need peeps

I suppose your right,Punchy.

I wonder if after Arthur fixes it,Will our nieghbors still be there?I would hate to have to find new Nieghbors.

They'll stay as FB friends, so it shouldn't make any difference.

I played for a while today and i love it so much.I sure hate to see it end.

Any idea when Arthur is ging to put VV back on FB?My Tribe is getting popular.Most of my niedhbors from VV are playing it.It stinks.

I agree. I tried My Tribe quite a long time ago and lost interest fast. I miss VV and am looking forward to it being fixed and back on FB!

Have yu played any of the other games!Oh my word,they drive me crazy.They want you to buy every thing.I dont think VV had that much wrong with it.I think Aurthur should put VV back on FB.It is just as good as any other game on FB.If people dont like VV,they dont have to play it.That is just what i think about it.

Where was this when i was on facebook 2010?!

The game only lasted on Facebook for just over a month. It was a 'soft-launch' so wasn't widely advertised, relying on word of mouth to attract new players. Unfortunately the game had lots of bugs and was withdrawn at the end of August 2010.

Too bad it ended. . .I hope Arthur puts it back on FB soon.

Unlikely after five years. Things have moved on and people play games on their tablet or phone nowadays rather than Facebook itself.