Dear1 Dear2

Virtual Villagers 30 December, 2006

Over the last week, I’ve been playing this game called Virtual Villagers by Last Day of Work. Eh.. actually, I haven’t completed Flo on the Go yet, currently at level 27, but I do score expert score for every level up till now. =D So anyway, I played Virtual Villagers. Basically, this game is about a group of 6 people, shipwrecked and found themselves washed ashore on a deserted island. Lame storyline but so be it, it’s the gameplay mechanics that count.

So the idea is, u gotta build a thriving village so that they can survive on their own. First of all, u have to train ur villagers to do some simple tasks so that they can fend for themselves while u r not around. Some basic skills are construction, healing, farming and research. Construction is needed to upgrade huts so that u can increase the population cap for ur village. Healing is needed, well, for healing of course. Farming for farming food. And research to earn tech points to buy new technologies that can help ur village to survive.

The one special thing about this game is that it is real-world-time. I think 1 hour of real world time is equivalent to 1 year of game time. So this means that if u go to work 10 hours a day, by the time u reach home and startup Virtual Villagers, ur ppl would be 10 years older than in the morning when u left them. That’s why its important to teach ur villagers some basic skills so that they can still do something while u r away. Unskilled villagers will just do nothing and relax the whole day. Interesting game right? U have to remember to breed new villagers as well, else ur older villagers will die of old age. These are all summarized in the tutorial in the game.

Along the way, there will be 16 puzzles to solve. They sorta set goals for u so that u won’t feel bored and aimless just looking at ur villagers everyday. Some goals are easy, like constructing a new hut. But some are more difficult, like learning how to fish for food.

Overall, I enjoyed the gameplay. The graphics are quite lousy but still passable. But one thing is I can hardly distinguish the males from the females, this makes mating a bit more troublesome cos I have to check the details (gender and age) of each villager from a separate menu. The real world time gimmick achieved what it set out to do as I find myself constantly worrying whether my villagers are going well and really couldn’t wait to reach home each day to check on them. But then, the novelty wore out in few days. In the sound department, nothing spectacular, in fact pretty monotonus. One other thing is the rather weak pacing of the game. There seems to be a hundred and one things to do in the early game, farming, constructing, research. Towards the mid game, the main focus is really just breeding and increasing ur population. In the end game, there’s really nothing left to do while u wait for ur research points to acculmulate in order to buy the last few extremely expensive technologies to complete the game. There’s not much replay value either since u would have already know exactly how to beat the game after completing it once. In the end, not as entertaining as Flo on the Go, but still managed to grab my attention for about 1 week. I give it 3 out of 5 Gamepads.

One tip to conclude this review. When u r mating ur villagers, u dun have to wait for them to go indoors to see if the woman will have a baby. Just take note of ur population count before mating, then repeatedly drag the male over the female until ur population increases by 1. These means a new baby is born, much faster than to wait for them to walk indoors.

Wah… recently Dear1 and Dear2 seems to be playing alot of games ah. No good orgh. Must learn how to manage our time properly. Dear2 never play Virtual Villagers lah, only Dear1 played. Hehe… actually, Dear1 is the one that plays alot of games, different games. Dear2 prefers to play simpler games like Flo on the Go but she’s very good at them. Dear1 has uninstalled Virtual Villagers becos I’ve completed it and there’s no incentive to replay it. Haha… I just bought a new pair of PS2 lookalike gamepads remember? So now I playing Pro Evolution Soccer 6 for the PC. Pro Evolution Soccer is just the European market name for Winning Eleven, they are the same game.

I hope Dear2 will play soccer game with me someday. Goal!!!!! =D

-Dear1

Tumbling Tower 25 December, 2006

While we were out shopping yesterday, we saw alot of ppl queueing outside Toy”R”Us. After some careful examination, we discovered that they are actually queueing for the free gift wrapping services. Haha… Anyway, we decided to take a walk in Toy”R”Us to see if there’s anything worth buying.

Actually, I think TRU sells toys quite expensively. Nothing caught our eyes. Everything is being sold at the recommended retail price. Grr… Abruptly, Dear1 stopped in front of the Lego section. The Lego City series are on sale!!! And they come in package deals. If I remember correctly, there’s an “Emergency rescue package” consisting of 1 Police Motorcycle, 1 Police Car, 1 Detective Car, 1 Fire Rescue Helicopter, 1 Ambulance and 1 Doctors Car. Price I forgot liao… but it’s quite worthwhile, got some overall discount. But I didn’t buy it. Dear1 and Dear2 both liked the Lego City series very much, it’s so much more interesting than the Harry Potter series, the Medieval series, the Star Wars series, etc. Perhaps we’re both engineers that’s why we liked the City series. Check it out here. Anyway, we decided not to spend unnecessarily becos we’re still renovating and furnishing our house.

As we continued walking, we came across a yet more attractive package! It’s the “City Airport Package”. This one consists of 1 City Airport, 1 Fire Rescue Helicopter, 1 Airport Fire Truck and 1 Airplane Mechanic. This package cost a hefty $199.90. But the good thing is this set got an actual landscape, the Airport. Whereas the previous set is all made up of vehicles. Huhuhu… I want to buy this set… But cannot. Money is better spent on furniture. Meanwhile, another couple walked past. The boyfriend caught sight of the airport package. He stopped to examine the huge box. Look up, look down, look left, left right… As a guy, I can tell that he wanted to buy it, but alas, the girlfriend is watching… After some hesitation, he finally pop the question, whispering to his girlfriend,”My birthday is coming…” Hehe… See! Guys want to receive a Lego set as their birthday present. My birthday also coming… but cannot anyhow spend $. We carried on walking, but I hoped that guy’s girlfriend will get him that gift. Gee…

Just as we were nearing the exit, I saw this attractive blue metal tin that says Tumbling Tower. It’s made by a company called Pavilion. Basically, it’s a Jenga variant. It contains 48 wood pieces in 3 colours and comes with a coloured dice. And it cost $6.95 after a 20% discount. Ohh… this got me excited. I’ve always wanted a Jenga set. Not to be hasty, I went arond TRU to search for the original Jenga. Found it! It contains 54 wood pieces in 1 colour, no dice, packaged in a cupboard box and costs $20 something. Wah… So much difference ah. No need to consider liao, I confirm buy the Tumbling Tower. Dear2 also wanted it, so we both agreed. So we bought it. Yeah… We wanted to queue up for the free gift wrap for our little self-Christmas-present, but the queue is longer than before we entered, so nvm.

Last night, we eagerly unwrapped our Tumbling Tower tin. The wooden pieces are well made, heavy enough too. The colours are well painted too. But one thing about the dice is, we think it’s biased, blue colour came up way too often. Some of the wooden pieces varied in dimensions but it did not spoil the game becos the weight distribution of the wooden tower during the game is uneven too. Maybe the metal tin is not too well suited to contain these wooden blocks as we experience some difficulty in keeping the pieces back into the tin. The wood smells a little, but still tolerable, I suppose it’ll fade away with more use. Overall, it’s a great value game for just $6.95, no complains. We played 5 very fun games last night, Dear1, Dear2 and sister. The final score is Dear1 tumble 2 times, Dear2 tumble 2 times, sister tumble 1 time. So the winner is sister!

A quick search on the internet revealed that Pavilion make quite a number of such classic games, and cheaply too. Many can be found at TRU. Maybe we will consider getting more. :D