Dear1 Dear2

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