Those that enjoy tales of castaways on desert islands or building their own communities will find a safe haven with the Virtual Villagers Double Pack. This set includes the first two games in this highly addictive series – Virtual Villagers: A New Home and Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children. Here at FemaleGamers.co.uk we split the pack and each headed for our own island retreats with our wits and well-worn survival handbooks in tow.

The idea behind Virtual Villagers is very simple. You are given control of a small group of people who have found themselves on the mysterious island of Isola and across the two games discover different parts of this island. You will soon look upon these settlers as your own little family and they in turn will look to you to guide them through the many hazards lurking round the corner. Your objective is to build a prosperous community, training your villagers in different skills and exploring your surroundings for food and to unlock secrets.

Both of the Virtual Villagers games are very similar with The Lost Children containing some minor modifications, most notably more stunning visuals with lush scenery. In each game your villagers can be taught five different skills – farming, building, researching, healing and parenting (known as ‘breeding’ in A New Home). The farmers harvest crops and fish the ocean; builders erect huts and clear obstacles such as boulders and debris; researchers spend their time obtaining Tech Points (more later!) through their scientific discoveries; healers investigate the medicinal properties of the local flora and fauna to keep your villagers healthy; and parents are given the sole responsibility of creating the next generation. Controlling the villagers is a simple case of selecting and dragging them to intended locations: for example, a farmer dragged to a field of crops will hopefully set to work on harvesting the produce. The villagers begin as untrained so it is down to you to select what job you wish them to do and to drag them to the appropriate location. Many villagers will shake their head when you first attempt this so you will need to be persistent and patient at times while they are learning. Once they have got the hang of a particular skill they move independently and remain focussed on that area of expertise unless you say otherwise.

Each of the five skills has three levels of speciality and only through learning each one will your villagers continue to thrive and discover more about Isola. In order to increase the levels of your farmers, builders etc your researchers will need to put in the hours, their deliberations acquiring Tech Points which can be traded in to develop in key areas such as environment, construction, medicine and science.  In A New Home additional areas are available in the form of spirituality and fertility.  These are replaced by culture and exploration in The Lost Children.  It doesn’t matter how advanced your villagers are in their own skills, if you don’t commit some of your tech points to developing these areas, your villagers will be severely limited in what they can achieve.

Aside from the building and survival of your community there are 16 puzzles to be unlocked on the island, such as simple tasks like removing a well cover to give your villagers access to water, or more complex areas such as having your most skilled builders erect temples and statues. It’s a welcome distraction from the intense learning programme each of your villagers must go through. Isola will also bear witness to near calamitous events that can impact severely on your village’s food supplies. As you build your community it is important to be mindful of your population growing beyond your resources.

Collectibles were introduced into The Lost Children, making use of your children.  Though they had always been able to collect mushrooms for food (though not independently but under your control) in the second game a range of collectibles become available.  Only children can see and collect them and can deliver them to your scientists to help further their research.

Any weakness to Virtual Villagers is dependent on the individual gamer. When you first play there is a lot to do as you assign skills to your villagers and have them explore the island. You need to persevere in developing your villagers as they will habitually wander off in the beginning.  It is only once their skills begin to develop that they will commit to a task or go and do it independently and this can be quite frustrating to start with. You will also soon find that any further progress is hindered by such things as having to wait for your researchers to build up enough Tech points for you to invest in further experience. And lets not talk about food: in both A New Home and The Lost Children we faced famine and had to search frantically for mushrooms to keep our starved villagers alive until they mastered farming!

Virtual Villagers is ideal for casual gamers who are only interested in playing for half an hour or so. If you are looking for hours of involvement you will need to be patient in waiting for events to unfold. Your villagers continue to work even after you have left the game so on your return you will often find many changes (though this can be prevented by leaving the game paused when you exit). This also has its benefits and problems. On the one hand we found ourselves wondering daily about our villagers’ welfare and what they had been up to but on the other hand it was a shame to miss out on some of the events that had taken place such as completion of building work. The only other problem is that once you have developed a large community, learned all the skills and completed the many puzzles, it is uncertain whether you will wish to play through the game again. It is difficult to reconcile such conflicting observations, but what isn’t in doubt is that Virtual Villagers is thoroughly addictive.

The Virtual Villagers Double Pack retails at £9.99 and offers excellent value for money. It‘s an enjoyable experience watching your community grow and we don’t mind saying that we grew very attached to our respective villagers, particularly the earliest settlers who we were sad to see pass as the years went by. You can dip into both games at your leisure and feel reassured that when returning your villagers will have some surprises in store for you. Virtual Villagers fails only on longevity issues but with two games on offer here that seems a small price to pay.  There’s no doubt that for the many hours you will play before completing both games, you’ll more than get your money’s worth.

**Review by David Brown and Donna Haw**