DS Review: Virtual Villagers

While at a first glance, this may appear to be a Sims 2: Castaway knock-off, if anything, this may be where Maxis got the idea for their game for. I remember playing the PC version of this game when it first came out, and was fairly impressed with it as well, so naturally I was eager to try out the DS version of it when I learned that there was such a release.

For those who are unfamiliar with the premise of this game, a plane full of unfortunate travelers crashed on a deserted island far away from anywhere. Without a hope in world for being rescued by anyone, they're left to their own devices for attempting their own survival. There were only about 6 or so survivors, of varying ages and abilities, so you really must choose wisely in how to use them.

It's your job to guide these villagers through their daily lives and to help them build up a small civilization for themselves. They must build huts, forage for food, hunt, procreate, learn skills that will help them in their lives, and, possibly most importantly, unlock the secrets of the island.

The latter of these tasks proves to be the most difficult, as with the way the game was designed, there's very little in the way of even hints to give you an idea of what you need to do to unlock the island's well-kept secrets. This is probably your biggest challenge aside from getting your villagers to adequately procreate enough to keep their population steadily increasing. Why? Because they do get old and die off... so it's imperative that you get them to live as long as they can so they can accomplish as much as possible.

There are milestones that your villagers will celebrate, such as the number of years it's been since the plane crashed on the island, honoring their ancestors, etc. Not particularly necessary, but I thought it was a really nice touch!

Try as I might, I was never able to unlock quite all the secrets, so I'm not sure if there's an official end to this game or not or if it's just open-ended to play until all your villagers eventually die, but either way, it's very time-consuming. If this sounds like the type of game that would dig, then this game is probably for you! I'm rating this game a 7 out of 10 villagers.