Virtual Villagers go exploring again (Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City (PC))

Member Name: nickwock

Product:	Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City (PC)
Date:	02/02/09 (706 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, hours of gameplay

Disadvantages: Can get boring.

The Secret City is the third installment of this sim/strategy PC game. For those who are unfamiliar, Virtual Villagers centres around the mystical island of Isola, where remnants of an earlier civilisation are to be discovered in the quest for survival. This third episode follows a group of villagers as they find themselves on the shores of a new part of the island as they have obviously been very sucessful in parts 1 and 2 and have outgrown their villages! But to survive they need all the help they can get - which means you! You need to help them find food sources, living accomodation, train them, work out the islands mysteries and encourage the tribe to grow.

===Getting started===

If you have played the first two games you may be able to skip the tutorial, even though I had, I still opted in as it's a good way to get a feel for the game and what you are expected to do, i.e. it shows you how to light the fire, how to smoke out the bees so you can get honey, how to make a baby!.

Your little tribe is usually about 8 villagers, 5 adults and 3 children, probably only one of the adults will have any skill.

A new point for this third instalment is to choose a 'faction' for your village, which will slightly dictate how things go.

===Menus===

I wont give full details, as some are self explanatory, such as sound etc.

From the main menu you can access your tribes. You can have up to five.

In the options choice you can set the screen to full or half. In half mode it's very easy to accidently change the size of the screen, which makes the cursor harder to place, so I advise using full screen.

The game runs in 'real time' and will continue on the setting you choose when switched off. You can choose, pause, slow, normal or fast. I use fast when I'm playing, as some of the tasks can be annoyingly slow but change it to slow when I switch off. This way, if you are away from the game for say 24hours, there is more chance your villagers will still be alive when you next log in!

The game menu is on the left side of the screen while you are playing. It shows your population, food quantity and how many techpoints you have accrued at the top. The sub menus are:

'''Puzzles'''

There are sixteen puzzles in all and they range from finding food sources to repairing items already on the island and unravelling an island mystery. Some of these puzzles are quite complex and can only be completed at a certain technology level with villagers who are masters in certain fields. Personally I'm not sure you can just work out how to solve these and I've had to resort to getting hints from a seprate website (details below!) That's about all I can tell you about the puzzles without spoiling the game!

'''Map'''

It shows your parts of the island. Not very useful though as it's not that big anyway and doesn't show up things like the villagers or any collectables.

'''Collectables'''

Various items show up all over the island which only the children can collect. This screen shows which collectables you have and the ones you have left to find are greyed out. There are 12 different types each of coral, turtle shell, feather and mosaic. Some are common and some are rare, if an item is found more than once, you change them for 100 techpoints

'''Tech'''

There are three stages to each one, but you may already have the first stage of some, depending on which faction you chose

When you accrue enough techpoints you can buy a technology stage, each stage advances your village. For example: Villagers can only begin puzzle 3 - repairing the roman baths when they have Science level2.

* Science
* Medicine
* Alchemy
* Restoration
* Leadership

'''Faction'''
As said above, this is new, but has the same principle as the levels above and more advanced levels can be bought with techpoints. However, only one faction can be chosen and each brings different benefits to your tribe, i.e. increasing maximum population and longevity of life, so choose carefully!

* Magic
* Nature

===Villagers===

At the bottom of the screen is a detail bar. Click on a villager and you can see their name, skill and task they are doing. Clicking on the detail leaf at the side takes you to a seperate 'stats' screen.

The stats show their health, what level they are for each skill, their age, their parents, their name (which you can change) their likes & their dislikes. If your female is nursing a baby, it shows you how much time is left before the baby grows into a child, which is when the mother can start working in the village again. Next to the skills is a check box, which you can tick to set a villagers skill preference. Sometimes, if a skill hasn't been ticked, your villager will be lazy and not do anything!

===Skills===

Only adults can work and how well they work depends on how much training they have in each skill. Choosing skills for villagers can be quite tricky, obviously you need food, but larger food sources are available if you can advance, to advance you need tech points which are obtained through research, you get more points the more villagers you have researching, but for more villagers you need more shelter and food! Villagers have likes and dislikes and may pick up some skills easier than others, for instance they may not fish if they dislike water.

'''Research'''

The villagers use the items found on the island to research and gain techpoints. Techpoints can be used for advancement - more later. They can also be used for buying new clothes for your villagers, but first the clothes store must be built and there are much more important things to do first!

'''Farming'''

Villagers have poor concentration when they are hungry so make sure you have as much food as possible so they get on with their work! Food sources change and become more plentiful as your villagers advance, so make sure the supply you have can support your population!

'''Healing'''

Every now and then, your villagers may become sick, if you click on them you may hear them sneeze! As you move over the island you will see a hospital area, to train a villager just drag them to this spot. You can also teach them by drag and dropping them onto the ill villager. This may take a few attempts untill your villager is trained.

'''Building'''

More shelter helps to support larger populations. There are a few battered foundations lying around, drag your villager onto this site and they will find rubble to build with. Building a shelter can take quite some time, but you will need adept & master builders for some of the islands puzzles later.

'''Parenting'''

Yes, you can actually set a villagers skill at breeding! Drag a male onto a female or vice versa, at first your villagers will probably run away but just keep repeating. Often, they will 'go indoors' without this resulting in a baby, but the more skill two villagers have, the more chance they will be sucessful first time. A woman will not work while she is nursing her baby, usually about 2 hours in real time. Also, villagers must be 18!

===Children===

Women stop nursing when the child reaces the age of two. Although the children are unable to work (until the age of fourteen) they are still very useful. Only children can pick the mushrooms which appear around the island and can be picked and added to the food supply, brown mushrooms are worth 5 foodpoints and red ones 25 points. Mushrooms usually appear more after a rainstorm.

Children can also pick up collectables, which help to gain techpoints.

===Tribal chief===

There are three different levels for chief (available through techpoints) and the chief has a different power for each level.

1 = Grants food (just drag to the foodbin)
2 = Educate children(they gain a little skill )
3 = Can show a rare collectable (drag to the entrace of the secret chamber)

You will need your leader to energise your work force, if you drag him/her to the research area, your villagers will gain techpoints faster. Your Chief cannot work, but if it's a female, she can have babies. You also need the chief to complete some of the puzzles.

You cannot choose your chief, there is only one villager at any time who fits the robe and a replacement can only be found when the current chief dies.

===Flowers/herbs===

Dotted around are different plants. Some of these can be picked and used to make a 'potion'. Drag a villager onto the chosen flower, they will pick it and take it to the alchemy lab. When you have three pieces, drag the villager to the cauldron, where they will concoct a potion! Sometimes these brews are needed to complete puzzles, more often they just taste revolting and may have amusing affects on villagers!

===Availability===

Virtual Villagers is made by Last Day of Work (www.ldw.com) and this is where downloaded my copy for $19.99. You can download it free from many sites, but you only get an hour or two worth of playing time, which is nothing when some of the puzzles can take at least a day to complete in real time.

If you are a fan of the Sims or other similar games, you will probably love this. Sometimes gameplay can be very slow while you wait to accrue points and for tasks to be completed, but it gives you time to get on with something else! You can carry on playing after all the puzzles have been solved and items found, as your villagers will carry on breeding and need training, but it does lose its charm.

There is nothing violent or risque in this game, but children need to be able to read and follow instruction.

The graphics are not meant to be realistic, more cartoon like and very bright and colourful.

If you get stuck visit www.jayisgames.com. for hints and walkthroughs.

Summary: Latest edition of this simulation game