Sims FreePlay Alternative?

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Perturbee
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by Perturbee »

Virtual Families looks interesting from a game mechanics point of view. I do know Last Day Of Work and even Beta tested for them with the earliest Virtual Villagers versions (2005, if memory serves me well). I do not know how they are now, back then they were always very helpful and really listening to players.

I did not install the (Free) VF2 Android version yet, but did see an interesting review post on Amazon:
By
S. Abney "typergirl" (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Virtual Families 2: Our Dream House (App)
This game is not really a game where you can sit for hours and play. I check in on my family several times a day. I am on my 12th generation and this game still holds my interest. I won't go into a long discussion about the game, but I will tell you a few tips I have learner throughout my game play that may help you out.

The main goal of this game is to keep the family going so you have to have kids or you can adopt kids for $4000. You will want to pick people who want kids in order to have the best chances at having them. However, you can still marry someone who doesn't want kids and still have them, but it could take a while. The mom after having a baby does not work for a period of two "virtual years." This means your mom's career progress is slower but she can still advance up in her career.

Career advances are important because they increase your person's income. Also, don't be fooled by your person's pay. A person who starts out getting paid $105 a day won't make that much money on promotions. However, if your person makes $15 starting out, their pay doubles, triples, quadruples on each promotion. You are able to earn money faster that way. A way to get promotions faster is to buy the career room upgrades. They start off kind of cheap, but then the cost increases. I highly recommend the upgrades though.

Check in with your family a few times a day to make sure they aren't running out of food. You can find out how much food your family has by tapping on the refrigerator. You have the option of buying organic or regular food for your family. I have not noticed a huge difference in the life expectancy if you feed your family organics versus regular food.

Your family members will often times get sick and you will have to buy medicine to cure them, which is another reason to check in on your family regularly. Also, the house will get dirty with socks, wrappers and dirt smudges that will need to be cleaned. And be sure you praise your family members for good behavior it helps keep them happy. You will need to praise your mom and dad for working on their careers in the beginning so they will work more instead of goof off.

I hope these tips were helpful and I hope you enjoy your generations like I have mine!
Google play lists quite a few negative reviews, so it's hard to judge.

I also found a review for iOS here: http://applenapps.com/review/virtual-fa ... ion-gaming
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telemwill
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by telemwill »

I gave Virtual Families a try and have been playing for about three days. It is fun, but it is not a game you sit and play with. More something you check in on a few times a day. Kinda cute though.
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salsarush
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by salsarush »

telemwill wrote:I gave Virtual Families a try and have been playing for about three days. It is fun, but it is not a game you sit and play with. More something you check in on a few times a day. Kinda cute though.
I played Virtual Families and Virtual Families 2 for many months. I confirm, you check in two or three times a day, but you don't play intensively.
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ITDAD
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by ITDAD »

Thanks! I'll check that one out...with spring and summer coming along, my schedule doesn't let me play much of anything intensively.
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by Atvenan »

I tried virtual families in the past, but never played it long enough to give it a chance. After reading this I think I'll try again since I am tired of my pre update sims freeplay. I just don't want to update and lose all the families I have built and I'm going to wait out as long as I can for the next update. I also enjoyed the game tiny thief but it's rather short term. Small city and happy street are good games and addicting at first.
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Violet
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by Violet »

I haven't played Virtual Families 2, only the first VF, and it was cute enough. I liked the random names and personalities. It was neat how they seemed to learn to do actions through your teaching, but what always turned me off was the idea that you had to use the red
"Hand" to smack them when they did things you didn't like. Yeah there were other ways to discourage unwanted behaviors (feeding icky candy) but it still seemed, idk.. Abusive?

That and the fact that no one ever leaves the house or comes to visit made me lose interest in that game.
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by Lenny »

Do they allow same sex couples? I want at least Jack and Ianto in it.
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telemwill
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by telemwill »

Violet wrote:I haven't played Virtual Families 2, only the first VF, and it was cute enough. I liked the random names and personalities. It was neat how they seemed to learn to do actions through your teaching, but what always turned me off was the idea that you had to use the red
"Hand" to smack them when they did things you didn't like. Yeah there were other ways to discourage unwanted behaviors (feeding icky candy) but it still seemed, idk.. Abusive?

That and the fact that no one ever leaves the house or comes to visit made me lose interest in that game.
I like to think of it as more like the hand of Zeus. It causes a a small storm to appear over the disobedient Sim. The biggest negative for me is the house remains unfinished for several generations. Wouldn't mind the foundations unfinished, but those yucky rooms! :shock:
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telemwill
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by telemwill »

Lenny wrote:Do they allow same sex couples? I want at least Jack and Ianto in it.
Lenny, I am not sure about this. You only get to choose your starting person from randomly generated profiles. You don't get to choose a name. Once you pass one up there is no going back. After that marriage proposals will begin to come in via email (on the game, not your personal email). You must choose one of those. All of the ones I received were opposite sex. You are choosing based on whether of not they want kids, their careers, amount of money in the bank, etc... The more time goes by, the fewer proposals you will receive. Then you encourage them to make babies. Also sometimes an orphan will show up at the house, and you can adopt the child. You don't have the same investment in the back story and creation of character that you get with the Sims. Which is why I hope FM gets its act together and restores the game to something like it once was, because really SFP is irreplaceable. There's nothing else out there that comes close.
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Violet
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Re: Sims FreePlay Alternative?

Post by Violet »

Lenny wrote:Do they allow same sex couples? I want at least Jack and Ianto in it.
Nope, the storyline is very heteronormative. The only kind of family you can have is husband/wife/kids. The wife carries around the baby and won't work for a while after having a child. And you get marriage proposals through email, like a mail-order bride or an arranged marriage type of thing.
And you can't choose the characters names.
I had the whole house finished and all the upgrades after barely 2 months of playing, and I thought, after that what is the point of continuing?
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