First House Steps

First steps in your new house
Cleaning the house

You should not wait too long to dispose of all the wrappers on the floors and weeds in the garden, or your new adoptee’s happiness will decrease quite rapidly. Keeping the house clean and the lawn free of weeds is important to keep your virtual family happy.

Taking a shower

Your adoptee’s status bar will soon be indicating “not feeling fresh”. That means they need a shower (some other bathroom activities will remedy that status also, but taking a shower is most convenient and effective). If you don’t like seeing that status message from time to time, praise your family members when they take a shower. They might go by themselves next time they need one.

Buying food

Keeping food in the fridge at all times is very important otherwise your family’s health will suffer greatly. You will find some in the store screen.

There are two kinds of groceries. The top row is regular and the bottom row is organics.

Regular food gets you 150 units of food. Organics are more expensive but a bit healthier and they get you 250 units of food. You won’t be able to afford organics at first. Do not worry, you’re family will be perfectly fine eating regular food until you can afford organics.

More importantly, you should feed your virtual family all four food groups. Try to achieve that within 24 hours. As you get more money, you can start buying one or two kinds of the cheaper organics and work your way up to an all organics diet.

Tips:

• Click on the fridge to see how much food there is left in the house
• You will need about 200 units of food per person per day (24 hours). Try to buy more to be on the safe side and also because having little food on fridge will lower your family’s happiness.
• There’s some kind of food on special every day, so you might want to take advantage of a sale and buy one extra, especially when it’s an expensive item on sale
• Food related actions such as making meals, throwing food away or feeding the birds will not deplete the amount of food you have in the fridge

Adopting

Picking your first adoptee
You are now ready to start your first family, repair and upgrade your house, and then pass it on to a new generation. You’ll be presented with several adoption candidates. Note that when you reject one, you won’t be able to see them again.

Age: the adoption candidates will typically be between 24 and 29 years of age.

Profession: each adoptee already has a job. It could be a cooking, office or workshop-related job. Jobs have different starting salaries, almost all of them ranging from $15 to $105/day. Some will be already at level 2 in their career (novice). Your adoption candidate also has some money in the bank, typically from $50 to $190.

A person’s salary will go up as they get work and get promoted. You should also know that jobs have different pay curves though and some might even evolve in unexpected ways.

If you creating your very first family, you may want to pick an adoptee that has a decent starting salary, such as $60 per day and over $100 in the bank. That way you will not be too tight on money. Later in the game, you should consider the lower paying jobs, as some of them end up with the highest salaries down the road.

Desire to have kids: the adoption candidates differ in their desire to have children. Here’s how adoptee could feel about children:

• No way
• Not really
• Maybe
• Would be nice
• Definitely

It is very important to understand that people who do not want children can still have them. One of our “not really” couples had four while our “would be nice” couple had only 1. These desires are more of an indication of how happy the parents will get when they have children (or how unhappy they will be if they don’t). It’s also more relevant to matchmaking later on.

Likes & dislikes: Most do not have a big impact in the game, either positively nor negatively, so don’t worry too much about them. For instance, a person who disliked plants would happily pick weeds in the garden anyways. You might want to keep the likes & dislikes in mind when choosing the right spouse for your adoptee, though.

In the unlikely event you should choose an adoptee with a dislike that is detrimental to your game, there’s a desensitization kit available in the store from time to time. It will cure your person of one dislike.

Tip: you will probably love to adopt a person who likes running, but stay away from one who dislikes jumping

Day/Night Cycle

Day/Night cycle
The day/night cycle is the single most crucial aspect of the game. Virtual Families plays out in real-time, meaning life will go on in your house even when your close the game or turn your computer off. The game also mimics your own day/night cycle. If you open the game at 8pm for instance, it will be dark outside of your family’s home. More importantly, your virtual people need their sleep at night! Literally.

If you do not close your game at night your little persons will be constantly exhausted and will not want to work. You won’t be able to play much with them. For the best game experience, you should close the game for roughly 8 consecutive hours. Do not pause your game. Do not check on you’re family while they are sleeping because they won’t be able to fully rest.

If you respect their routine, your family members should be energetic all day long. However, they tend to get tired as the evening progresses, and they won’t want to work that much. If you play only in the evenings and at night, you have the option of switching day and night (options menu of the main menu screen). We strongly recommend you try it, otherwise you might find your family tired all the time when you play. If you open your game at 5pm, will be 5am for your virtual family and they will be full energy. You should let them sleep during the day though.

Another option is to create several families and have them on different day/night cycles. You’ll then be able to play with your “day families” during the day, and with the others in the evenings.

Tip: When your start a new game, your adoptee will not be fully rested, so they could get tired quickly. Don’t get discouraged. If you make them sleep by closing the game for the night, they will find them energized and running around the house the next morning.

FAQ

Q: How do you get them to chase gophers?
A:They have to this by themselfs, but when they do, praise them and you will recieve the trophy.

Q:When can kids start to work?
A:Kids start to work at the age of 14, but they can only do chores, and cannot work to earn money.

Q:How do you get rid of the hiccups?
A:You must make the person with the hiccups drink water in the kitchen or bathroom.

Q:How do I pause the game?
A:Press the spacebar.

Q:How high do career levels go?
A:Level 8-Mastery

Q:How do you have multiple families at once?
A: Click the name at the start menu, and make a new player

Q:What happens to the money when parents die?
A:It gets transfered on to the next generation.

Q:How do you prepare a meal?
A:Drop a person 14 or older onto the table in the kitchen.

Q:How do you get their energy up?
A: There is a drink in the store called Energy Drink, give the person that. If it's not available, give them lots of rest, and naps. Make sure they're fed too.

Q:Why won't my store refresh?
A:  It's a glitch. Press the R key while on the store screen.

Q:How do I help my people who are weak?
A:Give them vitamins and fruit from the store, and give them food and lots of rest.

Q:How do you get the red ball?
A:Go to the very upper left corner of the screen and pinch it out of the very upper left corner. You cna play with it when you're waiting for your people to preform a task.

Q:Will children come back after college?
A:No they won't, unless you pick them to carry on the generation. Nothing will happen to the others you don't pick, but they will be in the Family Tree.

Q:What do you do when they are depressed?
A:Make sure they are fed, make them work on their career, and praise them. That should raise their mood. Feed them fruit and delicous candy as well.

Having Babies

To have babies in Virtual Families you have to drag one parent onto the other parent. If it says "Trying to make a baby" in the action bar, they will walk to their bedroom, and begin to make the baby. Don't worry it's not gross. A couple can have only 6 children. Even if one of the parents walk away while preforming this task, they can still have a baby. To have twins, you have to have given ONE of the parents a Baby Boost (located in the store), then dBrag a parent onto the other. To have have triplets, give the other parent (Do not give the same one two or it won't work) a Baby Boost. Drag one parent onto the other and you have triplets. Mothers can't have children after the age of fifty, it's difficult in the forties too, though. You can't have baby after baby. You have to wait until the child last birthed is older than 2-4 years of age.