Even after frequent sleeps and naps my members don't gain energy.

Mine are the same way.

There have been significant improvements in the later versions of Virtual Families. Most people are very happy with the way that this works in version 1.00.05.

Thanks, but I already patched over my original build. If they don't mind then I don't.

They will be more tired when it's dark. If you can only play in the evening, you can switch day and night, so that your families will have more energy.

Wow... I am now a card-carrying member of this thread out of necessity.

Maybe I'm a very small minority but I rarely saw exhausted or even much tired before, the game was perfect for me. Now after updating to .05 I am like most of the people who started this thread and my families are always exhausted and moving slow when I try to play after getting home from work. I now regularly see energy levels with barely any registered color on the bar and that never happened before.. never.

I apologize to those of you I must have aggravated in wondering what the issue was, I didn't realize it affected gameplay like this.

At any rate, I've tried pausing when they're elated in the morning, and when I come back to it in the evening they are often exhausted with absolutely no energy whatsoever. I didn't think that was possible... ? And no, there is not a possibility of someone using my computer while I'm at work. I've also started new families on another computer with a totally new install and it's the same as my existing families. 5 generations of very deliberate pacing and I have absolutely no desire to play anymore because it is so different than at first.

I love the night time activities and being there when the parents call the children to brush their teeth and to go to bed, so switching day/night is not really an option I'm willing to do. I don't feel like I should be forced to play it that way, either.

To me it was more realistic and much more customizable for the collective types of gamers when the actions were trainable to the individual's playing time. I think a lot of folks gave up on training them soon and pushed for a fix that wasn't necessary. It was fine for lots of us before, so it obviously wasn't a bug. The tired/exhausted issues were many times found with those who are home much of the time and playing the game for hours and hours on end. Granted that wasn't always the case, but it was much of the time.

Anyway, I just wanted to voice the minority opinion... not everyone works a standard weekday like is pretty much required for the families in the game now, and it's not realistic. For people who work at home like the families in VF, schedules are self-made and we should be able to play the game effectively no matter what timeframe we choose.

Happy gaming!

So anyone have any suggestions for if all of your people are exhausted, but REFUSE to nap or go to bed. I have even tried the chamomile drink, nada. I drop them on their beds, and all they do is look around a little bit and then get up and complain about being tired. I even tried making it night so they would sleep, still nothing, in fact they only ever want to do laundry.

I've had seven families running at various times, from build 01 through every update to the current 05 and never had a peep REFUSE to nap or go to bed! They always nap on their own, and with praise, nap more often.

Sure, some of them nap less frequently & night times appear to be more troublesome, but they have never refused over & over if I kept trying, and most times it was one attempt and they went to bed, albeit not for long enough to regain enough energy. But you persist or just exit their night time and they sort it out themselves. It's not that bad if they wake up tired anyway, they regain a lot from naps.

I find playing their day time much more enjoyable, and if you want to check in at night, then exit the game for a while and they seem to recover themselves.

Bren's advice is very good. The Virtual Families game design (day/night) was in response to the many requests for day and night in our games. One of the natural results of that design is that the peeps will tend to do different things, and display different energy levels, according to the time of day. In the same way that 'real' people don't stay up and remain very active 24 hours a day, the peeps in Virtual Families respond in different ways to different times of the day, too. This is very different from Virtual Villagers and requires a different game play strategy, since the VF peeps need a good night's sleep.

If you can only play in the evening or at night, you should consider using the option to switch day and night or even do as several people have done, which is to set up several different player slots with reversed day/night cycles. That way, you can play the 'daytime' families while the 'nighttime' families are getting rest. And you never lack for wide-awake peeps to play with.

I leave mine on day all the time.They are tired all the time at night,and wont do anything.I play more at night,than i do in the daytime.