Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children
Strategy Guide

Generations have passed since a small band of survivors first washed up on the southern shore of Isola. Through these many years they have struggled and conquered the challenges of rebuilding what they had lost. Together they have faced storms, plagues, and temptations. Together they have labored, celebrated, and mourned. Life has been good, and the tribe has grown and prospered. The many descendents of those brave castaways have continued in the ways of their ancestors and have unraveled all of the island's mysteries. Or have they?

Follow two curious, determined villagers as they make their way into the darkest recesses of the cave that had long taunted them. Plunge with them into dazzling sunlight and mist, as a magnificent waterfall at once cuts them off from their friends and family and brings them face to face with ... children! Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children challenges you in new ways to care for this fledgling tribe as you discover even more secrets of Isola. The unexpected awaits!

As with Virtual Villagers: A New Home, your primary objective is to manage the survival needs of your tribe so that they can grow and unlock the secrets that await them on the western shore of Isola. If you manage them well, they will discover ways to conquer the sometimes hostile forces that threaten to overcome them. If you're not an experienced Virtual Villagers veteran, turning on tutorial mode (Help) the first time through the game will help familiarize you with the mechanics of playing Virtual Villagers.

Food, as always, is your villagers' primary need, and you'll also need to provide adequate housing so that the tribe can grow in number and gain the skills they need to solve the puzzles of Isola. Be careful, though! Grow your tribe too quickly, and you'll find that they have nothing to eat and will have to rely on the children to gather precious mushrooms to keep starvation at bay. You must find the right balance to be sure of success.

There are some important points to keep in mind as you develop your own strategy for playing Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children.

• Some food supplies may be limited, so be alert for the opportunity to discover new sources of food.
• Clicking on the mask on the main game screen will reveal many different tips that will help you play the game more effectively.
• Nursing mothers devote all of their time to caring for their baby and don't do any productive work in the village for 2 years of game time.
• Babies eat as much as adults and making too many babies too soon can quickly create a food crisis.
• Any villager (even a sick one or a child) can heal another villager, but healing is only possible when a villager's status is "Sick" (check the Details screen).
• Sometimes a villager will "resist" healing attempts by a specific doctor. If that happens, try to heal your sick villager again with a different villager.
• Sick villagers need to be healed or they will weaken and die
• Villagers can become weakened by such things as prolonged disease, starvation, on-the-job injuries, Island Events, or old age.
• Villagers who show a status of "Weakened" will generally improve in health over time unless they are sick, elderly or continue to suffer injuries. Switching them to a less demanding job will help speed their recovery, and you can improve their health even more rapidly by feeding them.
• The villagers need to be taught to perform a job; they will not start working in a new job on their own. It can be a good idea to monitor their learning progress until they reach Trainee status, so that they will work more reliably on their own.
• You can view information about various technology advancements on the Village Tech screen by clicking on the "?" button for that technology. This information will help you choose the order in which to purchase new technology.
• The villagers' curiosity is often a clue to puzzles.
• The children can find and harvest mushrooms to augment the village food supply, but only if you make them do it.
• Using the keyboard to zoom around the map is an easy way to search for those collectible items. There are 9 sectors of the map, which correlate to the numbers 1-9 on the numeric keypad. You can also use the row of numbers at the top of the keyboard, if your computer doesn't have a numeric keypad.
• Picking up a villager while they're working will interrupt them, and they will drop (and lose) the object that they were carrying.

General puzzle strategy guide:

Most of the puzzles are dependent upon some combination of Village Tech, villager skills, and other puzzles. Although some puzzles depend upon the completion of specific puzzles, the 16 puzzles are rarely completed in the order that you see them on the puzzle screen. Pay attention to the things that your villagers are curious about and the messages that you see when you take one of your villagers "exploring" around the island. These often provide clues that will help you solve the puzzles. Another good strategy is to drag one of your adult villagers around the island after every tech purchase and look for new things that they can work on, since many of the technologies open up new possibilities for your villagers. Most of the frustration related to solving the puzzles is brought on by impatience. It takes time for your villagers to gain the necessary skills and technology to work through all of the puzzles.