Family Village is a game that you can play through Facebook. Unlike Farmville, (or any of the other games made by Zynga), Family Village involves genealogy. You have your relatives immigrate into your village, and the game attempts to find relevant links to genealogy materials connected to them. What happens if you accidentally ignore your Family Village?
In some ways, this game is a little bit like a smaller version of the Sims, with a genealogy twist to it. First, you add one of your relatives, or ancestors, into the family tree that is a part of the Family Village game. Next, you immigrate that person into the game “world”. You get to customize the hair color, and the eye color of the person, and have a small choice of accessories to give them.
The avatars start out as Level One. You want to try and increase their level by assigning them jobs that match their level, and by giving them a home that also matches their level. You can add more relatives into the Family Village game whenever you want, just by filling out the family tree, and then immigrating that person in.
Ideally, you will return often, to keep your villagers happy. The game will automatically find online resources that it thinks connect to your relatives, too, and you need to tell the game if it is a good match, or irrelevant.
I have been rather busy lately, and so, I have forgotten to check up on my Family Village. It has been at least a month, I think, since I’ve played the game. What happens when you ignore your Family Village?
The first thing that happened when I started the game was it tried to get me to invite four people whom I am connected with through Facebook. The game picked people who really are my relatives, in real life, but who are not playing Family Village. I’ve no idea how the game figured that out.
At this time, I have eight people in my game. I’d assigned them jobs when I left, and then forgot about them. Four of the avatars had dark rain clouds over their heads, and their morale was at zero. Four more had their jobs “recovered by a friend”, so they had coins over their heads. I’ve no idea what “friend” that could have been, since I have not invited any. I have no “neighbors” in this game.
After collecting the coins, I learned that these four avatars were just as depressed as the other ones. It was time to see if giving them a job would increase their morale. Unfortunately, all the jobs I can assign are ones my villagers don’t enjoy: street sweeping, ticket taking at the theater, book shelver at the library. Jobs that don’t pay very well, that are beneath the level of the person, make the avatars unhappy. The same is true in real life.
Image by Nesster on Flickr