Village Sim is essentially exactly what the name says: a simulation game of a village. The premise is that a few people managed to escape when a volcano destroyed their island home, and their boat has now washed up on the shores of the island of Isola. Your job is to nurture and guide them as they create a new home.

I was fortunate enough to be a beta tester for this game, so I've been playing it extensively (excessively? obsessively?) for the last month. The first version released to the testing group was pretty rough; several important parts didn't work, graphics weren't always right, and the game's speed was different depending on whether your handheld was on or off.

With each new version, the game became better and better. The villagers were given new and interesting behaviours, the game's balance was adjusted, and new island events were added. Island events are random occurrences that have various impact on your villagers, such as the stored food going moldy, or a whale washing up on the beach.

Finally, "the powers that be" at LDW decided the game was ready for its debut. This review focuses on the final version, released April 8, 2005.

Installation and early game play
Village Sim is easy to install and works right away. There's a file for the game itself, and three music files. You can install any, all, or none of the music files; they provide quite a nice bit of background music for the game. The graphics are quite good for a handheld game, and the sound effects are actually very good as well.

While the background music plays non-stop (there's a setting to turn it off), the sound effects change depending on what part of the island you're viewing. Construction sites have the sound of hammering, while the ocean makes nice wave sounds.

When you start a new game, you're shown a brief explanation of what has happened to the villagers' original island, and how they came to be at Isola. You're also given the opportunity to turn on a tutorial, which provides good advice on how to play the game.

The tutorial, unfortunately, doesn't always line up perfectly with what is actually happening during the game. This was improved substantially during the beta testing period, but is still occasionally an issue. For example, right after I dragged a villager to the berry bush to look for food, the tutorial suggested that I...you guessed it, drag a villager to the berry bush to look for food.