Sim games, also known as "God games", seem to be everywhere. They've become very popular among gamers, notably The Sims themselves. The Sims is a virtual world in which you can build homes for tiny pixel-represented versions of human beings, then send them off to earn a living.

Virtual Villagers is a castaway version of The Sims. A group of pixels, err, people, are shipwrecked, and have to fend for themselves. They find a few huts, some wild berries, and a research bench. And that's about it. With your help they must figure out how to access clean water to drink, use local herbs to heal illness, and learn to farm and fish for food once the berry bush is bare.

It sounds simple, but it most decidedly isn't. The temptation lies in goosing along the very slow moving game by cracking the whip on your tiny work force. Research is needed to gain knowledge in building, farming and medicine? Let's put three Villagers on that. A hut must be built before the population can grow? Two people on that, etc, etc. This sounds sensible. but there is a problem.

Your villagers don't know how to eat or drink. And there is, in my opinion, the game's key flaw. I have never seen or heard of a living thing that did not instinctively reach for food and water in order to survive. At the very least, they know those two things are crucial to their physical survival - if they choose to survive they must partake of both.

So, with plenty of food available and clean water bubbling up from a well within reach, why would these pixels starve to death? Is this some nihilistic statement on the game designers' part? Or were the programmers simply careless in creating their castaways?

This game can be fun... villagers can raise children, build, fish, farm, learn to heal, and develop an odd obsession with Lagoon laundry (Where did any extra clothes come from?). But it can also be frustrating - you have to drag and drop the tiny people onto food and water repeatedly, and even then, they may not 'get it'. While you, the flesh and blood 'real' person watching over them, sleep, your islanders may well stage a hunger strike. Let me put it this way:

I thought all was well and good with my first batch of Virtual Villagers. I had taught them to build a hut, and I had scientists working hard in order to advance the culture. I had taught each Villager where to find food and water. I had dragged each to these points too many times to count. And then, eventually, like all humans, I had to get some sleep. Early the next morning I checked on my Village. Oops. Every single person in it was dead, nothing but silence and a cluster of skeletons resting in town center. What had happened?