“2) A Satisfying End Game

We had received many complaints about the ending of the first chapter of Virtual Villagers. We puzzled over this quite a bit. The complaints ranged from “Now what?” to “Is that all there is?” to “This ending sucks!” The ending came when the player solved the 16 mysterious puzzles, and then they were rewarded with a game-end illustration.

In VV: TLC we tried to telegraph more clearly to the player when the end was getting near. Instead of arbitrary linked puzzles, we have the player collecting 4 pieces of The Gong of Wonder. As they collect each of the 4 pieces, the end draws nearer in their mind so that when it is completed the ending does not blind-side the player.

As a final enhancement to the end/post-game phase, we tried to take a page from the World of Warcraft book and add some content that was only present for people who had ‘finished’ the game. In VV: TLC, it comes in the form of special, rare, heavy-duty Island Events (these random, periodical text events that are inflicted on your villagers), that only appear for people who have completed all 16 puzzles. I suppose the verdict is still undecided on the effectiveness of that feature. It takes a long time to get good feedback on such late-game elements.”