Manage a family on your Mac

Virtual Families is a Sims-like casual game, where you adopt a virtual person, and nurture them through their life and career.

This demo lets you play uninhibited for an hour. First you have to pick an person, who then moves immediately into a house. While you can make adjustments to the house over time, to begin with you get what you’re given.

Marriage and babies will soon follow moving in. You can let your virtual family act by itself, encourage good behavior, or sometimes affect it directly by picking them up and placing them near things. If you place someone near the garbage, they’ll take it out. Place them near the shower and they’ll take one, and so on.

There is much less customization than is normal in this type of game, and you will feel more like you are influencing things rather than controlling them. The behavior of your virtual family is a bit odd, and their interaction with the house sometimes looks strange.

The graphics in general won’t win any awards, with jerky sprites and flat looking backgrounds. The sound effects are minimal, but effective. Overall, this is a very casual game, which will appeal to younger players who don’t miss the personalization other games offer. However, the values in the game are very conservative (mother always looks after the baby and so on), and there’s not much you can do to make things more interesting!

If you’re looking for a simple Sims like experience, that doesn’t require too much involvement, Virtual Families is a good option.