Virtual Villagers 5 for PC and Mac ships

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), releases Virtual Villagers 5: New Believers for PC and Mac. Download now a free trial!

Virtual Families for Android ships

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), releases Virtual Families for the Android Devices.

Plant Tycoon for iPhone/iPad ships

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Plant Tycoon is now available for your Apple Devices. The game has been designed for both iPhone & iPad.

Virtual Villagers 2 for iPad ships

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Virtual Villagers 2 is now available for the iPad.

LDW's Website Receives Major Facelift

The Last Day of Work (LDW) website has received a major facelift! The Web site was redesigned from scratch by local interactive designer, George Hu, founder of Particle 1 Media. George breathed new life into the design, while perfectly preserving the feel of the original design that had represented LDW for years.

Arthur's sessions at Casual Connect Seattle 2010

Arthur will be speaking at Casual Connect Seattle:
July 20th at 3pm (lecture) - Playing God! Creating 'God Games' for a Broader Audience
July 21st at 11am (panel) - Hype vs Real Deal
July 21st at 4pm (panel) - Taking Your Games to the Next Level: Investing in Your IP

LDW Releases Virtual Villagers 4 - The Tree of Life for PC and Mac

San Francisco, Calif. - Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Virtual Villagers 4: The Tree of Life, the latest entry in the award-winning Virtual Villagers® series, is now available to download and play. A brand new chapter in the best-selling franchise, this virtual life simulation game puts players on the eastern shores of the fabled island of Isola. Available exclusively here at the developer's site is the Developer's Edition, which includes the Official LDW Game Guide, iPod-ready soundtrack in MP3 format, and VV-themed wallpapers for your desktop. Read More

Virtual Families Receives Silver Mom's Choice Award

Virtual Families has been named among the best in family-friendly media, products and services. In particular, it received the Silver Mom's Choice Award in the category of Video, Computer and Online Games. To learn more about the Mom's Choice Awards, visit www.MomsChoiceAwards.com.

Sneak Peek Video of Virtual Villagers 4

Virtual Villagers 3 for iPhone/iPod touch ships

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Virtual Villagers 3 is now available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Virtual Families for iPhone/iPod touch ships

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Virtual Families is now available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Last Day of Work Launches Virtual Families Game for PC and Mac

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), the premier independent casual game studio, today announced the launch of their latest virtual life simulation game, Virtual Families. In the game, players adopt a character, who then begins a life: choosing if they want to marry, deciding whether to have children, furthering their career, all with the help and guidance of the player. Virtual Families focuses on the true aspects that make a family unique, from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows, displaying life in all its drama and glory. Read More

Video of Virtual Families

Virtual Villagers 2 for iPhone/iPod touch ships

Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Virtual Villagers 2 is now available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Fish Tycoon for iPhone/iPod touch ships

Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Fish Tycoon is now available for iPhone and iPod touch.

Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City Revealed

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), is proud to announce that Virtual Villagers 3: The Secret City, the latest entry in the award-winning Virtual Villagers® series, is now available to download and play. A brand new chapter in the best-selling franchise, this virtual life simulation game will put players on the northern shores of the fabled island of Isola. This latest offering has a larger map, all-new puzzles and mysteries, and introduces innovative new features such as a Tribal Chief and Real-Time Weather. Read More

Plant Tycoon Honored with a Parents' Choice Silver Award

Plant Tycoon is awarded with a Silver Award from the Parents' Choice Foundation! The Parents' Choice Awards program received many strong entries this season; Plant Tycoon is among the small percentage selected to receive a Parents' Choice Award.

Plant Tycoon in Retail

Plant Tycoon is currently available at Best Buy and is expected to be available at other major retailers very soon.

Plant Tycoon Honored with an iParenting Media Award

Plant Tycoon is awarded with an iParenting Media Award for the 2008 Best Products Call!!! Thousands of products were submitted to the 2008 Best Products Call for Entries, and all were put through the only internationally certified product evaluation system in the parenting and awards industry. (The iParenting Media Awards program is ISO 9001:2000 certified.) Plant Tycoon was evaluated by three outside reviewers consisting of a group facility, such as a licensed childcare facility/school, an expert, and a parent.

Fish Tycoon for Nintendo DS ships

You can now get Fish Tycoon for Nintendo DS at selected stores, including Amazon, EBGames, Walmart.

Plant Tycoon Blooms on PC and Mac

San Francisco, Calif. — Last Day of Work (LDW), an independent game studio specializing in sophisticated casual games for the mainstream player, today announced that Plant Tycoon® is now available for PC. The Mac version will be available for download beginning next Tuesday, September 11th. Read More

Virtual Villagers 2 Fathers Day Caption Contest Winners

And the winners are.....Gamemstr1, Izzy, EsteemedElder, Terina and Jazzo.. Congratulations to all of you! Check all the pictures here:

New Virtual Villagers 2 Contest for Father's Day!

We are awarding another brand new iPod Nano 2 GB to the winner of our latest contest.  This new contest has a Father’s Day theme and is taking place on our online forums.   To enter, just make a screen shot from your Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children game, add a caption that fits with our Father’s Day theme, and post it in our contest thread on the forums.   Check out our online forums for additional contest information and rules!

Fish Tycoon released for Mobile Phones

Fish Tycoon is available now also for your mobile phones! Check it out at At&t/Sprint.

Virtual Villagers: A New Home available at Target

Virtual Villagers: A New Home is available at the online store of Target. Usually ships within 1-2 business days.

Virtual Villagers 2 Caption Contest Winners

And the winners are.....Amanda1681,MCroft, Village Idiot, Gamemastr and Firecloud. Congratulations to all of you! We will have a new contest very soon! Check all the pictures here: fan art

Virtual Villagers 2 gets Gold Award from GameTunnel!

We are awarding another brand new iPod Nano 2 GB to the winner of our latest contest.  This new contest has a Father’s Day theme and is taking place on our online forums.   To enter, just make a screen shot from your Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children game, add a caption that fits with our Father’s Day theme, and post it in our contest thread on the forums.   Check out our online forums for additional contest information and rules!

Virtual Villagers 2 - Picture Caption Contest II

It's time to hold a new contest for best caption picture of Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children. Every screenshot will be examined by us at ldw.com and we will pick what we think are the 5 best captioned pictures. We will have a first prize among the 5 best pictures. Here are the prizes:

1st place: An iPod Nano 2GB

2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th place: A Virtual Villagers T-shirt

The winners will be posted here on our Web site at the end of April! More information on the contest over at our forums.

About.com Reviews Virtual Villagers 2

If you always wondered what was through that cave in "Virtual Villagers: A New Home," you'll be given a satisfactory answer. If you haven't played the first one, go ahead and play it, then come back to "Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children." You need to play the first to understand how the story starts out. Chances are, if you loved the first, you don't need me to tell you to go download it; you already have. No matter what type of gamer you are, "Virtual Villagers 2" is worth giving a try.

USA Today Reviews Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children

While not as suspenseful as the hit television show Lost, the computer game Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children parallels Lost's theme of focusing on the lives of people stranded on a remote island. Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children is a sequel to Virtual Villagers: A New Home, last year's popular downloadable game developed by Last Day of Work (www.ldw.com). The Lost Children starts where A New Home left off, with two villagers exploring a passage through a cave. The villagers arrive at another part of the island and discover a group of five children struggling to survive.

Virtual Villagers: A New Home in Walmart

The Windows version is available in selected Walmart stores throughout the USA. Check out the Walmart that is closest to you.

Plant Tycoon in development for Windows and Mac

We have officially started full-time development of Plant Tycoon for Windows and Mac. We are going to improve and expand the original game for Palm OS and Pocket PC.

LDW releases Virtual Villagers 2: The Lost Children

Last Day of Work is proud to present Chapter 2 of the “Virtual Villagers” series, the casual downloadable game for Windows and Macintosh computers that simulates a small village and allows the player to manage and guide the villagers as they live, work, mate and grow. Read More

Video Interview of Arthur Humphrey during the Zeebys Awards

Virtual Villagers wins Zeeby for Best Strategy/Sim

Virtual Villagers: A New Home wins Zeeby for Best Strategy/Sim of 2006! The video and the pictures of the awards will be posted soon!

LDW Announces Title of Chapter 2 of Virtual Villagers

This second chapter of the Virtual Villagers game series will be called Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children. We are continuing and developing the story that takes place on the island of Isola, answering some questions, and asking a few new questions. Read Part 3 of the diary over at Gamezebo

Virtual Villagers wins Best Sim of 2006 at GameTunnel!

Between the real-time play of the game and the soothing music that so well captures the feel of relaxing in a beautiful place, Virtual Villagers is a wonderfully crafted game that has won over many people and captured our 2006 Sim Game of the Year award.

Virtual Villagers Echtzeit-Survival im 3D-Inselparadies!

Einige Überlebende eines Vulkanausbruchs stranden auf einer einsamen Insel. Sie zu erkunden, Essen zu finden und zugleich ein neues Dorf zu errichten, ist das erklärte Ziel der in Echtzeit ablaufenden Gute-Laune-Aufbausimulation "Virtual Villagers". Mit "Kapitel 1: Eine neue Heimat" ist Teil 1 der spannenden PC-Fortsetzungsgeschichte erschienen.

LDW Opens Page 2 of its Developers Diary to Gamezebo

One of the nicest things about running a tiny independent game studio these days is that, more and more, people work remotely. My wife, Carla, and I, who make up the core of the team, are no exception. While we are based in San Francisco, Carla is originally from Italy, and so we migrate over to the 'old country' every year for a couple of months in the fall. Working from here is not much different in terms of communication, since almost everyone we work with is part of our 'virtual office' anyway, and we all keep in touch using instant messenger, email and phone. One thing, however, changes a lot--our environment. Read Part 2 of the diary.

Virtual Villagers in Best Buy

Virtual Villagers: A New Home is currently available at Best Buy and is expected to be available at other major retailers soon.

GameTunnel Reviews Virtual Villagers

Ever wonder what it would be like to start from scratch? I mean, wipe your slate clean of work, chores, housing, clothes, food, family and friends? Well, developers Last Day of Work managed to create a real-time simulator that legitimately lets players decide the fate of a small group of storm-wrecked travelers. Virtual Villagers is a resource management, strategic livelihood game that empowers players to feed, house, and develop the likeliness of seven villagers.

Road to the IGF: Gamasutra interviews Arthur

Continuing Gamasutra’s ‘Road to the IGF’ feature, which profiles and interviews Independent Games Festival (IGF) 2007 entrants, today’s interview is with Arthur Humphrey of Last Day of Work, developer of Virtual Villagers. Read the interview from Gamasutra

Apple Matters reviews Virtual Villagers for Mac

More often than not, one of the true indicators of a good game is whether you start again once you’ve completed it. Civilization, one of the all time greats, is a case in point. Add to that list Virtual Villagers. By no means in the same league as Civilization, Virtual Villagers is all the same quite addictive and I have already started my second game.

Virtual Villagers gets an E for Everyone rating from ESRB

Virtual Villagers gets an E10+ rating from ESRB. EVERYONE 10+ Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes.

LDW Opens a Page of its Developers Diary to Gamezebo

Well, I have been invited to share some of the experiences and dramas of a tiny independent game developer here on Gamezebo. I've often found that our wonderful community and fans find it very interesting to hear about some of the behind-the-scenes decisions and craziness that can be involved in creating a game from beginning to end, and I'm all too happy to share the experience.

Virtual Villagers Caption Contest Winners

And the winners are.....Bajantara, Coyotemoon73, Kaimi, Mizmudgie, Nemyar, Squashbee. Congratulations to all of you! We will have a new contest very soon. In the meantime, you can stop by and check out all of the other wonderful captioned pictures from our amazing community over at our ldwforums.com

Virtual Villagers Chapter 2 Preview

We have updated our previews page and posted a sneak peek of Chapter 2 of Virtual Villagers. This is a rough drawing from our artist, Michael Grills. Over at our forums there is a second version of this sketch and some explanations. We have also updated our development progress, which is currently at 65%.

Field Trip from the Students of University of Genova, Italy

We had our first field trip to our offices. Selected enginering students from the University of Genova, Italy were visiting different companies in the Bay Area. We were very happy about sharing our indie experience with these motivated students and explaining the casual game industry to them. We wish great success to all of them.

USA Today Reviews Virtual Villagers

"By playing Virtual Villagers, kids will think about life in terms of what is necessary to survive. They will learn that people need shelter, food, healing and the ability to reproduce. And to better their lot, they need to be creative and scientific. It's a perspective that many young people may not have thought about before playing this game."

Virtual Villagers: A New Home submitted to the IGF

We entered Virtual Villagers to the 9th Annual Independent Game Festival (IGF). The IGF was established in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers. Finalists will be announced in December 2006, and winners will be able to showcase their game during the Game Developers Conference held in San Francisco in March 2007.

Gamezebo Interviews Arthur Humphrey

What games have you developed that you're especially fond of? We had a really good time making Virtual Villagers. Once the framework was in place, just coding AI and behaviors and letting the villagers loose in their little environment has been a blast. I know emergent behavior is an overused buzzword in game design, but when it works correctly it can be very entertaining for both the players and the developers.

The New York Times Review

"Light Lifting for Gamers With Little Time to Spare." NEW YORK TIMES

About.com Reviews Virtual Villagers

"This time around Last Day Games has a real-time game, a village simulator - a cartoon version of "Survivor," where they are stuck until they die, not just until they are voted off the island".

GameTunnel Gives Silver Award to Virtual Villagers

"Wow! Really one of the most fun games I've played in some time, Virtual Villagers is the spiritual successor to last year's impressive Fish Tycoon."

Virtual Villagers First Review over at Gamezebo

"...gamers in search of a unique and addictive downloadable adventure - especially those who'd like to play God for a virtual thrill - won't be disappointed with this wonderfully crafted game."

Virtual Villagers: A New Home Released for Windows/Mac

SAN FRANCISCO – July 18, 2006 – How will you lead your tribe? Last Day of Work is introducing “Virtual Villagers,” a casual downloadable game for Windows and Macintosh computers that simulates a small village and allows the player to manage and guide the villagers as they live, work, mate and grow. “Virtual Villagers,” like Fish Tycoon, is unique among real-time games, in that the little villagers will continue to live, prosper, or die, even if the game is off. The game can only be suspended if set on pause.

Village Sim wins the Palm Powered Up Award

SAN JOSE , Calif. , PalmSource Mobile Summit & DevCon, May 24, 2005– Village Sim has been honored with the Palm Powered Up Award for Best Games/ Entertainment Solution by PalmSource, Inc, provider of Palm OS, at the fifth annual U.S. PalmSource Mobile Summit & DevCon. Selected from thousands of nominations (more than 150% over last year), the Powered Up Award winners were chosen by their peers, fans, PalmSource employes, and licensee partners based upon: Innovation – Popularity – Benefits – Ease of Use – Support.