Virtual Families Tips

You’ve done the Virtual Families tutorial. What next? Here are some tips and tricks to help you get started.

Day/Night cycle

The day/night cycle is the single most crucial aspect of the game. Virtual Families plays out in real-time, meaning life will go on in your house even when your close the game or turn your computer off. The game also mimics your own day/night cycle. If you open the game at 8pm for instance, it will be dark outside of your family’s home. More importantly, your virtual people need their sleep at night! Literally.

If you do not close your game at night your little persons will be constantly exhausted and will not want to work. You won’t be able to play much with them. For the best game experience, you should close the game for roughly 8 consecutive hours. Do not pause your game. Do not check on you’re family while they are sleeping because they won’t be able to fully rest.

If you respect their routine, your family members should be energetic all day long. However, they tend to get tired as the evening progresses, and they won’t want to work that much. If you play only in the evenings and at night, you have the option of switching day and night (options menu of the main menu screen). We strongly recommend you try it, otherwise you might find your family tired all the time when you play. If you open your game at 5pm, will be 5am for your virtual family and they will be full energy. You should let them sleep during the day though.

Another option is to create several families and have them on different day/night cycles. You’ll then be able to play with your “day families” during the day, and with the others in the evenings.

Tip: When your start a new game, your adoptee will not be fully rested, so they could get tired quickly. Don’t get discouraged. If you make them sleep by closing the game for the night, they will find them energized and running around the house the next morning.

Other general tips

Exploring the house for the first time : there are a number of areas your virtual person can interact with. Just pick the person up and carry them around the house and yard. When he sees an area of interest, you will be told what is is in the dark blue bar at the bottom of the screen. Note that all areas of interest will not be necessarily be pointed out to you though. If you drop your person on these areas, that may trigger actions and behaviours. Feel free to explore! You will also encounter puzzles, some of which you won’t be able to solve until later. That often explains why your persons say they are “confused”. (Puzzles spoilers below).

Pausing the game: do not pause the game unless you are going away for two days or more. Your people will be fine even if you check on them only once a day. They will continue to make money and thrive as long as there is food in the fridge. Pausing would also prevent your family members from sleeping and replenishing their energy.

Playing with several families at the time: you have to wait before an action has been completed before you switch between game slots, including making a baby. Otherwise it will not be completed. If you’re switching while your family is eating for instance, you will find that their fed bar didn’t go up when you come back to check on them.

Picking your first adoptee

You are now ready to start your first family, repair and upgrade your house, and then pass it on to a new generation. You’ll be presented with several adoption candidates. Note that when you reject one, you won’t be able to see them again.

Age: the adoption candidates will typically be between 24 and 29 years of age.

Profession: each adoptee already has a job. It could be a cooking, office or workshop-related job. Jobs have different starting salaries, almost all of them ranging from $15 to $105/day. Some will be already at level 2 in their career (novice). Your adoption candidate also has some money in the bank, typically from $50 to $190.

A person’s salary will go up as they get work and get promoted. You should also know that jobs have different pay curves though and some might even evolve in unexpected ways.

If you creating your very first family, you may want to pick an adoptee that has a decent starting salary, such as $60 per day and over $100 in the bank. That way you will not be too tight on money. Later in the game, you should consider the lower paying jobs, as some of them end up with the highest salaries down the road.

Desire to have kids: the adoption candidates differ in their desire to have children. Here’s how adoptee could feel about children:

No way
Not really
Maybe
Would be nice
Definitely

It is very important to understand that people who do not want children can still have them. One of our “not really” couples had four while our “would be nice” couple had only 1. These desires are more of an indication of how happy the parents will get when they have children (or how unhappy they will be if they don’t). It’s also more relevant to matchmaking later on.

Likes & dislikes: Most do not have a big impact in the game, either positively nor negatively, so don’t worry too much about them. For instance, a person who disliked plants would happily pick weeds in the garden anyways. You might want to keep the likes & dislikes in mind when choosing the right spouse for your adoptee, though.

In the unlikely event you should choose an adoptee with a dislike that is detrimental to your game, there’s a desensitization kit available in the store from time to time. It will cure your person of one dislike.

Tip: you will probably love to adopt a person who likes running, but stay away from one who dislikes jumping.

First steps in your new house

Cleaning the house

You should not wait too long to dispose of all the wrappers on the floors and weeds in the garden, or your new adoptee’s happiness will decrease quite rapidly. Keeping the house clean and the lawn free of weeds is important to keep your virtual family happy.

Taking a shower

Your adoptee’s status bar will soon be indicating “not feeling fresh”. That means they need a shower (some other bathroom activities will remedy that status also, but taking a shower is most convenient and effective). If you don’t like seeing that status message from time to time, praise your family members when they take a shower. They might go by themselves next time they need one.

Buying food

Keeping food in the fridge at all times is very important otherwise your family’s health will suffer greatly. You will find some in the store screen.

There are two kinds of groceries. The top row is regular and the bottom row is organics.

Regular food gets you 150 units of food. Organics are more expensive but a bit healthier and they get you 250 units of food. You won’t be able to afford organics at first. Do not worry, you’re family will be perfectly fine eating regular food until you can afford organics.

More importantly, you should feed your virtual family all four food groups. Try to achieve that within 24 hours. As you get more money, you can start buying one or two kinds of the cheaper organics and work your way up to an all organics diet.

Tips:

Click on the fridge to see how much food there is left in the house
You will need about 200 units of food per person per day (24 hours). Try to buy more to be on the safe side and also because having little food on fridge will lower your family’s happiness.
There’s some kind of food on special every day, so you might want to take advantage of a sale and buy one extra, especially when it’s an expensive item on sale
Food related actions such as making meals, throwing food away or feeding the birds will not deplete the amount of food you have in the fridge

About the store

Every item available in the store is described at length when you click on them.

Tips:

The varied item section of the store will be restocked every 4 hours. Some items necessary to solve puzzles will eventually show up there.
You can’t return groceries, home improvements and career upgrades once you buy them. Everything else is refundable
You don’t absolutely need the home improvement items (radio, pool, etc..) when starting the game to make your family happy and healthy.

Putting your new adoptee to work – the basics

After buying some food, you should be putting your adoptee to work (and eventually their spouse too). You will need to earn some money to feed your family, buy medicine, repair the house and buy upgrades. Your virtual adoptees will either be working in the workshop, in the kitchen, or in the office. A few job titles are ambiguous. If you’re not sure where your adoptee is supposed to work, just try dropping your adopting in the different working areas.

Working is one of the most tiring activity you can make a virtual person do. You will have to find a balance between work and play if you want to keep him happy and energized all day long. However, some players train at least one of their persons to be workaholics. They barely do anything but work and eventually rest. How you balance their activites should depend on the way you like to play the game. Just know that you will be able to afford upgrades and home improvements even if you don’t have a workaholic in your family.

To show your adoptee how much you want him to work, you should praise him when he does. Praising him (and eventually his spouse) 4 times for working on his career seems to be a minimum when you start a new game. When you open the game the next day your adoptee should at least have gotten a promotion. If he didn’t and is not sick that means he is not working enough. If he gets really tired early in the day despite having had a good night’s sleep, that means he is working too much or does not relax enough. Check his energy levels, make adjustments or start experimenting from there.

Tip: Your adoptee doesn’t start the game fully rested, so don’t worry if he has low energy on the first day, and especially in the evening. Things will be a lot better after he gets his first good night’s sleep.

Praising and scolding
Tips:

Be selective when praising. If you praise a lot of behaviours, your family members won’t know what to do.
If you praise a virtual person more than two times in a row for the same behaviour, they will run away. They feel that you are nagging them. When they run away just pick them up, return them to work (or whatever behaviour you want) and praise them again. They will then accept it.
Candy from the store will have a stronger praising effect than the green glove. When given candy, a person will not feel you are nagging them.
Scolding does not necessarily stop a person from doing something. They will just do it less frequently. For instance, scolding once a person that is working to much will not stop them from working, it will just make that person work a little less often
Salty candy from the store will have a stronger scolding effect than the red glove
Praising children for studying will not affect their future professional life.

You are now ready to start your new family!

(This is the end of “first steps” tips. Now on to describing every other aspect of the game.)

Getting married

The marriage proposals will be arriving soon after your new adopting moves in. Those proposals will get less frequent as years goes by, so do consider carefully the ones that do come up.

There are three main factors to consider when choosing a spouse for your adoptee: their starting salary, the money in their bank accounts and their desire to have children. A nice starting salary could be an asset when starting a game (not so important later). Also, be on the look out for people who might have very large bank account. We have seen some with over $400 in the bank.

You should consider their desire to have children too. You do not need to exactly match the preference of your virtual person with your virtual spouse’s.

When you’re new at the game though, it’s probably best to avoid unnecessary complications. So try to match couples the same or similar desire to have children, such as a “no way” with a “not really”. Or a “would be nice” with a “definitely”. But if you find a person you really want to marry your adoptee later in the game (to get a trophy for instance), don’t be afraid to match “maybe” father with a “no way” or “definitely” mother. You could even match one extreme with another.

If you were to do that, one of your spouses could be less happy than the other (but happy still), they could have a harder time having babies, or the couple will want to wait longer between children. But you won’t necessarily be ruining your game. We tested a “no way” father with a “definitely” mother. They had four children and they were both very happy despite not having a single home improvement item in the house.

Tip: You can win trophies for marrying someone with the same career, someone with less than $75 or more then $200 in the bank. Be on the look out for those opportunities.

Having children

There is room in the house for up to 6 children. Your couple can’t have more children even after one leaves for college.

They are not always cooperative when you want them to have children. The secret is to be persistent. If they just embrace or argue about the timing of the birth, you can keep trying as they could very well change their mind. If they tell you “it’s too soon to try to make a baby again”, you will have to wait until they are ready. That could mean 15 minutes or a couple of hours. It is very hard to predict when they will be ready again.

Even if they go to the bedroom, your couple may not succeed in having a baby. Couples who are young, well nourished, happy and healthy have obviously better chances of being successful. Other factors come into play such as the time elapsed since they last tried.

If your couple keeps being unsuccessful after a couple of years, you might need a little help like in real life. You can buy the baby boost in the medicine section of the store. It is expensive, so you may want to get a doctor’s consultation for both parents before making that investment. The doctor will confirm whether the baby boost would be useful to one of the parents or both. Do not assume getting the baby boost will make you have twins or triplets. Multiples are largely random.

There’s also the possibility of adopting a child. This is a random event but it is not rare.

Once a baby is born the mother will nurse until the child is two years old, or 4 hours in real time. She will not be able to work during this time, but can do almost any other house chore or activity in the house.

Your child will grow up and will eventually leave for college at some point after they turn 18. They may write you an e-mail from time to time, but they will not see them again until it is time for you to choose one of the children to inherit the house.

Tips:

The oldest known virtual mother has given birth at the age of 50.
Once your child is born, you can see right away what he will look like by going to the family
Your children’s behaviours and interests will change as they get older.

Transitioning to the next generation

Your virtual family members will be aging a year every two hours (real-time). They normally will pass away in their 60’s, occasionally in their late 50’s. That means you could be starting a new generation every 3 or 4 days.

As soon as one of the parents has died, you will be have the possibility to start a new generation from the family screen. If you don’t have any children, your game will stop right there.

You will be able to scroll through the children and learn more about them etc., as often as you like, so don’t be afraid to press the “try again” button. All the children will automatically be the around the same age as their parents when they moved in into the house.

Be aware that any parent or sibling still living in the house will be moving out to make room for the new family. Some players like to wait until both parents have died and/or all children have gone to college before making the transition to a new generation. When both parents have died, any remaining children in the house will be fine as long as you have food in the fridge and money to buy groceries.

Tip: If you have one upgraded career room in the house, such as the kitchen, you could make the most of it by picking a child who has a food career, if there are nay. You could also try to find a spouse who is in the same line of work. They will both progress in their careers much faster that way.

Managing your virtual people: the detail screen

The detail screen is where you can monitor each member of your virtual family. You can change their name here.

Career information

In the detail screen you will also see their current salary and you can monitor their career progress. There are 8 career levels, the highest being Master. Once you reach that stage, your person will keep working but they will not make any more progress.

The red bar shows how close they are to getting their next promotion. It will always take longer for a person to reach their current level then the previous one. You can eventually speed up their progress by buying career room upgrades. They are expensive, but they will make your person making career progress at twice and three times their current rate.

Tips:

It may seem to you that your parents are making really slow progress towards their next career level. However, they will keep working when the game is closed, proportionally to how much they have been trained to. Your persons will often have been promoted when you open the game in the morning, especially at the beginning of the game
You might find magazines in the store that will give a small boost to your person’s career. (there’s one for each type of profession). If you are lucky to get one when your person is still at his first career levels, they could be worth the money
Your person might not complete a work cycle. They will shake their head and say no in a white cloud of smoke. It’s nothing to be worried about. If they do start another cycle on their own, just pick them up and drop them onto their work area. Those episodes should get less and less frequent as your persons reach higher career levels
You might want to wait before buying your first ugraded career room if your parents are over 55. When you know what line of work the child that inherits the house is in, you can upgrade the appropriate room so he can make the most of it.

On the detail screen you can also monitor each family member’s happiness, health, energy and how well fed they are.

Happiness bar

The happiness bar of a person entering the house (including children) will usually be 50% full. If it gets a bit lower your person’s status will show as “a bit blue”. Do not worry. There are a couple of events that will give a nice happiness boost to your person: getting married, getting promoted, and having a child.

It should not be difficult to keep your virtual family happy after that. Just make sure that:

There’s enough food in the fridge
Money is not too tight
No one is sick
The house is clean and the lawn is free of weeds
Couples who want children have some
They don’t stay alone for too long

When one of family members dies, the others will get depressed and there’s nothing you can do to prevent it. A depressed person will tend to be lethargic and not want to work.

However, depression is not too hard to cure. All you have to do is give the happiness bar an up-swing. If there’s food in the fridge and no underlying illness, happiness will continue to go up gradually. Just be patient and give it time. You should see a significant improvement overnight.

To jump start the process, having a depressive person pick up collectibles and praising them will work. They just love that. Buying candy or fruit from the store (fruit from the varied items, not the groceries) will give them a little boost because they are a stronger form of praising. Just be careful what behaviour you are reinforcing when you give them candy or fruit because they will likely do it more often afterwards!

You could also try to make your depressed person do any activity you think would be “fun”, or making kids spend quality time with their parents. But it’s difficult to tell whether one activity or the other affects the happiness bar over the long run.

Home improvements items will help happiness over time, but do not feel obligated to buy them if you’re just beginning the game. Some of them are expensive. Picking up collectables and praising seem to always work. We have had several families with very happiness bars without having bought a single home improvement or goodie for the house.

Health bar

There are two reasons why a virtual person would get weak: because the fridge is empty or because they are sick. But once they have food again or they are cured of their illness, their health bar should gradually replenish on its own.

There’s little you can do to make the health bar go up much faster, especially at the beginning of the game. Giving a weak person vitamins or fruits (from the varied items section of the store, not the groceries) will help a little. But it’s debatable whether they are worth the money. Time is really the greatest healer. You should a significant improvement overnight, as with the happiness bar. Just make sure your weak person doesn’t have an underlying illness. You should investigate if they keep getting sick within an hour after they were cured of their symptom (see then medicine and illnesses section).

Some home improvements are advertized as helping health or reducing illness rates, but your family can be perfectly healthy without them. Those ones are relatively cheap though.

Fed bar

The fed bar of your virtual persons will go down fairly quickly during the day. Do not worry too much about it. It will never get lower than 30% as long as there is food in the fridge. If there’s food, they won’t starve and their health bar will not be affected in any way.

Hungry family members will tend to wander off and do food-related tasks in the kitchen. To keep them more focused, feed them by preparing a meal. Just drop any family member over 14 on the kitchen table. They won’t prepare a meal if they is not enough food available in the fridge, but your food has to be very low for that to happen.

Once the meal is on the table, you will need to make all your family members sit down and eat. Cleaning up the table after the meal is an action you can’t initiate. One of your family members will decide to do it eventually.

Tips:

Preparing a meal is tiring. You should make a child over 14 do it (or a woman nursing). That way the parents will have more energy to devote to working on their careers.
You can train your family members to sit down and eat a meal. That could be especially useful when you have many children. That way you don’t have to chase them around the house to bring them to the table.
Even if you train someone to prepare a meal, they don’t seem to do it when your game is closed, only when it’s open. So you will find them a bit hungry anyways when you open your game.

Energy bar

Energy is probably the trickiest element of the game. The key for your people to have high energy all day long is to let them sleep roughly 6-8 hours each day without checking on them or pausing the game. But expect your family members to have lower energy levels in thee evening than during the day.

An overworked person will get tired quickly. You should try to find a good balance between work and other activities, unless you want workaholics parents in the house. Trying to have a baby is also very tiring, whether your couple succeeds or not.

A few activities will make your person’s energy replenish over the course of the day and some are available when you start the game. Napping and going to bed are the obvious ones and are fairly effective. We found that reading a magazine and daydreaming on the couch also work. So if you catch one of them doing those actions, you might want to praise that behaviour. When your little personsare not working, they will be doing more of these activities and will replenish their energy in the process.

Tips:

You will most likely see your family members napping and going to bed when they status shows tired or exhausted. These are behaviours that hardly can be initiated as long as a person is energized.
The camomile drink from the store will deplete your person’s energy and make them tired or exhausted.
Energy drinks from the store will give a person a temporary but spectacular boost of energy.
You don’t have to train your people to go to bed in order for them to sleep when the game is off. If you do, you will see the adults go to bed on their own around 10pm.
Try getting the children to do the household chores, so the parents can stay energized and focused on their careers. Children 14 and older can do everything their parents do except earning money and of course having children. That includes making meals and attending to urgent house repairs. Children under 14 will do all household chores except cooking and repairs around the house. They can also pick up and sell collectibles on the internet.
Adults will start to slow down as they age, noticeably when they reach 55
Your family rest best when you close the game

Managing your family’s finances

Do not get discouraged when you start the game and see the price of food or upgrades. Your family can earn money much faster than it seems at first glance. We found that the in-game family bank account screen projections were not very useful and could not be accurate.

Your family members earn money in many ways.

They earn 1 % of their daily income each time they complete a work cycle.
They receive a portion of their daily income every hour of the day. For example, if they make make $240, they’ll get $10 every hour (even if they are not actually working). Remember that daily income will increase as your parents get promotions.
They get 10% interest on their bank account which will be added to their balance in small payments throughout the day.

Selling the collectables you already added to you collection is a great way to supplement your family’s income, especially when you are starting out. They are worth from $5 to $50 each, depending on how rare they are.

Some random events can also make you some money, but they can take some away from your account also.

Tips:

You will hear the sound of jingling coins each time money is deposited in your bank account.
If you save your money the interest will add up quickly. One of our 1st generation families started with average starting salaries and they ended up with $10,000 by the time they turned 60. None of the parents were workaholics and certainly could have worked more frequently.
You might want to be careful with your purchases when starting a new game and only buy what you need, which is food and maybe medicine. None of the home improvement items are necessary to keep your family members happy and perfectly healthy, even if they start asking for them. Home improvements are fun to buy because they trigger new behaviours. So if you rather get some at the beginning of the game, go ahead. It depends on your style of play. You can always start saving later.

Illnesses and Medicine

Your family members will get sick from time to time. They will become lethargic, some might even sit on the floor, and their status will say “a bit sick”. Sometimes you will hear an audio clue about the illness. If they’re not letting you know what their symptom is, pick up and drop the person until they tell you in their action bar. You can then buy the appropriate medicine from the store and cure them.

Here’s a list of the symptoms you may encounter:

Sore throat – needs throat lozenges
Upset stomach – needs peptic syrup
Headache and general pain – needs anti-inflammatory pill
Coughing – needs cough syrup
Itchy – needs cortisone cream
Sneezing and allergies – needs antihistamine
Hiccups – needs to drink a glass of water from the bathroom sink

Sometimes those symptoms will be caused by an underlying infection that needs to be treated with penicillin or even a stronger antibiotic. You will know your family members have a more serious infection if they keep getting sick over and over again, usually within an hour of apparently curing them.

Penicillin and Vancomycin are hard on the body so it is recommended that you buy a doctor’s consultation before using them. If you can’t afford it, try Vancomycin if your person's status still reads "a bit sick" immediately after giving him the appropriate medicine for his symptom.

If a person seems cured but gets ill again within an hour or so, try the Penicillin. When you cure a serious infection, you will also need to treat the actual symptom they are showing one last time.

It is important that you cure any illness in a timely manner. It will affect the sick family member’s health bar and make them weaker over time. Also, the longer someone is sick, the more chances another family member will contract the same illness.

Tips:

Antibiotics and especially Vancomycin will make your people exhausted. Use when needed only.
A sick adult won’t feel like working so he won’t make any progress in his career (or very little) until he is cured

Collectibles

Collectibles will keep appearing on the lawn of your house throughout the game. If you’re not quick enough to pick it up, they will disappear. When you drop a person on it (including children), they will bring it to the collectable drawer in the house. You can see your collection on the collection screen. It will take several generations before you complete all the collections.

If you pick up a collectable that you already have in your collection, you’re going to sell it on the internet for some quick cash. It’s a great way to supplement your income, especially at the beginning of the game.

Common items will be sold for $5.
Uncommon items for $15.
Rare items for $50.

Tips:

Bugs only appear when it rains. There are some “bottled tropical rain” you can find in the store to make it rain outside for a few minutes. Using it doesn’t guarantee you will actually find a bug though.
Pictures pieces will begin to appear after you open the shed
You can zip around the lawn looking for collectables by using your keyboard’s numeric keys (1 to 9) or your keypad. You can also hold a person at the same time, so you will be ready to drop them on a collectable
If you are afraid a collectable will disappear before you pick it up, you can hit the space bar to pause the game. You can then find a family member and drop him on it. Then hit the space bar to resume the game.
When a person has picked up a collectable, you don’t have to wait until they get to the collection drawer or the office. Pick up the person again and the item will immediately be stored or sold
Your virtual persons just love to pick up collectables and it does make them happy over time. It will even help them recover from the loss of a family member

Trophies (tips and spoilers):

There are 100 trophies you can win while playing Virtual Families. We suggest you go through the list at the start of the game. You’ll know what to be on the look-out for, for instance there are trophies relating to marriage, or buying certain items from the store. It will take several generations before you get all the trophies. They will not be reset when you pass the house to another generation so you can continue to work on getting them.

Some trophies you get for praising specific behaviours. A couple are self-exploratory, but most are bewildering. Here are the ones that give most people trouble.

Sticky situation: removing a cobweb

Cobwebs are like wrappers and socks, they will appear from time to time in the house. But they are hard to see. You will eventually find a cobweb on the mirror of the right bathroom sink. Just drop someone on it.

Boob tube: praising someone who turns the TV off.

You can encourage the behaviour by clicking on the TV to turn it on. But you can’t really initiate it. You will have to wait for a family member to do it on its own.

Sleeping dragon: praising someone for practicing Kung Fu.

You’ll have to catch a family member doing this eventually. They will be in the backyard not far from the backdoor.
Everything in it’s place: praising someone for cleaning the nightstand.
Again, you will have to wait for a family member to clean the nightstand in the parent’s bedroom.

Go-pher it: praising someone for chasing gophers.

This is a child specific behaviour that cannot be initiated. Their action will actually display as “playing on the lawn” and they will go near the fountain. A gopher will appear and they will chase it. If you hear giggling and a noise that sounds like kissing, that means there’s a child chasing a gopher at that moment.

That funky smell: praising someone for throwing out rotten fish.

Only children over 14 and adults will exhibit this behaviour and it also cannot be initiated. Their action will display as “checking out that strange smell” and they will proceed to the fridge. They will then throw out a fish in the garbage.

Lotta latte: praising someone for making a latte. You’ll have to wait for someone to make themselves a latte in the kitchen.

1000 strokes: praising someone for brushing their hair.

You will eventually catch someone brushing their hair in front of one of the bathroom sinks.

House malfunctions (tips and spoilers)

You’ll experience a malfunctioning plumbing fixture or an appliance fire from time to time. They will prevent your family members from using the room it is happening in the leaks and fires are taken care of. You’ll first need to find the right tool.

Tip: The toolbox in the home improvement section of the store will make your repairs last much longer and will reduce the frequency or house malfunctions.

Hints only:

Clogged toilet or shower: look in the laudry room
Leaking bathroom or kitchen sins: look in the workshop
Oven or dryer fire: there’s an extinguisher in the shed. You’ll have to find a way to open it. It’s missing a door knob and a key.
No internet: you need to fix the router in the office

Spoilers:

Clogged toilet or shower: drop a person on the green bucket in the laundry room
Leaking bathroom or kitchen sink: there’s a wrench in the workshop. You can see it in the top red toolbox on the wall. Drop a person on it
Oven and dryer fire: there’s an extinguisher in the shed. Open the shed by getting the door knob in the sand box first. You will find the key under the doormat.
No internet: the router is the black box on the desk in the office. Just drop a person on it.

House repairs puzzles (hints and spoilers)

There are many repairs to do around the house. They involve solving a puzzle or waiting for a specific product to appear in the store. You might need more than a generation to complete all the house repairs.
Tip: The varied item section of the store will be restocked every 4 hours.

House repairs puzzles hints:

The Shed: it’s missing a door knob and a key. They are somewhere around the house.
The Hardwood Floor Damage: to repair the floor damage, just wait for the appropriate product to show up in the store.
The Leaky Hose: the first step is to wait for the appropriate product to show up in the store.
The Workshop Walls: they need plaster work. The first step is to wait for the appropriate product in the store. You’ll need to solve the leaky hose puzzle first.
The Wilted Window Box Flowers (living room windows): the flowers need to be watered. You will need to solve the shed and the leaky hose puzzle first.
The Broken Birdbath: the first step is to wait for the appropriate product to show up in the store.

House repairs puzzles spoilers:

The Shed: the shed door knob is in the sandbox. Install it first. Then get the key under the doormat.
The Hardwood Floor Damage: buy the floor repair kit from the store and use as directed. You will need one kit for each of the three damaged spots. One damaged spot will take several work cycles to repair. Children 14 and older can help.
The Leaky Hose: buy the waterproof tape from the store. Drop it near the leaking hose. You will need to get the water pressure down before you can use it. Make someone in the house take a shower, wash the dishes, or do any activity that will make the water run. Meanwhile, get another person to tape the hose.
The Workshop Walls: buy the wall compound from the store. Drop it near the bucket by the sandbox. Drop a person on the bucket and he will mix the compound with some water. You’ll need to solve the leaky hose puzzle before you can do this. Once the compound is mixed, someone will bring it near the damaged walls. You will have to repair the wall as fast as possible or the compound will harden. Put at least two people on the job. Children 14 and over can help. Drop all your workers on the bucket and they will start the repairs. When one tries to wander off, keep dropping them on the bucket again until the walls are finished.
The Wilted Window Box Flowers (living room windows): you will find a watering can in the shed once you have opened the shed. Just drop a person on it and he will water the flowers, but the leaky hose will have to be repaired first.
The Broken Birdbath: buy the water pump that will show up in the store. Drop it on the floor near the broken birdbath. The exact spot is just below and a bit the right of the bath. It is heavy and two persons are needed to install it. Children 14 and over can help.