Last updated on January 17th, 2026 at 07:53 am
Virtual Families Free for iPad – Family Game Review
Virtual Families Free for iPad is a Family/Entertainment/Simulation game from LDW Software, LLC, first launched in 26th August 2010.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 2,309+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Virtual Families Free for iPad Stand Out
Virtual Families is a casual family sim that runs in true real time, and now this acclaimed simulation game for iPhone and iPod touch is available in a free version for the iPad. Adopt a little person from the thousands of choices of little people who live inside your iPad. Encourage them to work in their chosen career to earn money for necessities and luxuries, help them choose a suitable mate, start and raise a family, let them kick back with a variety of leisure activities, and take care of and improve their home. Along the way, there will be many different random events to respond to, house malfunctions to repair, and mini-puzzles to solve, all of them adding an unexpected element to the daily routine. This is the same sensational game that became a smash Windows and Mac hit!
The game continues to progress in true real time, even when your iPad is turned off, so don’t forget to check in regularly to care for your little people.
More about Virtual Families:
- Real-time game play, with new surprises every time you turn on the game!
- Fully trainable people: shape and adapt their personalities through praising and scolding!
- Marry for love; marry for money – the choice is yours.
- Raise children and enjoy them as they grow up and go off to college.
- Dynamic illness system. Play doctor!
- Solve hidden puzzles around the house.
- Improve the house and pass it to successive generations.
- Random Events: unique and unpredictable email and house events that bring everything from the tax man to free stuff!
- Collectibles: dozens of unique collectibles for your family to collect and sell.
- Trophies: over 100 trophies that can be earned for almost every area of game play.
- Weather ranging from sunny days to thunderstorms.
Recommended for people who enjoy Virtual Villagers, The Sims, and other life sims!
If you like Virtual Families Free for iPad, try the full version, which supports a larger family, more shopping and home improvement choices, and more options for medical care, and of course 100% ad-free! Have families of up to 8 people living, working, and building a legacy of many generations, all in your iPad!
Virtual Families Free for iPad features:
- Unlimited game play and multi-generational support
- Shopping for food and other necessities
- Full access to collections
- Small, close-knit families
Visit our Official Virtual Families site at www.VirtualFamilies.com for instructions, strategy guides, and much more!
LDW games have been awarded with:
- Sim Game of the Year – Game Tunnel
- The Zeebys – Gamezebo
- Parents Choice Recommended Award
- iParenting Media Award
Check out our other hit games: Virtual Villagers: The Secret City, Virtual Villagers: The Lost Children, Virtual Villagers, Fish Tycoon!
This Family game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Virtual Families Free for iPad is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 13th January 2012
Recent improvements include:
Changes in ad content
Download & Availability
Virtual Families Free for iPad is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Virtual Families Free for iPad on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 / iPad Mini 3 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 4 / iPad Mini 4 (Cellular) or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
The names are supper supper odd like in the picture it shows a person is called Carola but our people are called like Jet but his wife's name is good it is Bretta they're son Uole and his wife Primary they're son Glitch and his wife Fresse and their son Boeing we mean Boeing!! And also why do all our people have son's AND why are there no black people there like that's Really offensive to us. Anything other then that the app is great!! Btw we are only 10 Yes we right very beautiful ( we know that! ).
Im totaly adicted to this game and we always leave the weeds in the yard snd when im bored we'll finnaly pick them and what is the fuller version pkease tell us. It also takes so long for a generation to pass we would be on our seventh but our sister accidentally deleted it.
We love this game and we are so happy o found it and the only thing that kinda freaks us out is when they eat they turn their heads all the way around . But other than that we love this game and will play it everyday.
Ok so virtual families is a great game but how are you supposed to put out a fire? If you know the answer please respond to us aka LaLaWorld.
Habit has returned from college to live in the family home following the recent death of his adoptive parents. He is an beginning level spammer. He has married Ribbons, an beginning level fairy tale writer. They're both 28 years old at the present time. We're unsure if they're going to have kids of their own since he doesn't want to have kids while she thinks it'd be nice to have kids, but there is a chance they'll also later be adoptive parents.
We downloaded the app and it is super fun! But our Store didn't download, what do we do! We want to get it, but we are on our eighth generation and have tons of coins. We were gong to but it said the game would reset if we redownload it. What do we do, please help.
Whenever we play the free one, it's boring cause all u can do is make one child, buy food medicine and upgrades, but is that really it? U should add 2 – 5 home improvement things, and more. We're just saying, it gets boring quickly.
Idk what to say we think it is a grate game.
Okay, so say you don't play with your Virtual Families for 2 days. Either you can make sure they have lots of food in the refrigerator while you are gone (you might need up to 1.5k-2k food) and make sure all of their bars are maintained. Meaning everything is at it's highest rate. Or, just pause your game and everything will stay the same. We prefer pausing the game because it is more safe especially if 1 of your children haven't went off to school, because if not, they will all die and you will lose. And we also choose this because illnesses can come and get worse, then start off "a bit sick" and if you leave them unattended while sick it can become worse. Also, our suggestions were to make it more realistic. For instance, when going to sleep, make then get under the covers or something. It's kind of boring seeing them lay on top of the bed, especially if they do the same when dying. And we have the fancy bed sheets so it would be kind of cute seeing them take off all of the fancy pillows and the getting under the covers. But that's all for now. Tata.
Here's a way to get thousands of coins on this app. On your device, close the virtual families app and go to setting, general, and then date & time. Change the date to make it way into the future, as far as it'll let you go (just keep scrolling, we got down to 2038) then, open the virtual families app. You will have thousands of more coins. The only thing about this is that your people will be dead because it's been so long, but you can just start a new generation no problem. Also, you will have wrappers & socks all over your house, and you can hire a maid because you just got a ton of coins. It seems confusing, but it's super easy.
We love this game because it come with all the furniture and you can control them and you can have kids.
This is our absolute favorite game but our people never ever have kids! We adopted a child once but ever since then we try to make them have children but the embrace and then nothing :(.
We want a new version of the software even have two or three children we have.
PLEASE MAKE IT SO THAT we CAN BE ABLE TO GET MORE THAN ONE BABY FOR THE LITE VERSION!! Other than that it's a good app. Ps RESPOND AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS.
If you want your person to work put them on the table where they work then let them be we learned that last night keep trying win your trying for a baby it's soooooooooooooooo hard you can try it any time best game ever if you need help read this.
We love this games so much but you can only have one kid but we like it no wifi all goood.
The second one is better cause it gets more babies.
This game is our favorite ever since we got it we can stop playing it we have a husband and a baby right now virtual families is the BEST game EVER.
Can you have baby's when you are old.
So we were looking at the help section, and we noticed that under DETAIL you said, See a villager's age, etc. Oh and great game.
We like virtual families(VF) but we have one problem. Our problem is we really wish you can fix the birdbath, have more kids,etc without paying for the 2.99 version. We rate 4 stars.
Need more interaction w family. Also plumbers and workers to fix stuff More control over family w interaction type family emails vice versa.
Awesome game!! Thanks for fixing it.:) now you can have more than 1 children.
How do u get them to get married and have kids Can some one help us plz.
Our daughter is in college does she come back.
We need help fixing the sink how do we fix the sink.
This is a really fun game and we recomend it if you like virtual stuff the tiny people have weird names but are cute ok we need some help though cause im a beginer so our hose is leaky which has made our shower leaky and our tiny peoples status are not feeling fresh we tried putting our male person over the red tool box but he dosent get a tool and whenever we just put him over the leaky spot he walks away we dont know what to do. Great game though.
If you like this you'll love virtual families two:-).
You have a baby by put the parents together and they have a baby easy our virtual parents had one and they named her decimal and in the first one you could have babies did you even know.
We killed our biwitched mom in this game. Awesome.
If u want to have a baby u have to drag the boy on the girl it might work might not and yes u can have many generations the mom has a kid that kid has a kid and so on.
We LOVE this game but our only problem is that we wish we can have more children than just one. The it says get the Full version to have more room for children!!!!! That's our only problem really except for the shopping not everything is shown the blue boxes are blank. But can the creators of this game can you please fix our problems??? Please do this so our game experience better than it already is. Thank you and please fix it!!! :).
We have been playing this for like 3 years it's endless literally you can have as many generations as you want it is so fun :).
Every time our people have a baby, either the husband or wife dies with the child.
We really think this game is entertaining we play this game like 24/7 we LOVE this game like literally LOVE IN LOVE we recommend everyone to play this game because we LOVE it You should really GET IT.
Best game ever they seem so real GET THE GAME.
Ok, so the game is fantastic we are in love with it but we agree with others you should be able to go to the store and the neighbors house ant school & stuff like that, but we really HATE how on regular version you can only have one kid we want more and more! So please get an upgrade and let these things listed happen! ~ Your Biggest Fan.
We don't know how to fix the birdbath and it keeps crashing. We once had the same career and same baby status and was doing good. To fix the dyer you need Togo to the sandbox and find the shed lock, then look under the welcome mat for the key and he should open the shed. Get out the fire extinguisher and he will put out the fire. We also thing you should do different races. It's it fair to black people. And also do a setting for gay people. They don't wanna marry different sex. It's not fair. Also put in a divorce thing. Some people marry the wrong person and get depressed.
It's great you can get twins and triplets And start new generations.
Awesome game. We love it. It is sooooooo awesome! One of the best games we EVER played! Keep it up.
This is fun. In this version u can only have one child. If u want more u have to get the full version.
How do you git kids on this game? Do you even get kids on this game.
This game reminds us of sims 3.
Love the game but at the top there is ads over the house ugh….how do u remove the ads.
This game is perfect! We love it so much and hope that you come out with a Virtual Families 3. We love this game for several reasons; it starts over with a child of the couple you had. You can get a dog. You can buy upgrades and other different things from your family. You can also bring in homeless people. Most of all, we love that you can get a pet. We love the dog the most! We think that this game is pretty good and we hope that the people that make this game will both continue the virtual family series, as well as leave the first game alone, with no updates! We love the game the way it is and we don't think that anybody should change it. Hopefully most people like this game because it is absolutely perfect. We can tell that the people that made this game put a lot of time and work into this game. They also put lots of planning into this game. From what we've heard and seen, this game is pretty popular because most of our friends have it. In fact, our friends were the ones that told us about it. We're not sure about other places, but here in Ohio, there is plenty of people with this game. We hope that many people have this game because if they don't, they are definitely missing out on something good? Over all, we love this game and it is definitely a keeper on both our iPod (4g) and our iPad Mini! We think this game might even be the best out of all of the games we have on both of our apple devices! This game definitely deserves 5 stars! We hope that most of the other people rated it 5 stars as well.
Our question is how do you make them get their energy back? We know it's a dumb question to say but we just started playing this game today so please help us anyone if you guys can! :) Would really appreciate your help.
It never seid you're family can die other then that good game.
It would be fun if we could out the oven fire.
We wish u could have more then one kid at a time and that we have no ideo to but out a fire lol but it is good.
Please make a update for the child to grow slower everything else is fantastic:).
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.1.4
- Size: 39.05 MB
- iOS: 3.2 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Developer: LDW Software, LLC
Last updated: 13th January 2012 | Genre: Family, Entertainment | Developer: LDW Software, LLC