Last updated on January 17th, 2026 at 02:03 am
Virtual Families Lite – Simulation Game Review
Virtual Families Lite is a Simulation/Entertainment/Family game from LDW Software, LLC, first launched in 5th August 2009.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 3,441+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Virtual Families Lite Stand Out
Virtual Families is a casual family sim that runs in true real time. Adopt a little person from the thousands of choices of little people who live inside your iPhone. 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 iPhone 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 and other life sims!
If you like Virtual Families Lite, try the full version, which supports a larger family, more shopping and home improvement choices, and more options for medical care, and is always 100% ad-free! Have families of up to 8 people living, working, and building a legacy of many generations, all in your iPhone!
Virtual Families Lite features:
- Unlimited game play and multi-generational support
- Shopping for food and other necessities
- Full access to collections
- Small, close-knit families
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: the Virtual Villagers series, Virtual Town, and Fish Tycoon!
This Simulation game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Virtual Families Lite is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 19th October 2017
Recent improvements include:
This app has been updated by Apple to display the Apple Watch app icon.
Hello Virtual Families fans!
We've updated the award-winning, original Virtual Families to support the latest devices and iOS versions! With millions of downloads worldwide, we're happy to ensure you can continue to play your favorite apps on your new devices. Revisit the classic Virtual Families today, and build a multi-generational home for the tiny family that lives inside your pocket!
If you enjoy the Virtual Families series, don't forget to check out our other titles: Virtual Families 2, Virtual Villagers (all 5 chapters!), Fish Tycoon, and Virtual Town.
Download & Availability
Virtual Families Lite is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Virtual Families Lite on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
We love this game its the light version and we have the actual one that is not free is really good to people should really play it. Its nice you can clean spaces and you can collect bugs and you can also our favorite part grows families. Everyone should try this even people that are younger than ours. And that other review Its nine year olds. That are playing plus thats not real world making babies plus the real world version which would be much more inappropriate.
We swear this is the best game Ive ever played but it is a little confusing at first other than that its the beast we recommend.
Played this all the time as a kid and just redownloaded itforgot how much we used to love it.
Im disappointed none of our characters utter a peep whenever we pick them up like their supposed too.
This game is the best game ive ever played. Hands down. This deserves awards. We made so many happy families and they all died in the end but its okay. You can always start over and start fresh :). Just like real life. 7/10. Download it. Now.
We give this game five star because one its a pretty good game and its fun! But the only one thing we dont like is that you can only have one kid Ive tried to have another and it wouldnt let us thats the only thing we dont like. But over all its not bad tbh Ive been playing for at least 2 days now. But over all Im not that upset but maybe you could add a few newer things to the game like instead of only be able to have one kid how about twins or triplets. But its okays if you dont want to. Anyways have a nice day! :).
So we try to have a baby but they just run away so why huh pls fix.
Oh our goodness we LOVE this game!!! But one question…How do you fix the dryer lint when it burns.
We love this game but could you please add when it says Trying to make a baby Could the woman be pregnant before she has the baby.
We love this app we have had it for years and we never get tired of playing it because it is so interesting and we love taking care of people and virtual people.
We had virtual families 2 for a long long time now but we couldnt find the first one we looked and looked on our Tablet then we noticed our phone right there! And we picked it up and spelled virtual families and found this we jumped up with happiness and got and we wrote this and we hadnt even played it yet so we made this review as fast as possible and we just know Im gonna really really like love this game we can hardly wait why am we waiting we dont know ok umm thanks bye we cant wait ! Ok back we just played it and we need answers give us answers umm please we really need to know and why do we not have that much money on the second one? Right right stay focused ok we want to know everything about this game ok can you do that for us please oh yeah hi other readers anyway please game makers please please write something on here that can help help right help if the help button doesnt help Ill be back Ill be back ok Im gonna read it now if it helps anyway this better help or you will hear us talk and talk for hours and then we want to you to talk and tell us and dont bother saying tontack is or something okay ok great thanks and you better have been listening to our ever loving word we said do you hear us ok ok bye bye thanks again its every kind and helpful if you do give answers thanks again bye bye we hope you do give answers ok again bye a bye and thanks for listening ok see you later hopefully we dont because help is gonna give us answers right? Why am we still here ok bye again as we said the other hungered times ok wait yeah Im just gonna stop bye.
Our mom introduced our sister and we to this game at a young age. It has always been a favorite! The last day of work makes very fun games with little challenges within the game.
This game, was our favorite game. When our mom went to work, for sears. And we had to stay with our grandma until mom came to grandmas house to take us home. We would always, ask our grandma Can we use the back computer? And Id go back there and play, virtual families for hours. Our grandma of course, wanted us to go outside. But we never would, our grandma had a memory problem making her forget, stuff. So she would forget that we had to go outside. Hehe hehe… The only, problem was… As soon as we got older, the computer broke down. We were thinking What if this, was an app. We pulled, our device out and found this app. So our words is this game, really entertaining? Yes! 5 stars for you our friend. ;).
We love this game we have the other one but at least in this one we don't have to spend money on rooms.
Good game. We have both of the two games and we like that you dont have to buy the rooms in this one.
We love playing this game A LOT. We played this when we were younger but we deleted it. Now Im 14 and we have it again and we play it a lot Im thinking about buying the full version we dont know if it will be a waste or not but we definitely want more out of this game.
Could u add more kids? Our kids feel a little blue sometimes because they don't really have tons of options or a companion so we were thinking what if u increase the max? To 3 or 2 just please so the kids can enjoy playing with each other having fun and probably some toys and pets aswell but the game is still so fun : ).
We got it and Im so happy we just had the baby ;) but… Like uhhh one child tho? So bad :( no baby crib but its still good!!!!!!! But something about this we love games that you can have babys but only one like we LOVE KIDSS and played the second one and its horrible so bad please fix a few things that would be great thats all :).
We missed our little couples new baby, their 2nd, getting his first pictures, and gifts, those pictures, and Mommys Cuddles because of these terrible and rude and intrusive ads. Its truly the ridiculous. Not even a minute goes by sometimes, before another ad interrupts what theyre doing AND IM doing! We do love the upgraded Lite. They should, however, be 1. Able to have TWO children, and 2. Be able to get what they need, like duct tape to mend the hose, and pump to fix the birdbath, etc. Would make it MUCH more playful and fun.
Not the worst but you are only allowed to have one kid and when your kids reach 19 they disappear and we're not sure if they are going to come back.
Hi please tell us how you get kids we have been playing for ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also how do you tell your little people what you want.
Really we cant have more children in our game because its the lite version what da hell.
The game is great but just because its complicated it doesn't explain how to repair things so anytime anything needs repaired we have to restart the game or everybody is miserable. Besides it mentions you can have more baby's if we get the full game but it doesn't explain how to get the full fudging game.
What do we do when shes a bit blue.
We really liked the Game but It is a little boring like when do things get exciting, Next century we guess srry But we like it begins fine we just hope it gets fun and funny every time we played and it does sorry for the bad things we said PS it was fine it was the good nice awesome funny.
Just one thing our guy is sick and Ive trued all the medicine and nothing cures him.
Our little couple just had a baby, we want them to have more babies, but it says the FULL version has room for more kids but where is the FULL version.
Why Do The Little People On The Virtual Families Game Grow Up So Fast??? We Just Downloaded This Game New Years And our Lady Emma Was 27, Now She Is In Her 50s L.O.L. Much Love To This Game Though……. It Really Fun.
There is a reward for praising somebody for turning off the tv and its called boob tube and thats really inappropriate because its for ages 9 and up but trust us theres always someone younger than that also they age to fast and we cant even figure out how to have children on the game Happy Halloween.
We have played this game & various variations of it on our iPad since the beginning. We have always found that they are relaxing even when the full version is not readily available to us. We have a new late 20s family with a baby girl. We think that they have good office jobs, but as is the case with the game, they are mired in severe depression practically all the time, especially the man. We have seen harder depression when one of them dies. Is this kind of depression even treatable in the game anymore? We would like to suggest that in any future updates to this version or other versions of the game, some kind of solution is added. We sometimes cannot afford upgrading to careers, & it sometimes causes even longer depression. We sometimes feel depression ourselves & also irritation that we can not understand why they are depressed & can not help them.
We like how the old one you could buy many different items for your home and you could do much more.
Please let us customize the characters and put the babies down also let us redecorate the house please. Overall the game was pretty good.
Why can you only have one kid???we mean you have a ton of beds.Also the kid grows up way to fast.But Ive got to say it is pretty fun when you first get the game.
Well we drag our boy on our girl to have a baby which theyve already had one and its says the FULL version can only have more children what full version.
We are so exited to try this app! We have a couple things to talk about. You should make it a whole lot easier to stay alive and get married and have kids. P.S. HORRIBLE GRAPHICS! Go with a better company! You are so much more than them! Please read this! It is so important! This will help you get at least another 20,000 players! If you do what we say, we see money in your future.
In this virtually families game we can only have one child.. Whats up with that and it say that another version is to be downloaded but we see no update button.
We wish you could have more kids we mean the game is great but you can only have one kid.
How do we get them out of a depressed state.
It is an awesome game but you can only have one child! Seven beds! We made the mistake of adopting a child and u cant get rid of her. It is boring and not much to do. That is why we got V. Families 2 and it is awesome! Unlimited children! More things in the store! Always something to do! Never ends! V. Families 1 is boring. Download at ur own choice.
Its good but we hate how you can only have ones kid if even though there's six kid beds. Also the little people need MUCH maintenance! All in all it could be better.
We like the game but please let us have more than one kid in this game.
How do u get another person to create a family.
After the recent updates, Ive noticed no change. Not even the changes we see people complained about. Just read some other reviews. All Ive noticed are more ads strewn about the game after everything you do like open the store tab or decorate tab.
Where can we get the full version in order for the family to have more than one child. It would also be nice to complete other tasks like repairing the floor, accessing the garage.
PLEASE READ WHOLE REVIEW!!! Overall great concept. We have played virtual families 2 and LOVED it but we hated having to repair the home but honestly whatever. As for the lite version the graphics are horrid and the people look weird not a get better with time weird but your really bad weird. But we do like how the house is fixed and furnished for the most part. Just small Renos need to be done and the controls are a bit confusing. If we had a say in how the game could be made better all we would say make the graphics better and redo the controls. Also change up the way the the store is set up. Sorry for our brutal honesty but we feel like people need to know what there getting.
Also, we would appreciate being able to have more than ONE kid. We cant afford the two bucks for a game. We like V. Families two better because we can have more kids. Make things fixable, please. Stop giving them stupid names. Quit making moms carry the baby constantly. Furnitures please. This is getting boring. Ill give you higher rating if you fix this stuff( or some of it).
We enjoy it. We got pretty far but we couldnt do much after a while. We are sorry but we only give this 3 stars.
Love the game but we wish the had neighbors or at least make other friends like a real neighborhood like the can drive a car or walk down the block and find out stuff on the grass to make coins in the game.
We downloaded this game recently again because the first time we played it, it was a while ago, and we remember how much we liked it. We started playing it this time again, and we were only on our second generation of people when the game said we had to start over. We made our two people try to have a baby, if we had to guess, at least 15-20 times, and they never did. Over and over again, we tried, but they wouldnt have one, and theres nothing in the store that couldve helped them. Im not sure what the game wanted us to do? Im not starting over, as Ive worked really hard for the families Ive had, and its too much to have to start all over again. We wont be playing anymore unless this part of the game is fixed. Either have something in the store that enhances the chance of pregnancy OR if we fail to have a child, allow us to adopt a new person. Its not our fault our people wouldnt have a baby even though we tried over and over again. Maybe this is an intentional part of the game for the lite version, but either way, we will not be playing it again, and definitely not buying the version where we have to pay. Dont waste your time, you cant go far in the game.
We got the shed open and put out the dryer fire now Im trying to water plants and we see the watering cans but when we place someone on them they just go do other stuff and will not fix the hose says a piece is missing but where is it ? Im getting frustrated we would give five stars but its not that fun because its so frustrating.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.2.2
- Size: 146.44 MB
- iOS: 8.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Developer: LDW Software, LLC
Last updated: 19th October 2017 | Genre: Simulation, Entertainment | Developer: LDW Software, LLC