Interactive virtual girl

An evaluation of the "electronic virtual turtle -- a super-interactive digital pet" by Novatoy

1). "What did they get right?"

* simple to operate -- but only after reading the instructions.

* satisfyingly tactile -- lightweight, fits nicely in the hand.

* highly portable -- easy to keep with you anywhere.

* the key chain adds to the portability (it can be hooked to the belt), adds an extra useful function (holding keys).

* a mixture of the predictable (life maintenance) and the unpredictable (a built-in game based on randomness).

* the model of basic needs for health (food, bathroom, interactive virtual girl medication, education, and amusement) is adequate and almost interesting.

* the whole checklist of needs is "in your face" via single menu.

* when idle, the display remains ever in motion.

2). "What did they get wrong?"

* the functions associated with the unlabeled three-button control panel is not obvious without instructions.

* the buttons are tiny and placed too close together.

* the icons are puzzling and inadequate to convey immediate, deep understanding of their meaning.

* there is a learning curve before one can play, and the interactive virtual girl algorithmic relationships (such as amount fed vs. weight gain) are bafflingly unclear where they should be obvious.

* IT WILL NOT ADAPT TO MY PERSONAL SCHEDULE: it runs on a clock and assumes that my day follows a "normal" schedule

* IT DOES NOT LEARN AND GROW A DIFFERENT PERSONALITY as it matures and experiences life.

* the visual display does not reflect growth/ aging/ weight gain when rendering the character.

* IT MAKES MANY DEMANDS BUT THERE IS NO PAYOFF FOR MEETING THEM.

Interactive virtual girl

3). "What would you do better?"

* more and better audio -- sound effects and spoken voice.

* better graphics -- show growth, age, mood, etc. in body image, motion.

* add personality development as function of aging and experience -- let each one have a different basic personality, body type, metabolism, etc.

* add learning algorithms -- let it adapt to my choice of feeding schedule, learn when I typically have time to meet its needs and when I'm busy -- let it learn tricks to wheedle more attention out of me, like my cat does.

* add a "stasis" button to put it in suspended animation for a while.

* better internal games to share with the owner besides interactive virtual girl random selection -- the games should increase in complexity as the critter ages.

* situate it in a context of overlapping real and virtual worlds, not merely as a character in a vacuum.

* network the suckers to other Virtual Pets so that it can hear about other tricks and experiences and surprise me with new behaviors -- breed them with genetic algorithms to get new individuals -- save sperm and eggs of ancestors for experimental breeding, recreation of favorite prior individuals.

* add sensors (heat, moisture, motion, light, sound, etc.) so that it has some sort of "body awareness" related to its state in MY world.

* make it do a few things to cheer ME up -- sing to me when I'm blue, offer recipes or restaurant suggestions at mealtimes, tell stories & gossip, make up games with me, etc. -- we need to establish a mutually-beneficial dialog, not a one-way monologue.

* let it keep a snotty diary about its life which I can peek at, and interactive virtual girl make phone calls to other Virtual Pets that we parents can monitor.

* add Pager functions to it.

4). "Why have so many been sold?"

* Peer pressure and fad-ism.

* "Moderate" price.

* Gullible parents, kindly and gullible grandparents.

* Exhausted parents seeking to divert their children.

* Unscrupulous, aggressive marketeering.

* Japanese lust for territorial conquest.

Interactive virtual girl

The Cult of the Egg

What can I say about an inert, unresponsive lump of plastic who died?

She claimed she was from the prestigious Tamagotchi family, but I knew from the start that she was illegitimate -- a cheap Chinese knock-off of that fatally flawed lineage.

She was a definitely high-maintenance girl: demanding and insatiable in need, ungracious and unresponsive in reception. Her well-rounded body fit snugly and satisfyingly in one hand -- if one could call it a body, for in truth she interactive virtual girl never emerged from her thick plastic shell. She claimed to be a turtle, but I could never tell the truth or lie of it: all I ever saw of her was a polyp-shaped, unremarkable head. Her buttons were engagingly exposed, offering the illusion of a give-and-take relationship -- but actually, it was take-and-take, and take, and take.

Some would call her "affordable," but to me she was just plain cheap. She could be had for $20 in any seedy sundries store or shopping mall from Shanghai to San Diego. She worked hard to give the appearance of usefulness -- once, she even strung a key chain through her head! Yet, even that instrument of erotic bondage proved to be more titillation than engagement. Keys made her unwieldy; they just got in the way.

I first knew it was all over between us when her incessant beeping roused me from a sound and well-deserved sleep. She had defecated on herself, and she waited poutingly for me to fetch a broom and clean up the mess. Then, after a moment of graphically rendered affection, she returned to her zombified, self-absorbed stupor.

Of course, she did have some admirable traits. She never refused a interactive virtual girl drink -- I once saw her quaff sixty-eight glasses in a single sitting. But, dating her was reminiscent of engaging with a Geisha or pursuing the most popular girl in High School -- many hours of commitment, thousands of dollars in expense, and only a moderate chance of sex afterwards.

BURCH

Critique #1: Dinky Dinosaur

Dinky is a pleasant and generally well-mannered dinosaur. Now about 5 years old, he likes to play, achieves good grades in school and has a hearty appetite, though after infancy he became a vegetarian. He sleeps well and has excellent hygiene. A bit si ckly as a very young dinosaur, his health is increasingly robust as he grows up.

Why do they sell?

Cute, novel, portable, demanding. Some of it is no doubt a fad. What worked for me is the way the toy aided in the construction of an imagination space and then used the stimulus of the beeping/upset icons to frequently re-insert that imaginary world i n to the flux and flow of everyday life. The risk of the creature dying is partly motivational on psychological grounds, and partly it makes the game more interactive virtual girl boring-insofar as there are new developments and visual changes as the creature ages. For very you ng children the repetition might be less of a negative. It also legitimizes the imaginary world by giving it a physical referent that others can share and respond to. (I could play the same game with my imaginary friend or pet rock, but it would be le ss acceptable, especially after a time, and others couldn't really join in observing his behavior as many people and "dino-sitters" did. )

Brief description:

The Dinky toy has 5 buttons: one each on the right and left sides, and 3 small ones front and center. The user can provide drinks or food, turn on or off the light, discipline, check a general status report, play, educate, bathe, adjust the interactive virtual girl temperature, and provide medical care. The left and right buttons are for navigating among and within the features. The right center button is an escape (out of current screen). The middle one is the enter. The right activates the clock.

What they got right:

In general, the facial expressions, especially the happy ones are cute and their rapid appearance and occasional exaggeration successfully mirror the moods of a young child.

Likewise, the incremental physical changes in his appearance (from small blob to bigger one, and the gradual emergence of tail and feet) are fun, and motivate the play.

Interactive virtual girl

Similarly the change in student level from primary to secondary--though that happened very early and seems to have only two phases--more increments would be more entertaining.

The left and right keys are redundant-one can use either to cycle through all features or options within a feature, but using both minimizes the number of clicks needed at any point to get to the desired screen, and they allow backing up rather than going through all eight features again.

What's wrong (and some suggestions for improvement):

The escape key doesn't do much. It is not really an interrupt function. Clear interactive virtual girl would be a better label--when an activity is done, this key takes you back to the main screen. But there is an automatic return to the main screen after 10 seconds, so it do esn't save much time at that point.

Some of the icons are poorly designed and unclear-at least at first. I had trouble initially with the food fullness icons, and the sweating/shivering icons were very unclear or even backwards. Both were also initially hard to distinguish from the sickne ss icon. The losing expression in the game is a bit obscure and I never did figure out what the expression right after eating was trying to tell me. All of these can interactive virtual girl be figured out, but for me the immediate recognition/cuteness/gee whiz factor was far more motivational. I enjoyed puzzles about the "psychology" and needs of the thing, not the meaning of the icons-those focus attention on the toy, not the imagination space.

For the fullness icons, a flat or rounded stomach or the lip smacking of a dry mouth could be used as the signals for hunger and thirst.

The clock key is not especially needed. The clock is only set once at the start of a game and I never felt the need to look at it later.

The smaller buttons were hard to press cleanly (maybe designed for smaller fingers).

The hardware was a bit flaky. I dropped it once from waist high and it froze and had to be reset. The screen also sometimes went blank, once resetting itself, other times coming back. That seems to be a battery contact problem, and is worse if the toy is held top and back as opposed to by the sides.

The finger guessing game (rock, paper, scissors) was too much work (perhaps this is intended....). It could use less button clicks by randomizing the user's move, and automating the dinosaur's response (also randomized).

It also might be nice to play with different sounds (or pitches in the beeps). One could signify pain, discomfort or hunger, another boredom or a desire for attention.

Interactive virtual girl

Meals (or food items) get eaten twice each turn. This seems silly.

Other observations:

The directions were a bit weak, especially on the discipline feature. (There is certainly some cultural difference here.) Discipline (represented by hitting) is very close to studying and education and the explanations are conflated. I have also not ye t seen anything on the screen that could be taken to be misbehavior, though the directions cue us to look for it.

Turning on or off the air conditioner often had no effect on temperature control until an extreme was reached and he'd begun to shiver or sweat, i.e. being proactive was generally not useful. Likewise, one could not provocatively give a bath (e.g. near b edtime) but had to wait until it was demanded. This emphasizes the stimulus/response aspect of the game, and again, not the imagination space.

It through me for a loop when he went veggie, but I didn't know haw to interpret it. Discipline had no effect, so I assume it is not just being finicky. We are warned that nutrition will affect how he grows up, but there are no specifics.