Human Player & Cube World from Bandai
Jul 20th, 2007 by Gary
While some are pushing virtual pets toward the “Uncanny Valley” where they seem so real they become eirie and people back away from them, Bandai took the opposite tack with its Cube World released in late 2005. Little stick people repesented by only a few pixels live, work and play in each cube. Once connected together, they can interact with their neighbors. Meant for desktop amusement, the “humans” know which way is up and fall when you tilt or shake their cube. They are a bit reminiscent of Activision’s, Little Computer People, except Activision’s game was in color.
Bandai is now following up Cube World with Human Player. This time, the product is a handheld, and you are the pet. The game asks you about 50 questions about yourself, picks one of 22 personalities to represent you, and can interact with other characters inside your device or with other Human Players via an infrared link.
Both games use very low resolution screens with only a few pixels to represent the “pet”. The trick is in trying to mimic life with just a few pixels. Looks like Bandai has done a good job of it. Human Player was released in Japan at the end of March 2007.