[NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 2011

[hobbes_pwn]

[NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 2011

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-07/13/peter-molyneux-milo-and-kate-xbox-kinect-preview​

At the TEDGlobal 2010 conference in Oxford, games developer Peter Molyneux has shown off Milo and Kate, a forthcoming game for Microsoft's Kinect Xbox add-on. The game tells the story of Milo, a boy who's just moved to New England from London with his parents, and a dog called Kate.
Players take the form of Milo's friend, and interact without using a joypad. The Kinect camera tracks your hand and body movements and acts accordingly. Molyneux showed off the early stages of the game, where Milo has just moved into his new house and is finding his way around. "Most of it is a trick", said Molyneux, "but it's a trick that works."

The earliest sections of the game show the player hunting down snails with Milo. Female players get butterflies instead -- Molyneux said that girls find snails too icky. You select them with movements of your hand, and at one point Milo asks if he should stamp on one. The demonstrator shouted "Go on Milo, squash it!" and he did.
All the while, the game is learning about the player. Using psychology techniques, the player is asked to make decisions that shape the character of who Milo turns out to be. Molyneux said, "No people's Milo can be the same", which may turn out to be somewhat of an exaggeration -- we were only shown a few of these decisions, so it's a little early to tell.
Milo then finds a pond, and the player is asked to teach him how to skim stones. Standing up, the demonstrator pretended to skim a stone, and the game responded. There was a tiny lag time as the movements were calculated, but it appeared effective. Each task earns the player a certain amount of points, depending on how well it's performed.
Then Milo goes back to the house, and has dinner with his parents. As he eats, you clean up his room -- picking up papers from the floor and wiping dust off the walls -- all with hand movements. While you're cleaning, you overhear a conversation between Milo and his parents, talking about the move. After a while, he knocks a plate of sausages and gravy onto the floor and is sent to his room.
Then the really impressive bit came. The player was challenged to "say something encouraging" to poor Milo, who's upset that he's being punished. The demonstrator said "C'mon Milo, you know what parents are like -- they're always getting stressed", and Milo responded realistically. The demonstrator followed up with more, and the pair had several conversational rallies before the demo finished.
While Milo's responses were mostly a little generic, it was still tonally sound -- he never said anything incongruous. Of course, it was being demonstrated, so it remains to be seen how that system will fare in the hands of a player trying to trip it up, or just saying something that isn't as easily recognised.
Molyneux finished the demonstration by talking a little about the rest of the game. The tutorial will last for about three quarters of an hour, at the end of which the player will be recognised by the game. From then on, it'll open up and be less "on rails", with the player able to take Milo on more, darker, adventures.
Lastly, Molyneux departed with one intriguing nugget of information about the title. He wouldn't say when it was going to be released (I'd put money on Christmas 2011 -- Microsoft isn't going to want this one hanging behind Kinect's release too much), but he did disclose that Milo's mind won't be on the disc -- it's in the cloud, and gets much smarter the more people use it.
That'll mean that it'll get better and better over time, increasingly able to cope with strong accents, slang and unusual words. Look out for more about Milo and Kate later in the year.

 

[Purple Nurple]

Re: [NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 20

I still don't see the point of this game. What is it, reliving childhood as a ten year old girl?
But the part about squashing the butterfly, I just imagined how awesome it would be if a little girl was playing, shouted, 'NO!' at the TV, but Milo squashed it anyway. That would bring me so much happiness.

 

[queenofdisco]

Re: [NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 20

Shouldn't this be in the bard sub forum?

Anyway thankies for the news

 

[Noctus]

Re: [NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 20

It's not even a game, it's just a graphics engine really.

 

[Gikoku]

Re: [NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 20

I still don't see the point of this game. What is it, reliving childhood as a ten year old girl?
But the part about squashing the butterfly, I just imagined how awesome it would be if a little girl was playing, shouted, 'NO!' at the TV, but Milo squashed it anyway. That would bring me so much happiness.

It's basically an advanced version of Kinectimals except with a "living" boy (although they don't share the same tech).

... Should've had a little girl instead.

 

[hobbes_pwn]

Re: [NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 20

It's basically an advanced version of Kinectimals except with a "living" boy (although they don't share the same tech).

... Should've had a little girl instead.

I wonder if Kate is the female option, but somewhere I heard she was a dog.

 

[ChemicalGuru]

Re: [NEWS] Milo & Kate Shown At This Years TEDGlobal 2010. Expect M&K To Be Out In 20

Maybe you can drown his parents in that pond? :devil: