Peter Molyneux made an appearance at last month’s Technology Entertainment and Design conference (TED), to demo his Milo and Kate game.
Molyneux appearing more grounded than in past talks about Milo goes into more depth about the underlying technologies. The ridiculously large tech demo, which despite Microsoft’s Greenburg denials will be made into a full game,utilises Kinect so users can interact with characters via voice and gestures.
For people interested in technology it really is an interesting talk, particularly when Molyneux goes on to talk about Milo’s mind existing purely in the cloud, and how the more you and everyone else around the world uses it, the cleverer it gets.
Molyneux finished off the talk by saying that a tutorial section will last for less than an hour, which obviously enables you to learn how to interact with the characters, but in part only exists for the game to learn about and recognise you. After that the game moves ‘off rails’ and opens up so players can take Milo on more, darker, adventures.
The word on the street is that something in game form is expected to be launched in time for Christmas 2011.
Source: TED.com.
3shirts
I never thought that judgement day would take the form of an overly-cutesy young boy but… everyone interactions? All sync up into the cloud? One mind absorbing everything? I just did a poo
jayjay119
Nor I, in fact I expected the face of Helena-Bonham Carter to be popping up more than Milo or Kate.
This may be an impressive bit of tech but it still seems utterly pointless and a not so concealed effort for Microsoft to have a peek in your front room.
MrTwP
they’re bringing out justin bieber for DLC.
hazelam
seriously, has everybody got to inform everybody else when they take a dump lately? :(
UltimateBox
i thought this was fake.
BoyDay
Milo’s real… the Kate is a lie.
TheRook21
fantastic :)
a nice little gem!
cc_star
According to Molyneux “it’s a trick, but a trick that works”
Presumably in the same way that Uncharted2 & Killzone2 are tricks, you’re not really a handsome adventurer going on Indiana Jones/Lara Croft style adventures, or part of the ISA invading Helghan, its all just 1’s and 0’s designed to trick your mind.
Milo uses Kinect to recognise what you’re saying and uses the ‘cloud’ to interpret that, if the database is big enough then there will be a response in it for every occasion with every emotion, and although it will never be like talking to a real human it could get close enough to make no difference, which I think that’s what Molyneux means by ‘its a trick’
BoyDay
“although it will never be like talking to a real human it could get close enough to make no difference”
Sounds like it’s better than the average call-centre then! I hope Barclays ditch their centres with agents who can’t speak or understand English and replace them with Milo.
jikomanzoku
Might Milo beat the Turing test eventually I wonder?
cc_star
Yeah, was thinking that.
The ‘cloud’ isn’t limited to Milo either, it will grow from various tech, Milo is just able to tap into it.
Certainly interesting, especially as if it is ever released its not far off 18 months out from release
Dirkpitt39
Like pretty much every Kinect live demo to date, it’s either totally fake, mostly fake and scripted, or demoed to live audiences with stooges in the audience.
http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/9/2010/06/07757512fe01652a77d524cf51795baf/340x.gif
KeRaSh
I love how he specifically mentions that Dimitri is sitting…
Harinero
And then he has to stand up.
Jordaaaan
Darker adventures? wat
Stitch
Hehe, I shouldn’t need to explain this!
DJ Judas
Watched this earlier, as ever Molyneux does a good job of presenting, but does’t provide anything of substance.
It gives the impression that there are infinite possibilities, but surely everthing is pre-scripted exactly the same way everything else is :/
My issue isn’t with the concept, it’s with the trying to make it out to be something it isn’t, give it up already and go with the angle Heavy Rain took.
H3O
This doesn’t look impressive at all.
baggyg
Guess it requires online access then. That sucks
BoyDay
To be honest, these days what doesn’t? This is still over a year away, so by Christmas 2011 I’d say that you’ll generally be at a disadvantage if you don’t have a constant high speed internet connection (could even argue that’s the case now).
BoyDay
I’m still not convinced – Dimitri didn’t actually have the level of conversation that Molyneux seemed to be indicating you can have. Dimitri spoke, then Milo spoke but didn’t actually say anything relating to what Dimitri had said to him. It only seemed to recognise that Dimitri had finished speaking so it was then time for Milo to speak.
There didn’t even seem to be anything that picked up on whether Dimitri was saying something positive or negative – I got the impression that he could have said “this is a nice house” or whatever he did say, or “you’re right, this house is rubbish and you’ll never make any friends here so they should have stayed in the old one”, and still got the exact same response from Milo.
Amphlett
Interesting point there about Milo and Dimitri not really conversing. It appeared to be more about the tone of voice and perhaps the body stance of Dimitri. I would love to have a go at this myself and when prompted say to Milo in a warm encouraging tone “your feet look filthy, give them a wash”. I wonder what the response would be… Or, as Molyneux states, is this a trick but, also a trick on the audience?
ghost5
I got the same impression and I know it was only the intro to the game but there wasn’t that much interaction.
1. Point out snails using your hand
2. Tell him to squash or leave the snail
3. Skim stones and see if you can beat him
4. Clean his room by waving your hand
5. Answer to him three times to reasure him (and like you said it seems like you could of said anything)
Maybe I am missing something (maybe my body language will play a big part like he said) but I’m still not convinced – I’ll watch this space
Harinero
The conversation might as well have gone like this.
Milo: God being me sucks!
Dimitri: Come on, Milo, cheer up!
Milo: I feel such pity for myself…
Dimitri: Maybe you should kill your parents. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink…
Milo: Hey! You cleaned up my room!
It’s a trick all right… Quite honestly, all I keep seeing here is a lot of smoke and mirrors.
Amphlett
And when you see the mirrors the illusion is shattered.
solidsteven
I KNEW IT lol