Hit Japanese virtual reality game all set to launch for the west!

Tomadachi Life is to be released in both the US and the UK in June this year.

Updated: April 12, 2014 4:16 PM IST

By Amanda Monteiro

Hit Japanese virtual reality game all set to launch for the west!

A game, which focused on relationships in the real world and gave them a chaotic, playful angle, has always been a rage in the country where it was created – Japan. Now, the exciting game was all set to enter the world of the west, with many changes.

Tomodachi Life is to be released in both the US and the UK in June this year. It is more than just a simulation game; it is an alternate world in itself. The characters that inhabit this world are called Miis, and they are avatars of people everyone actually knows – like Morgan Freeman – and they all interact with each other, with unexpected results.

So basically, Tomodachi Life has fun gameplay and the interaction facility that social media offers. The latter may encourage users to access the game regularly just to check on their Miis. The interactions between the characters, as well as the ideas, are all layered to create the game. The player’s Mii has needs that have to be satisfied, like those for food or relationships. They even play games with the player.

The developers of the game used the same name in the US/UK version, because they wanted to retain the unique factor of the word ‘Tomodachi’ which means ‘friend’ in Japanese. Though at first, the name was not thought to be a good one for the versions aimed at the west, putting a unique name makes people want to know more about it. Besides, the word has some degree of recognition in the west, since it was used in the ‘Operation Tomodachi’ which was the relief operation during the 2011 Japanese tsunami.

Nintendo’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, Bill Trinen, said that the creation of content for the US/UK version of the game involved a lot of work. The team refrained from changing the core gameplay or its structure. However, they looked to increase the relevance in culture, by choosing relatable food items and more western styles of music. The characters are also adapted to some of the more well-known people. Even the personality of a person’s avatar was changed to determine how it would behave.

The most important feature of the new version is the addition of a voice. Earlier, the Miis had no voice and that was why the makers did not want to release that version in the west. So the new voice feature generates a Mii’s voice based on text.

Besides this, the new version supports the image sharing tool. The developers have also included a link to launch a screenshot service in the game.

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