10/30/2009
Today's game is for the little tikes out there.
It is basically an episodic game that has new content every day. Imagine shows like Sesame Street or Blues Clues where they have faux viewer interaction. The characters on screen ask the children to answer a question, or point to the correct answer. Now, with Natal, this type of interaction can be done for real between the onscreen character and the audience.
Natal can recognize the child via facial recognition, greet the child, comment on the shirt, detect any body growth, comment on that, and proceed with the days episode or ask if they would like to view a past episode. This is all done via streaming. Each episode should be small enough to fit in RAM, maybe cache a little to the hard drive.
The child can be sat in front of the tv and have a rewarding and interactive educational experience. No controller necessary, just natural interaction. Vocal, pointing, dancing, etc. Characters on screen can ask the child to repeat after them(ABCs for example). If the child does it correctly the character on screen can congratulate and reward them. If they do not do it correctly, the child can be asked nicely to attempt again. Characters on screen can ask the child to point to the correct item on screen to solve the puzzle. The child would point and Natal could see which one the child was pointing to. Math questions can be asked, words can asked to be spelled, etc. Tons of new content daily. Obviously the content would need to be entertaining to the child so it would not be all puzzles and questions, a narrative would tie them all together.
Children can be rewarded by avatar items and in game unlockables. Varying difficulties can be toggled so that the right content can be available for different skill levels.
