July 22, 2005 Artificial Life has released Version 2.0 of its flagship product: V-girl -- your virtual girlfriend which was introduced in V 1.0 last October and the new version of the evolving interactive game continues to meld reality with role-playing. The virtual girlfriend is described by company CEO Eberhard Schoeneburg as “a new mobile entertainment paradigm - an interactive mobile movie, an evolving mobile sit-com and an innovative mobile dating role play game all in one.” A massive hit in Asian countries, V-girl blurs the line between fantasy and reality perhaps more than the previous version adding locked and secret scenes, real time based calendar events and several interactive role play games in addition to all the synthetic girlfriend routines the player watches and becomes involved in an ever-evolving daily and weekly schedule which includes your girlfriend visiting her virtual home, work or bar, and shopping with her virtual girlfriends. Messages sent to your V-girlfriend are responded to with text and voice messages.
V-girl is offered in three game volumes. Volume I of the game was released in late 2004. Now Version 2.0 of Volume I has been released.
Version 2.0 has many new interactive and innovative features such as: multiplayer contests, locked and secret scenes, interactive puzzles, real time based calendar events and game functions, and several interactive role play games within the game. The new game version also features six virtual female characters for interaction with the players.
Version 2.0 of V-girl is currently available in Mandarin, Taiwanese, Cantonese and English language versions. German, Italian, Korean and Japanese versions are currently being prepared.
“With the many new interactive features introduced in Version 2.0 we have made it even more entertaining. We have also increased the humor aspect of the game. As an example we have implemented what we believe is the world's first interactive multiplayer plastic surgery on a virtual person. It's a lot of fun to play,'' said Eberhard Schoeneburg, CEO of Artificial Life, Inc.
Now we reckon this is a pretty clever way of getting a young male to continuously use their 3G mobile phone, so we're quite surprised that there isn't a V-boy version just yet. The company web site does however detail several other compelling content applications for 3G phones.
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