Amusement devices: games – Including means for processing electronic data
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-26
2003-08-26
Nguyen, Kim (Department: 3713)
Amusement devices: games
Including means for processing electronic data
C463S042000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06609968
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to an interactive electronic game apparatus arranged into a portable substance by application of, for example, a microcomputer, and particularly to an improvement in a rearing simulation apparatus wherein a virtual character representative of an animal or a plant (hereinafter referred to as an virtual living thing) is presented on the screen of a display unit, and a player who has perceived a state or a request of the virtual living thing on the screen operates an input device to apply the so-called “care” to the virtual living thing, thereby carrying out simulation of the rearing stage of the virtual living thing which receives the “care”.
BACKGROUND
A conventional rearing simulation apparatus of this category is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,646 in which as an operation for the so-called “care”, administering elements, for example, such as, “water”, “light”, and “manure”, are administered to an virtual plant on the screen of an output device by the administering operation in an input device, and every time an administering amount of every administering element increases to reach a predetermined amount while keeping good balance, the growing stage of the virtual plant on the screen advances by one stage to display an image of the virtual plant in the next growing stage in place of an image of the virtual plant on the screen in the rearing stage at present. However, in the rearing simulation apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,572,646, a sole image of the virtual living thing is assigned to each of a plurality of growing stages, and the advancing on the growing stages is carried out in a manner such that in place of an image of the virtual living thing peculiar to the growing state at present, an image of the virtual living thing peculiar to a next growing stage succeeding the growing stage at present is selected, as a consequence of which with respect to a plurality of images of the virtual living thing connected to a single thread through a plurality of growing stages, an image of a next growing stage solely decided succeeding the image of the growing state at present is uniformly selected. Accordingly, the number of categories of the images of the virtual living thing through all the growing stages is,linked with the number of the growing stages, and categories of a variety of images at every growing stage are not prepared. Therefore, the development of the rearing simulation as a game is monotonous, likely resulting in a problem of weakness in a feeling of satisfaction in tastefulness in terms of a game.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
In view of the problem of a feeling of satisfaction in tastefulness in terms of a game based on the aforementioned background, a subject of this invention lies in that one category is selected out of categories of a plurality of images of a virtual living thing lodged in a next rearing stage (hereinafter merely referred to as a category) based on the metamorphosis requirements depending on the state parameters of the virtual living thing to promote the virtual living thing to the next rearing stage to thereby solve the aforementioned problem, and the number of categories of the virtual living thing throughout all the rearing stages is increased in a large scale to variegate the game development of the rearing simulation, thus enhancing the satisfaction of a player in the tastefulness in terms of a game.
A further subject of this invention lies in that a “care” parameter representative of a degree of the “care” by a player with respect to the virtual living thing and a “character” parameter which increases and decreases depending on the “care” parameter are introduced, the virtual living thing announces for itself the operation requests of the predetermined items such as “hunger”, “displeasure”, and “sickness” depending on the “character” parameter; and similarly, an “metamorphosis” parameter which increases and decreases depending on the “care” parameter is introduced to change, the requirements for the metamorphosis depending on the “metamorphosis” parameter to facilitate the selection of a variegated and unexpected category out of a plurality of categories in the next rearing stage, and the requirements for a veiled rearing stage are introduced as singular requirements to enable selection of a veiled category which is few and far between, as a category of the next rearing stage whereby a generic character of the actual living thing is expressed emphatically to characterize the virtual living thing as being in nature “friendly” in one aspect, and “wily” in the other aspect to a degree that could not be characterized by the background art to make the tastefulness in terms of a game.
Another subject of this invention lies in that all or a part of categories in all the rearing stages from an egg are replaced with another set of categories all at once in advance depending on the data of an egg of a virtual living thing received via a communication network to enlarge the range of the selectable categories at every rearing stage, and the data representative of a category at every rearing stage of the virtual living thing can be transmitted and received as the data on the virtual living thing via a communication network, whereby the range of games is enlarged over the communication network to secure the unexpectedness of development of a game to a degree that could not be secured by the background art, thus making the tastefulness in terms of a game further rich.
According to a first aspect of this invention in order to solve the subjects as described above, the invention of claim
1
is claimed. The invention of claim
1
is constituted such that as shown in
FIG. 1
corresponding to the claims, a state parameter processing means A increases and decreases the state parameter based on elements fluctuating chronometrically by means of a timer in connection with the state parameter representative of a virtual living thing and elements fluctuating in operation properties in connection with the state parameter responsive to operation responsive to the request by a player and when a predetermined state parameter meets the predetermined requirements for an operation request, an operation request processing means B displays a predetermined item of the operation request before a player, and when the age for promoting a category set peculiarly relative to the category of the virtual living thing at every rearing stage and representative of a retaining period for one category has elapsed, a rearing stage processing means D selects predetermined one category out of a plurality of categories lodged in a next rearing stage based on the metamorphosis requirements depending on the state parameters characterizing the category in the next rearing stage to promote the virtual living thing to the next rearing stage, and a rearing state display means E displays a value, at that time, of the state parameters designated by a request operation for displaying the rearing state, or an image of the category in the rearing stage at that time, in response to the request operation for displaying the rearing state by a player.
The invention of claim
1
is further constituted such that as shown in
FIG. 3
which explains a flow chart, the state parameter processing means A and the operation request processing means B are realized by the execution, within a microcomputer, of a flow of the state parameter processes (a to g in
FIG. 3
) for imparting to each state parameter a chronometrically fluctuating trend set peculiarly to each state parameter as well as a fluctuating trend in terms of operation properties responsive to an operation responsive to the request via an input device by a player and by the execution, within a microcomputer, of a flow of operation request processing (h to j in
FIG. 3
) for deciding that the predetermined state parameters meet the predetermined requirements for an operation request to carry out a certain operation display.
The above-described state parameter processing comprises a “satiety” parameter proces
Kondo Takao
Okada Hiroshi
Bandai Co. Ltd.
Nguyen Kim
Smith Gambrell & Russell
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