Project Natal / Lionhead’s ‘Milo’ Coverage

Microsoft’s Project Natal and Lionhead’s “Milo” demonstration seem to be generating a lot of buzz at E3, so I thought I’d round up a few bits of coverage for them.

First, we have an official “Milo” trailer with added commentary from Lionhead’s Peter Molyneux on Voodoo Extreme.

Moving on, the editors at Kotaku managed to get some firsthand time with that same demonstration, and have proceeded to tell what they thought of it:

Molyneux had me wrap up the demo by approaching Milo again. He asked me to call Milo over by saying my own name and acting happy. Milo walked up to me and complimented me on my blue shirt (my shirt was indeed blue). Then he stood there, waiting for me to say things. There was a little awkwardness here. The Milo demo was partially being manipulated by a developer who was sitting nearby, and I couldn’t tell if he was merely calibrating the game or how much he was pulling its strings. I said nice things to Milo and the virtual boy smiled. I said I was standing next to Peter Molyneux and he sort of sighed. The most charming moment was that blue-shirt moment. It felt like this virtual person made a connection with me.

After I stepped away, Molyneux asked me what I thought. I told him the set-up was promising but that I’d want to use it more to see how well it works. Given how new the Natal project seems and given how long I know Molyneux has been wanting to make a game about influencing the life of a virtual child I questioned how long he and his team had intended to even integrate a camera. Molyneux said that he’d wanted to do something like Milo for a long time but that the idea hadn’t really clicked with Microsoft until the Natal project came about. It was coming together.

Then we move to a Q&A on Eurogamer with Peter Molyneux that chronicles the editor’s reaction as they go through the “Milo” demonstration for the first time:

Eurogamer: Can you draw a nob? Because most people, given the opportunity to draw something, will draw a nob.

Peter Molyneux: That’s the interesting thing, you see. We’ve been very, very clever about this. Although you can put stuff in his world, you’ll notice he never shows you the stuff. So although you could do obscene stuff, he’ll just look at it and he won’t understand it. He won’t pin that picture up on the wall, because I’m fully aware people will do things like that.

Eurogamer: Can you explain more about the pocket money system and how that works?

Peter Molyneux: You can buy stuff for Milo’s world, like a bicycle or a trampoline. He’ll come back from school one day and say, ‘Oh, Alex’ – Alex is this character at school who always does a bit better than Milo – ‘Alex has got a new bike. When can we get a new bike?’

To get that bike you need to earn money by doing activities. There are three activities you can do, and the amount of time you spend on each activity sculpts your Milo in different ways – so everybody’s Milo will be completely unique to them.

If you do lots of work, your Milo will be very studious. His hair will have a side parting. He’ll be quite worried about his appearance and he won’t like to get dirty. Whereas if you do more of the play stuff with Milo, he’ll be more of a kid who goes out and scratches his knees.

Your character doesn’t have to be a boy, it can be a girl. At the start you can choose whether to be play as Milly or Milo.