Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

What is Xi? Well it’s the 14th letter in the Greek alphabet or the value of 60 in the Greek numerals. It can also refer to the latest addition to Sony’s PSN online avatar system: Home, which seems to be expanding at a rate almost equal to that of American housing market not but a few years ago. Unlike the previous additions, this one adds more than just a gathering area based upon a game. In an attempt to add real content of a somewhat gaming type, Xi brings an Alternate Reality Game to the Home inhabitants. The “game” follows a group of Home alpha testers, and a search to find their missing compadre. Intrigued? Follow me down the rabbit hole.

Xi: The Hub

Upon entering the area you’re greeted by a omniscient voice that begins describing the surroundings, and providing a minuscule amount of back-story. From here it’s up to you to either leave, or follow the paper trail. This paper trail is not figurative in that the first task set forth for you is to track down the pieces of paper that was torn up. Now let me preface this by saying that this will be spoiler free. This first mission steps you through the elements found in the main room, known as The Hub. As per normal ARG convention, a decent amount of searching is played out through the web. To this end a gimped version of the PS3′s web browser is available through these consoles.

Now unlike previous Home instances, I have never had to wait to use one of these. It seems that Sony is learning that instance-ing everything is bad idea. Having to wait around for downloads as well as waiting for free slot is just unnerving. Luckily the former has not been an issue either. So far, there has been one single download for the whole Xi experience.

Xi: The web consoles

Speaking of the experience, so far it has been decent, but lacking and buggy. From a lacking standpoint, I jumped into the adventure a few days after it launched, and to this 7th day since release so far there have only been 2 main quests.  As far as ARG’s go, though, this isn’t anything new since they usually unfold piece-by-piece over time to coincide with other happenings, or to keep the players intrigued. It would just be nice if there was some kind of indication as when to expect more content, if ever, so I know when to check back for the next puzzle. Also, the web consoles have been used for almost all of the content. The quests have consisted of starting one from some event in The Hub, then searching around these web consoles. There really needs to be more content inside the actual Home environment.

The bigger issue has been the bugs. For me, I spent an hour the first night trying to find the pieces of paper. I never found more than the first. I finally gave up and played some Rock Band 2. Still hoping that there would be something to do in Home, I came back the next night and ‘unregistered’ from the area. See there’s this nifty feature where you can unregister your avatar/account/etc and reset the ‘game’. After hopping back in, I was able to successfully find all of the pieces in a matter of minutes. I guess I can blame it on server glitches, since they’re so prominent that its announced scrolling text screen inside Xi. If this is a foreshadowing of things to come, I’m going to be quite upset to get a large part of the way through the adventure to only have to restart from the beginning.

With regards to the contents, since I thought I was having some issues, twice I have tried to extend my experience to see if there’s something I’ve missed. Now granted, I don’t make Xi the first thing I do on my PS3 so its relegated to the last time slot in my gaming for the night which usually is occurring somewhere around the 11:00PM time frame. But on these previous occasions, I have been so engrossed with the Xi experience that I passed out while playing. I would be thinking about it and trying to figure out ways to activate some more content, but only to fall asleep and wake up about 20 minutes later, at which point I turn the system off and go to sleep. If that says anything about the Xi experience, its that its shallow and not an extremely engrossing expedition.

Next, Xi suffers the same problem as the rest of home: edge/collision detection. What should be passable areas, or places where your avatar should be able to walk, you cannot. It’s more than frustrating. It’s a hearkening to the old days when 3D models were represented by rectangular boxes and things collided even though there was no physical impediment.

Finally, the adventure has been split into two pieces. There seems to be a main story arc that is supposed to be the easier portion. The harder part is driven by a robot in the area known as Stapler. While these puzzles have been a little harder, sometimes it feels like I’m playing Myst and need to find something that is totally nonsensical or so obscure that it’s not hard but rather just annoying.

Xi: Stapler, the robot

Has it been fun? Why, yes it’s been a nice diversion, especially since I love playing detective searching through clues and finding minute details. I guess that’s just the engineer in me getting to go hog-wild. This is definitely a positive direction for the Home experience in showing that its more than just an online virtual shop for avatars and provides a, if somewhat rocky, bed for planting further seeds from other developers and experiences. Stay tuned for more feedback on the experience as it becomes available.