This article comes from the WeChat public account: Touch Music (ID: chuappgame) , author: Chen Jing, head Figure:” talking Tom cat “
If you are interested in casual mobile games, then you must be familiar with “Talking Tom Cat”. This gray-white, stupid-looking cat with a bit of weirdness will shake his head on the screen of your mobile phone, repeating every sentence you said in a strange tone that seems to suck a smile, with a sharp voice and some pretentious Attitude makes you laugh.
It’s not smart or even cute, but people still can’t stop it.
This “Talking Cat” was born in 2010. Now, 10 years later, what has it become?
Talking animals
In July 2008, Apple launched the App Store, an application publishing platform that relies on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad, and has brought tremendous changes to people ’s lives. A year later, a Slovenian couple decided to make a name for themselves on the App Store.
Samo Login and Iza Login attracted 6 friends and set up a small company called Outfit 7 in Ljubljana, capital of Slovenia, based on the US $ 250,000 they saved while working in an IT company. At first, they developed a football app, an Iceland travel app and a wealth management app, but they all failed.
Samo Login attributed the failure reason to “users do not want such an app.” Six months later, Outfit 7 made a facelift and launched a new game “Talking Tom Cat” (Talking Tom) . Game with oneA gray tabby cat with big eyes, “Tom”, is the main character. Players can pet Tom and feed him. Tom will also make a cry or grunt like a real cat. More importantly, once the player speaks to Tom through the phone’s microphone, Tom will repeat the player’s words with an exaggerated voice.
2010 “Tom Cat”
“Talking Tom Cat” is a simple electronic pet game. Samo Login hopes that it will be welcomed by children, and for this reason, it has made a lot of publicity for children. However, the facts are far beyond his imagination. Teenagers and adults are more interested in “Talking Tom Cat”. Their sharing on social platforms makes this shape and voice reveal a stupid cat. Quickly become popular. After “Tom Cat” became popular, Samo Login summed up again, “This is because it is not targeted at a specific group of people”-it sounds different from their original idea, but it does not matter.
In the next year or two, Outfit 7 launched a series of small animals in one breath-Hippo, Hedgehog, Harry, Larry, Rex, Dinosaur, John, Robby, Gina, and so on. Together with the original Tom, these little animals make up the “Talking Tom Cat and its Friends” series.
“Larry Who Can Talk”,The shape of these small animals in the early days was quite rough …
Except that the protagonist has a different shape, the “Tomcat and its friends” series of games are actually the same. But for people who like this kind of games (especially for light users) , gameplay is not their primary focus. Therefore, the “Tomcat and its friends” series is popular all over the world, and the number of downloads exceeded 3 in (19 months) in about 1 and a half 100 million times.
In the sequel to “Tom Cat and its Friends”, the more important role is Angela (Angela) . She is Tom’s girlfriend, and the designer has set her a distinct personality-fashionable and beautiful, like singing, dancing, traveling and fashion, and a little temper.
Starting with Angela, the small animals in the “Tom Cat” series have more specific “personal settings”, and the interaction between the characters is more storytelling. For example, 2012 “Tom’s Love Letter” (Tom’s Love Letters) and “Tom Love Angela” (Tom Loves Angela) , what players need to do in the game is to make Tom and Angela fall in love.
In 2012, Angela first appeared in the game, she is Tom ’s girlfriend
Such a design undoubtedly makes the images of small animals more friendly, although the gameplay of games such as “Tom’s Love Letter” and “Tom Love Angela” is still very simpleIt may not be a game in the minds of core players, but the interaction between characters still brings some new fun.
More importantly, like other popular game IPs, “Tomcat and its friends” began to launch other adaptations. In 2012, Outfit 7 and Disney Interactive Studio co-produced 10 episodes of online animation “Talking Friends” (Talking Friends) . For “Tom Cat”, this is a good attempt. Two years later, the long series of animation “Talking Tom Cat and its friends” (Talking Tom And Friends) , this broadcast is 7 The year is still not over yet.
Except Tom, Angela, Ginger (Ginger) , Ben (Ben) In addition, “Talking Tom and its friends” also introduced many new characters. The animation plot revolves around “Tom and its friends”, but the content is not limited to “children’s stories”, business competition, artificial intelligence, intelligence, interpersonal relationships, fighting for jealousy … Various themes add some adults to this story about 10 minutes per episode Make colors (Although the expression is still cartoon-like noisy exaggeration)
series of animation “Talking Tom Cat and its Friends”
Since 2014, “Tom and his friends” has also produced some short plays, such as “Talking Tom Cat: Short Story” (Talking Tom Shorts) , “Talking Tom Shorts and its Friends: Mini” (Talking Tom and Friends Minis) , (Talking Tom Heroes) and so on. Angela and Tom also have personal singles. In 2018, Outfit 7 announced that “Tom Cat” will adapt an animated movie.
Of course, as a series that started with interactive apps, “Tom Cat and its friends” is the most well-known and still a game.
A variety of “Tom Cat” games
Since 2010, “Talking Tom Cat”, the “Tom Cat and its Friends” series has launched 22 games. Most of them still follow the virtual pet games set by the first generation, and there are also many “follow popular” works.
From 2011 to 2020, the members of the “Tom Cat” family increased a lot. If some small animals in the early days can clearly see that they are for the purpose of making up (or rather, try) , then as the popularity rises, the number of players increases and The animation broadcasted, some characters gradually became the regular group in “Tom Cat and its Friends”-Paris girl Angela, kitten Ginger, brown dog book and Dalmatian Hank.
These characters have independent “speaking” games, and try to design different gameplays based on personality differences. In addition to being able to talk to players, Angela is more focused on music, pop, and fashion elements; Jin Jie is a kitten that needs more care; this is a “frank dog” and likes to work in the laboratory class = “text-remarks” label = “Remarks”> (Sometimes it will explode!) , left out by players and will become irritable; Hank first in the animation “Talking Tom Cat and its friends” Debuted in the middle, and then the game was launched, and its hobbies are photography and watching sitcoms.
Kitten Jinjie
“Frankenstein” book
Hank, who only appeared in the game in 2017, has become a cartoon style
In 2015, the first non-virtual pet game in the “Tom Cat” series “Talking Tom Cat: Jet Ski” (Talking Tom Jetski) Go online. The game is a typical casual racing game, the difficulty is not high. It’s hard to say whether it was influenced by another popular game, “Temple Escape”, after all, the “Temple Escape” series has declined in popularity after 2013. But no matter what, “Water Moto” is a test of Outfit 7, and “Tom Cat” has been involved in other types of casual games since then.
2018 Talking Tom Cat: Jet Ski 2, there is no difference between the two generations from the screen to the gameplay
In the same year, Outfit7 also launched “Talking Tom Cat: Bubble Shooter” (Talking Tom Bubble Shooter) , this game can be used Summarized in one sentence: “Bubble Dragon” with the theme of “Tom Cat”.
In 2017, the game “Talking Tom Cat: Battle Camp” (Talking Tom Camp) was launched. This is a comprehensive strategy, The game of placing and tower defense elements. In order to be more suitable for minor players, all battles in the game are carried out with water guns. In the same year, the elimination game “Talking Tom Cat: Water Park” (Talking Tom Pool) was put on the shelf, using the “popular” elimination class How to play.
“Talking Tom: Battle Camp”, all fights in it use water guns
In 2018, Outfit 7 launched “Talking Tom Candy Run” (Talking Tom Candy Run) and “Will Talking Tom Cat: Cake Jump (Talking Tom Cake Jump) and “Talking Tom Cat: Jump Up” (Talking Tom Jump Up) and several other games. As the name implies, these games are all related to “jump”, and the gameplay is quite familiar to players.
“Talking Tom Cat: Candy Run” is the more “rare” horizontal game in this series
In 2019, Outfit 7 produced “Talking Tom Cat: Hero Dash”, a superhero-themed parkour game. In addition, there is “Talking Tom Cat: Karting” (Talking Tom Karting) -but this game seems to be only in Chinese, which may be different from 2017 Outfit 7 was acquired by a Chinese company at a high price.
Today, “Talking Tom Cat” has gradually changed from a virtual pet game to a “comprehensive casual game.” Although from the player’s point of view, many games in this series are suspected of “skin changing”, but for “Tom Cat” lovers, when they want to play games, there is always a type of “Tom Cat” that can To meet the demand, this may be enough.
AboutThe urban legend of cats
When “Tom Cat” came out, Outfit 7 hoped that it would be welcomed by children. When the “Tom Cat” is hot all over the world, there are indeed many parents who regard this series of games as a good thing to pass their children’s time-whether at home or abroad, you can always find some parents who use smart phones to coax their children. Most of the time It is also these parents who cried and told their children “addiction to mobile phones” afterwards-this seems to be no problem, but many people have used this to create some urban legends.
Shortly after the launch of “Talking Angela”, social media began to circulate a message: “Angela” is an app controlled by hackers. Angela will ask minors about age, home address and school. , Personal hobbies and other privacy issues, the App will even hack into their photos and friends list, and collect this information to send to pedophiles.
Angela will indeed ask the player ’s name, school, hobbies during the conversation
This “pedophile” rumors have received widespread attention from parents in a short period of time, and there have been many articles with “Talking Angela Dangerous” as keywords. Outfit 7 came forward to refute rumors, saying that Angela’s dialogue with the player was just a pre-written script. She asked the player’s name, age, school, and personal hobbies just to “standardize the content of the conversation.” Children block out inappropriate messages. When developers collect conversations, they will delete personal privacy information in advance.
Outfit 7 ’s explanation is reasonable, but not everyone is convinced. After this, although people’s doubts about the “Angela” App have decreased, but in the niche field, its story has continued to add fuel and vinegar, and eventually became a true urban legend.
In urban legends, the person who controls the App has changed from a hacker to a “terrible man”. If the player says he has exceeded