ChibiRobo (Prototype Pre-Alpha)
Template:GameChibiRobo (Working Title) Was an unreleased Point-And-Click Puzzle Adventure game for the Nintendo Gamecube. It was developed by Skip, Ltd, and was to be released by Bandai in June 2003 in Japan, and in Spring 2004 in the US. The game was cancelled not long after it was shown at E3 2003, and in the coming years, would be reworked into Chibi-Robo! Plug Into Adventure.
Story
Professor Sendagaya, after years of research, has finally built the first 'Robot with a heart'; a sentient robot with their own free will, thoughts, hopes and desires. Two burglars, named 'Cookie' and 'Arnie', read about this innovation in a newspaper, and decide they want to seize the robot for themselves. However, Unbeknownst to them, the Professor has also built little helpers called 'ChibiRobos' to help keep his house safe from intruders. despite being built to protect the house, they are initially inept to deal with their surroundings. As a result of this, it's your job to train ChibiRobo; Teach him about the dangers of his surroundings, how to safely interact with the world around him, and of course, how to protect himself against human intruders.
Gameplay
Players do not directly control ChibiRobo; rather, they control an on-screen cursor (by moving the analogue stick) to guide ChibiRobo to objects of interest, and ChibiRobo will interact with them. If the player wants to ChibiRobo to interact with a certain object, or move in a certain direction, the player can use the green cursor (by pressing B on the Gamecube controller). However, if the player wants to cancel a command or discourage ChibiRobo from interacting with an object, the player can use the red cursor (by pressing A on the controller). ChibiRobo must also keep himself charged, or he will run out of energy. He can charge himself by plugging into an outlet, or by collecting the batteries in the tutorial. File:Chibi Robo Beta -GameCube Bandai Point-and-Click Version-
Cancellation and redevelopment
According to Kensuke Tanabe in an interview with Cubed3, He felt that the Point-And-Click genre only allowed for an objective sense of control over the character; He believed that a change to directly controlling Chibi-Robo would create a stronger sense of identity between Chibi-Robo and the player, and as such would be more appealing. In addition to this, He also felt that the Point-And-Click controls didn't work very well with the Gamecube controller.