Koufuku Sousakan

Apr 15, 2004

Simulator

Platforms: PlayStation 2

No IGDB rating yet

Overview

Set in a modern town created in a virtual space in Japan in the near future, this is a simulation game that aims to liberate 100 people who have become immobile and to give happiness to all. The player acts as an officer in charge of managing the virtual space, and aims to normalize the people he or she contacts while observing the life of any "avatar" living there, to protect the avatar from frequent attacks by obstructionists, and to collect and redistribute the feelings of happiness and unhappiness that they emit, in order to achieve a certain level of happiness for all people. Avatar behavior changes in response to happiness and can be influenced by other avatars involved in life. That is, even with the same avatar, life can change depending on the degree of happiness of the other avatars that are actively acting or negatively distressed by the sense of well-being during observation, or are involved with or in contact with other avatars that were previously offline. The interaction between people is called "human scramble" on the package and official website. Each avatar lasts about 20 minutes, and you can watch the same avatar over and over again. The whole story is represented by 3DCG, but the avatar is represented by flat shading (a projection method that looks like an angular figure with fine planes). Avatar conversations and thoughts are expressed as text, and their voices are expressed as indistinct voices.

Story

In 21XX, in an effort to restore the vitality of a nation that was losing its "sense of happiness," the Japanese government established the "Ministry of State Happiness" and created the Showase Amplifier "Clover (CLOVER)." Clover is a mechanism that gives happiness to all people by creating a town called "Habitat" that reproduces Japan in the early 21 century in a virtual space, allowing people connected in a cold sleep state to live there as "avatars," and collecting and redistributing the "sense of happiness" and "happy energy" generated from there through avatars. However, one day, a serious accident of unknown cause occurred, and it was discovered that all avatars with people's awareness on them stopped working on the Habitat, and that the "the 101st person" had illegally connected to the clover, which originally had a capacity of 100 people. Taking the situation seriously, the Ministry of State Happiness urgently summoned a scientist as a "koufuku sousakan (happiness manipulator)" with the authority to manage Clover.