Activation and Blind Playing

1/30/13

This Wednesday my unactivated and unassuming Furby, Tank, was turned on during class. The activation was mildly anti-climactic; instead of seeing Tank come to life myself, he was unceremoniously roused in a long line of furbies. It was weird. I had spent more time than I'd like to admit looking forward to actually turning him on, but instead of being able to do it myself, I had to wait until all the furbies were activated and was unable to even distinguish him between the other orange-fured furbies. This annoyance quickly subsided, however, as I was treated to perhaps the most hilarious, and the most disturbing, sight I have ever witnessed in a classroom.

I give you 19 Furbies, all ready to be turned on and thrust directly into the mad world of The Great Furby Project. Shortly after receiving my newly-activated Tank, who I cannot identify in this picture, I was introduced to the key feature of the 2012 line of Furby: the changing personalities. I'm not sure what I did, but through some combination of feeding, petting, and tickling, my Furby started freaking out, announced it was changing, and closed its eyes with flashing lights. The result was what I have learned to call the "Cali Girl" Furby: the personality that never stops talking. From the box I knew this personality was just one of many.

2/3/2013

It's been five days since Tank (and Swagg) have been activated, and, sadly, they have more or less worn out their welcome. What was for the first few days a humorous venture into childlike discovery quickly dissolved into boredom, apathy, and occasionally a mechanism for annoying each other. Waking a sleeping Furby instills groans and complaints, and the more devious of us have taken to awakening Tank and Swagg at random intervals. The fact that they fall asleep, and in effect turn themselves off, with relative ease is a blessing.

We also found the Furbies did, in fact, have a rather limited vocabulary, and that changing their personalities was dishearteningly straight-forward. This is what I discovered:

Happy Furby: This is easily the most desirable of the furbies, as its random pronouncements and singing are the least disruptive. Obtaining this personality is immensely straight-forward: simply pet the Furby gently along its back, from its hair to its tail, for an extended period of time, and you can make any other kind of Furby become the Happy Furby. This Furby also responds well to tickling, petting, and generally anything you throw at it. Pulling its tail too much incites tears.

Evil Furby: At the opposite side of the spectrum we have the Evil Furby, who greets you with devilish, downturned eyes and an unpleasant chanting-like call. This Furby finds fault with much of what you do, and petting him or tickling him can easily prompt a "NO LIKE". Turning your Furby evil is as straightforward as turning it good; simply feed it non-stop. Furbies will periodically declare they are hungry, and you feed them by pushing their tongue inside their beak. However, if you keep doing it, they will vomit. If you feed your Furby non-stop it will turn evil, regardless of its previous persona.

Crazy Furby: The most disruptive of the Furby, this personality is characterized by mismatched eyes and a general absurd nature. It laughs at itself, farts, cracks jokes in furbish, and in general simply acts like a lunatic. He is activated by tugging on the tail non-stop, which bothers any of the other personalities. This is easily the least sought-after in our suite.

Cali Girl Furby: We don't fully understand this Furby. While the other personalities have easy avenues from which to access them, the Cali Girl's path has so far eluded us. This personality pops up every once in a while, but its appearance is always random and leaves us confused as to what prompted it. The Cali Girl sings pop songs, talks like a teenager, and gives off an air of attitude. 

Inter-Furby Play: As I am currently living with someone who is also taking the class, we tried to take advantage of this unique situation by having the furbies interact. Perhaps we are missing something, but so far it seems that the furbies simply rattle off their pre-set commands more frequently when they are around each other and never go to sleep. Needless to say we don't have them interact often; hopefully when more tools are available to us we will be able to interact with them further.

And that is all we know of the Furbies thus far. Perhaps I am viewing this through a narrow spectrum, but the 2012 Furby is much more limited than I thought it would be, given its 60 dollar price tag. I hope that there is more it can do with app interaction, but I am not holding my breath.  I am starting to suspect that this learning experience with the Furby will be much heavier on what I can do rather than what the Furby can do.

-Adam