PictoChat
Encyclopedia
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo DS Lite
The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is a slimmer, brighter, and more lightweight redesign of the Nintendo DS, designed to be aesthetically sleeker, while taking styling cues from the Game Boy Advance SP, and to appeal to broader commercial audiences...
and Nintendo DSi
Nintendo DSi
The is a handheld game system created by Nintendo and launched in 2008 and 2009 in Japan, North America, PAL territories, and other regions. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival is Sony's PlayStation Portable...
consoles. Up to sixteen people can paint chat
Paint chat
A paint chat is an online chat room that allow its participants to draw together in real-time while they chat. The chat box is usually at the bottom, with the drawing area on top. Paint chats generally attract the same demographics as Oekakis...
with each other using it, connected wirelessly through a system-to-system wireless connection. It allows for simple input of keyboard text and written text/drawings. PictoChat received an Excellence Prize for Entertainment at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival
Japan Media Arts Festival
The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs since 1997. The festival for a nominal year was usually held during February or March next year, rather than at the end of the nominal year. For instance, the 2010 Japan Media Arts Festival, where...
.
A successor to PictoChat for the Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo 3DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories. The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software...
has been announced by Nintendo via a streaming conference on October 21, 2011. The successor is called Swapnote (in North America) or Nintendo Letter Box (in Europe), and it will be available as a free download starting December 2011. This application will allow users to send 3D pictures, sound, and scribbled messages to registered friends via either StreetPass or SpotPass.
Functions
The touch screen is used to type in letters with an on-screen keyboard or draw and send pictures in black only (but rainbow is included on the DSI form). On the DSi system, a rainbow pen is available (see the last paragraph of functions). The keyboard provides enough LatinLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
and kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...
glyphs to write in all languages supported by the system: English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, plus Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, Finnish
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
.
Four chat room
Chat room
The term chat room, or chatroom, is primarily used by mass media to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing...
s [A,B,C&D] are available at one time, each with a capacity of sixteen people, for a maximum of sixty-four people in total of all the chat rooms.
PictoChat is preloaded onto all Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo DS Lite
The is a dual-screen handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It is a slimmer, brighter, and more lightweight redesign of the Nintendo DS, designed to be aesthetically sleeker, while taking styling cues from the Game Boy Advance SP, and to appeal to broader commercial audiences...
, Nintendo DSi
Nintendo DSi
The is a handheld game system created by Nintendo and launched in 2008 and 2009 in Japan, North America, PAL territories, and other regions. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival is Sony's PlayStation Portable...
, and Nintendo DSi XL
Nintendo DSi
The is a handheld game system created by Nintendo and launched in 2008 and 2009 in Japan, North America, PAL territories, and other regions. It is the third iteration of the Nintendo DS, and its primary market rival is Sony's PlayStation Portable...
units worldwide.
On DSi versions of PictoChat, a rainbow pen can be used by tapping on the pen icon again once it has been selected. Content created using the rainbow pen can be read by PictoChat users on Nintendo DS Lite and original Nintendo DS systems. Additionally, the DS and DS Lite play a special sound when receiving a message written by a DSi user.
Using PictoChat
PictoChat has a very simple interface. One of the main techniques is to write or draw on the DS touchscreen with the stylus. Users can also type a message by touching an on-screen keyboard or by using the DS's control pad to select a letter and A to type it. In addition, users can drag letters from the keyboard to move them anywhere in the chat window. Pressing select or the retrieve button (the button under the Send button) will recall the image at the bottom of the top screen and copy it into the user's workspace. To make a different picture recall itself, the user can use the arrows on the touch-screen or the R and L buttons to select a different picture from the chat history. Pressing the far lower-right hand button erases the current chat window.Clicking on one's name or another user's name will reveal his or her color and profile (which can be changed in the DS settings).
PictoChat animation
PictoChat can be used to create short animations by drawing individual pictures on the DS's touch screen and sending them frame by frame to the message board on the top screen. By pressing and holding down the left shoulder button and right shoulder button respectively to scroll through the pictures, it shows them at a frame rate of 7.5 frames/second, creating the illusion of animation. Several online galleries are dedicated to sharing PictoChat animations.Swapnote
Swapnote (also known as Nintendo Letter Box in PAL regions) will take the place of PictoChat on the Nintendo 3DSNintendo 3DS
The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories. The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software...
. It allows users to send messages to people on their friends list. The receiver will be able to receive the messages through SpotPass or StreetPass. Unlike PictoChat, Swapnote will allow users to freely embed pictures and sounds into their messages, and it also lets users change the position and the orientation of the picture and sound icons.
Similar Software
A game called Ping PalsPing Pals
Ping Pals is a chat/accessory program developed by WayForward Technologies and published by THQ for the Nintendo DS. It was released on December 8, 2004 in North America...
is based on PictoChat, featuring an advanced range of options and capabilities. However, both users must own the game, making it less useful and widespread than PictoChat. Due to PictoChat being built into the system, Ping Pals received very negative reviews.
Clubhouse Games
Clubhouse Games
Clubhouse Games, known in Europe as 42 All-Time Classics and in Japan as , is a compilation video game consisting of card, board, and parlor games developed by Agenda and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console...
(42-All Time Classics in Europe) has a chat function similar to PictoChat, with added colors and extra features.
The game LOL
LOL (video game)
LOL, known in Europe as Bakushow and in Japan as , is a Nintendo DS video game. The game was published by Skip in Japan, Agetec in North America, and Rising Star Games in Europe....
has a similar interface to PictoChat but the gameplay itself is different.
Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten
The DS kanjiKanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
-English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
dictionary contains an extension to PictoChat that allows users to input kanji characters in addition to the standard character set. This version of PictoChat also vocalized roman characters and kana when they are input.