Electronic interactive play environment for toy characters

Abstract

A child's electronic playset defines a setting or character environment (,) for various toy characters (,), play pieces, representing persons or fantasy characters, which the player may move about that environment. Through its electronics (,) the environment possesses built-in intelligence and defines virtual beings through spoken messages which are attributed by the player to the toy characters, creating a virtual universe. Markers (,) identify each toy character to the environment when checked by the environment's sensors (,S,S,) enabling the environment to know which characters are present and to call up an appropriate dialog there between to broadcast through a loudspeaker (,). The environment also keeps track of the time of day, enabling it to know the order in which toy characters are placed in the environment and possess the ability to call up a dialog appropriate to certain hours in the day.