A virtual world or massively multiplayer online world (MMOW) is a computer-based simulated environment populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities and communicate with others. These avatars can be textual, two or three-dimensional graphical representations, or live video avatars with auditory and touch sensations. In general, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.

The user accesses a computer-simulated world which presents perceptual stimuli to the user, who in turn can manipulate elements of the modeled world and thus experience a degree of presence. Such modeled worlds and their rules may draw from the reality or fantasy worlds. Example rules are gravity, topography, locomotion, real-time actions, and communication. Communication between users can range from text, graphical icons, visual gesture, sound, and rarely, forms using touch, voice command, and balance senses.

Virtual World is the sixth young adult novel by the English writer Chris Westwood. It was published in the UK (1996) and in the US (1997) by Viking Penguin. It was long-listed for the Carnegie Medal in 1997.

Synopsis

Silicon Sphere is the new game with everything: dazzling super-real graphics, atmospheric sounds... but it also has a secret. Those who play it, like games freak Jack North, become so absorbed that it is as if they are hidden inside the game. Stranger still, elements from Silicon Sphere are starting to reproduce themselves in the real world. Jack thinks he is imagining it until other players start to disappear. By the time he realizes that this is no game, it is too late to make his way back.

Reviews

Times Educational Supplement: A powerful cyberspace novel that chillingly explores the manner in which players of computer games can become so absorbed by their digital adventures that it seems as if they are actually living in and interacting with the VDU landscape. This is a gripping and important book, written in the tradition of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

Yu-Gi-Oh! (遊☆戯☆王, Yū-Gi-Ō!, lit. "Game King") is a Japanese manga series about gaming written and illustrated by Kazuki Takahashi. It was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine between September 30, 1996 and March 8, 2004. The plot follows the story of a boy named Yugi Mutou, who solves the ancient Millennium Puzzle, and awakens a gambling alter-ego within his body that solves his conflicts using various games.

Two anime adaptations were produced; one by Toei Animation, which aired from April 4, 1998 to October 10, 1998, and another produced by NAS and animated by Studio Gallop titled Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, which aired between April 2000 and September 2004. The manga series has spawned a franchise that includes multiple spinoff manga and anime series, a trading card game, and numerous video games. Most of the incarnations of the franchise involve the fictional trading card game known as Duel Monsters, where each player uses cards to "duel" each other in a mock battle of fantasy "monsters", which forms the basis for the real life Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game.