Hong Kong-based Artificial Life announced the release of its first massive multi-user 3G mobile game called "Virtual Penguins". The new game is based on the life and fate of the popular Emperor Penguins. The game simulates the difficult live cycles these penguins endure on the Antarctic ice and establishes a massive multi-user mobile virtual community. It is custom built for 3G phones. A single player version will also be released.

Players of the game take on the role of individual penguins. They have to go through several cycles of breeding and feeding their offspring. Players first have to find a mate (a second player) and then jointly the two players need to care for the egg that the female penguin will lay. Next they must protect the egg until it hatches and then they must nurture the newborn penguin chick until it is mature enough to survive on its own.

In order to succeed the players must co-operate to keep the newborn chick alive through the different and increasingly more difficult game cycles by fighting off predators and surviving the severe weather conditions and other hazards. While one player is protecting their newborn, the other must walk through the ice to the open ocean in order to catch and bring back food for the parent that is protecting the chick. Players can increase their survival chances by building virtual penguin families that co-operate to help one another survive.

The new game runs on an extended version of Artificial Life's Distributed Smart Engine Mobile Platform and uses a J2ME Java client technology. Players can interact with a potentially unlimited number of concurrent users.

The new game is scheduled for release in December 2005.