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Tetreal World 「テトリアルワールド」, sometimes referred to as Tetrial World or Tetorial World, was a "4D Virtual World" launched by Techno Design on July 22, 2002. Intended to "fuse corporations and individuals" and to "connect real space and virtual space", it was planned to make 200 million in yen in the first year in revenue from virtual storefronts, advertisements, and showrooms. Techno Design stated that the servers could accomodate 65,000 users. The program was made for computers running Windows 98SE / Me / 2000 / XP, and used DirectX 7.0a and higher.
Techno Design was a 60 million yen company headed by Chairman and Representative Director Xu Sogen and President and CEO Tsutomu Mamiya, located in Chiyoda City, Tokyo 101-0061, Japan. At the time of Tetreal World's creation, Techno Design employed 12 people. Their partner company, System Design, appears to be operational to this day, though whether this is the same System Design is as of yet unclear.
The name "Tetreal" comes from a combination of the Latin word Tetra, meaning 4, and the english word Real.
While this was never made obvious on the official website or any marketing materials, Tetreal World was not an original service of Techno Design's creation but rather a custom server for the online virtual world "ActiveWorlds" as evidenced by its client files being almost identical to those of ActiveWorlds, even sharing an icon for the Tetreal World executable:
It was accessible by connecting to the IP Address "61.103.121.131".
Tetreal World was officially suspended "for the time being" on September 30, 2003. Techno Design insisted that the service would return, but as of 2006 no new information was placed on their website, and Tetreal World's brief existence faded into obscurity.
Techno Design dreamed of realizing the world's largest virtual space to date, with pre-release promotions stating the game world would span "4 million squares of land". The actual size is unknown, and the virtual space was designed to expand as the need arose.
There was of course to be no shortage of virtual storefronts in this space, with large shopping malls exhibiting products that users would be able to purchase online. It was also possible for advertisers to have "avatar robots" appear and wander the worlds alongside regular members.
Users could play Tetreal World for free. While archived versions of the website do not seem to imply there is a way to play without an account, guests were supposedly restricted in their actions and limited to a choice of only 2 avatars, with all features and avatars becoming available only after registering a citizen account on the Tetreal World website. This, again, is very similar to how ActiveWorlds operated.
Four zones were set up in Tetreal World, centered around a fountain in "Central Park", with more to be added as the service went on. How many of these were finished and how many remained mere plans is unclear.
- Central Park
- The Business Zone
The Business Zone contained virtual corporate offices and consultation centers. The Techno Design Headquarters building ("Possibly the tallest building in the Tetreal World") was located here, and was to serve as a consultation center for all things - law, health, etc. Other buildings related to national and local government groups and unions were to be built in this area.
According to one fansite at least one such legal counseling building was established, with the fansite's creator expressing confusion as to what one was expected to do or accomplish there.
- The Industrial Zone
The Industrial Zone contained housing exhibition halls, suburban homes and condominiums.
- The Culture Zone
The Culture Zone contained virtual museums, as well as movie theaters planned to be connected to Internet broadcasting and able to be watched on a standard player; Whether these were displayed in-game or exclusively to be watched with an outside application is as of yet unclear, and forum posts from users of the time indicate only trailers were being shown as the feature underwent testing. In addition to displaying works by well-known painters, the museum could be used as galleries for displaying the art of users for a limited time. In addition, buildings related to culture, tourism, travel, weddings, hotels, theme parks, educational projects and more were to be built in this area.
- The Memorial Zone
The Memorial Zone contained virtual temples and, of course, memorials. A replica of the Buddhist Dairinji Temple could be found here, and buildings related to historical memorial halls, corporate memorial halls, etc. were to be built in this area.
- Petland
A space for sharing photos of pets and memorializing those lost. Reportedly used a lot of bandwidth, so careless teleporting around was discouraged.
- My 3D Land
My 3D Land was a place for members to display their own 3D creations as well as exhibiting contest-winning 3D artwork.
- Housing Land
Housing Land was a tentatively-named residential zone where members could get their own virtual homes and condominiums to invite friends and family to.
Additional Zones
Misc
Tetreal World was said to have featured roughly 33 3D avatars on release, with more planned to be gradually introduced. Of these, only 7 have been screencapped.
The Tetreal World website listed the following complete list of avatars, all images of which have not been archived:
- SalaryMan
- Waitress
- YoungMan
- Lady
- Breakdancer
- Kickboarder
- OL
- Muscleman
- BronzeGirl
- SchoolBoy
- SchoolGirl
- Teacher
- SumoWrestler
- Soldier
- Valkyrie
- Chapolin
- Marilyn
- Santa
- Vitamin_C
- Ninja
- BicycleRider
- KimonoMan
- KimonoWoman
- Cupid
- RainKid
- Kanfu
- Wanko
- Cat
- Bear
- Puppy
- Pig
- Panda
- Robot
Downloads
tetreal31.exeThe Tetreal World Installer. Comes with a few assets in its Cache folder, but is otherwise completely defunct. It is made available here purely for posterity.
Tetreal World could originally be downloaded from Tetreal.com.