Mattel FunkeysInternet based game worlds are fairly popular these days. My daughter is often to be found travelling various make believe worlds on the Internet, her favourite being Habbo World where she wanders round, buying 'furni' and chatting with friends.Funkeys inhabit a slightly different kind of world. For a start it isn't based on the Internet, a big plus if you're worried about just who they are talking to on-line! Instead this make believe world is inhabited by automated Funkeys, strange little people that come in a range of colours and facial designs. Each facial design designates certain characteristics or skills. The colours denote rarity.Rarity is important because unlike other virtual worlds you can visit, Funkeys have a manifestation in our world in the form of small plastic collectable characters.

• Ub Funkeys Installation Problems
• Funkeys Installation Problems

The characters act as keys (hence Fun keys) that unlock different parts of the Funkey world. The mother of all Funkeys. To allow the physical Funkeys to unlock areas of the virtual world on your computer, they must first be able to talk to your computer. They do this through a 'mother of all Funkeys' (my name for it) which is much bigger and connects to a spare USB port on your computer. This acts very much like a card reader - where the little Funkeys are the cards. Each baby Funkey has a set of metal contacts on the base.

Slide one into a slot in the head of the mother Funkey and it's code is sent to the computer.To enter the Funkey world you have to buy a starter kit. This contains the mother Funkey, two Funkeys and a CD containing the virtual world software. Install the software and at the appropriate moment plug the mother Funkey into the USB and you should be away.We had a few problems with installation. On one machine running Windows XP SP2, although the installation said that it had found the Funkey the game itself insisted that it wasn't there.

We had to give up on that machine in the end. On another older machine running Windows 2000 everything installed fine and worked, but everything was too slow to be enjoyable, and the software periodically crashed. On a very recent machine we had no problems.We also have a number of problems with the Funkey not being recognised by the software. Connecting through a separate USB hub often failed to recognise the hardware, and connecting directly gave the message 'Something is wrong with your Funkey - can you investigate'. Hopefully this will be resolved with later versions of the software drivers, but it was infuriating.I notice looking at the Funkeys web-site there is a USB hub patch, which I hadn't found at the time, so you may find that helps. The URL to the patch is:What's in Funkey World?When you first start the software you select a user name and password.

This allows each member of the family and friends to have their own area.Once your account is created you enter Funkey world. You appear on the screen as the Funkey that you've placed into the slot on the mother Funkey. You can remove that one at any time and simple insert a different one, your image within the game changes immediately.There are many other Funkeys roaming the world, although with the exception of the tax-collectors your interaction with them is limited.Funkey World is split into a number of sub-worlds that are reached by teleport devices (called portals). Many of these are broken or in a state of repair and so will only work with some Funkeys - if you haven't got the right one then you can't get to that location, not at least by that route.Each area has it's own character and seem to be predominantly populated by one type of Funkey.

Buildings dot the landscape and you can try and get into them. Each building generally contains something interesting, quite often a game or challenge. Once more, to get into a building you have to be able to unlock it by having the right Funkey.The games I've played so far have been very good - and very addictive (at 2am one day I really had to drag myself away from my 'n'th game of Funk Jongg!).Each game is scored and you can win gold for your performance. When you get good enough at a game it is added to your Funkey Crib - a special place to call your own.

Once the game is there you can play whenever you like without having to go find the room again. Your CribMany on-line games give you the ability to create your own space within the virtual world, and while Funkeys is a little different, you also have your home area, called a Crib.

You can decorate it how you want, add carpet and pain the walls. You have a living room, games room that gives immediate access to all those games you've mastered and a Trophy Room in which you can store, well, Trophies.Of course a nicely decorated living room is fine, but what do you put in it? That's where all that gold you won playing games into the small wee hours comes in.

Dotted around the Funkeys world are various market stalls from which you can purchase all manner of 'things'. Being a little slow to catch on, I managed to buy some complete junk - including a brain in a bottle, volcano tub and a Pet Gator (my crib is shown in the image to the right)! Sharing your crib. Once you have your crib looking the way you want it then you can allow your friends to take a peak.

Simply 'share' your crib and give it a unique name. Once you've saved your crib tell your friends your cribs name. They go to a special place in Funkey World called 'Grand Funkey Station' enter your name and then they'll see your efforts.I've tried this. If you're interested I've shared my crib with the name 'redrabbits'. Unfortunately attempting to visit that crib from a different account just claims it doesn't exist.

If you have better luck then please let me know (leave a comment below!). The GamesThe world is full of games as I've said. These are both fun, addictive and allow you to earn gold coins with which to buy things to decorate your crib.There are many games in different rooms scattered around the world. Of those I tried they are all of good quality and exercise various skills. A plate shooting game will exercise your eye-mouse coordination, tile matching will exercise mouse skills and your brain. Museum Mask Mayhem you'll love or hate, but that will leave you frustrated and determined to do better next time!The has a summary of some of the games, only a few of which I've managed to find and play!

The Funkeys FamilyAs I've said there are lots of Funkeys to collect. Forty Two in total.

You get two in your starter kit, which will cost your around £25 - You can then. Now in theory that's going to cost you £220!As I've said there are lots of Funkeys to collect. Forty Two in total. You get two in your starter kit, which will cost your around $20 -. You can then, depending on rarity! Now in theory that's going to cost you over $300!As I've said there are lots of Funkeys to collect.

Forty Two in total. You get two in your starter kit, which will cost your around €30 -. You can then, depending on rarity! Now in theory that's going to cost you over €400!In practice I think these could become the next playground collectable with Funkeys being swapped after use. As far as I can tell once you've scored enough in a game to have it added to your crib you no longer need that specific Funkey to play the game - allowing you to swap with a friend to unlock more of the world.Actually, although there are 42 Funkeys in total, there are actually 14 distinct Funkey designs, each of which come in three levels of rarity: normal; rare or very rare. One assumes Radica will restrict the availability of the rare and very rare designs, which in themselves could create added value for those lucky enough to find one! SummaryThe concept of Funkeys are great and the game itself is very well put together.

You literally can spend hours playing the various component games. In my case I have six Funkeys and have spent hours unlocking what must be a very small part of the Funkey world.I'm a little disappointed with the way the software often fails to recognise the hardware, insisting that a clearly present mother Funkey is in fact not connected to your computer. Windows undoubtedly must take some of the blame for this, but more work could have been done to ensure that everything works together.The other concern of course is the environmental impact of millions of plastic/metal Funkeys flooding the world.

Is this really something we need right now when a lower impact solution could have been constructed? I have some sympathy with the manufacturer in this because of the lack of perceived value people seem to have for things they can't hold.For those parents that are concerned with their children interacting with real people in on-line worlds this is an ideal replacement - providing hours of entertainment in complete safety. In the case of my children they absolutely loved Funkeys. To write this review I first had to wander around the house to locate all six of mine that had managed to wander to various bedrooms where they were adorning window ledges and mantel pieces.A lot more information on Funkeys, including biographies of many of the different available Funkeys are available at their very own web-site:The web-site is not quite complete yet so expect that to improve over time! 'Comment by no, Mar 18, 2008 20:54i have a brown tiki i cant find anything on it!

I searched and nothn not on the regular website for u.b. Funkeys either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!' I think the tiki you are referring to is the yellow one in the game. That means you have a rare tiki! I think that osme of the colors that were chosen for the real-life funkeys and the computer funkeys varies on some because maybe they were unable to get that color on either the real or the computer ones.

There actually seems to be a couple like that but right off hand I do not remember which ones. Hi all, the best place to get help and find out anyhting to do with Funkeys is the Funkey Forum at the following:I've been playing with my 7 year old son since Christmas and this site has been invaluable in helping us work out what we're supposed to do. Many people seem to have had problems with downloads so there are lots of threads discussing what you can try to sort them out.There's a list of the original and Funkiki Funkeys on this link:a few on the list (Bandit, Dot, Drift and Sprocket) haven't yet been released.In the U.S.

They've just released a further set of Funkeys to tie in with a new film called Speed Racer. These aren't available in the U.K. Yet but I noticed a couple arriving on e-bay yesterday.The Tiki question is strange as the three colours available are purple (normal), olive green (rare) and grey (very rare). Some pictures show the rare Tiki as yellow but it isn't!

We have the grey & purple but not the green one yet.Hope this helps, we love the game and collecting the different Funkeys but it is quite addictive!CBeebies. Pete, I just tried to look at redrabbits, don't know if it's yours or not, but shows red, white and blue waterfalls to far left side, also has green, blue and brown ones, star table, dino skeleton, etc. Lots of stuff. Is this one yours? Mine is Mama1234. Should be a beach scene (at least for now, until my kids play on it again!)Very versatile game, we all love to play it, including my 4y/o twins, who decorate the cribs and play a few games (one of them is already quite good at Funk Jongg, actually.

Scores up to 4K, which is good for her age and by herself, I think lol)I'm not a member on GadgetSpeak, but if anyone would like to talk about funkeys, i'm all for it! Target and toysrus carry the funkeys, best price is on ebay, but watch the shipping some people over charge. Flurry funkeys are snowflaked faced, red-green, and blue you learn to ski and do tricks. Also a big hint use a rare funkey when you go to the stores, you get different items to buy. You first have to be in the game area and then switch funkeys to get different items.in the area underwater you can get a free pearl item go to the clam.

Some of the neat items we have bought are a cute big white spider, windows in twinx area, its not a game just a free place to buy items. In the panda bear you can get a hot tub. Also if you can defeat the golf game-sol's area you will get a mask that you will be able to use and go into the places that say its too dark for you to go in here by the volcano, also get a high score in webleys game and you will get a web shooter that you can use in cross the brideges also on funkey island. If you get a high score in the island games you can get a beach scene to decorate your room. My crib is called wafflehouse, and lifes a beach. Ok when i tried to install funkeys for my daughter i followed the instructions to ingnore this ignore that and itl automatically install!that didnt work so after a dozen and a half tries after installing and unisntalling the program i was furious after allways geting the message about making sure the usb hub is plugged in well anyway i thought id ignore the installment instructions and just go ahead and click away and install it manually and bingo it installed properly so maybe if we just ignore the instructions and instsll it the easy way itll work try that it worked for me.

Revvinon wrote: Hello deegee - welcome to the forum.I have not tried the patch (I don't have VISTA 64) from TSE but if you followed everything they had written there for running the patch, it probably would be best to call Mattel/Radica. They will send you the patch directly.Good Luck!.EDIT.Here is a little more info on installing that patch: from someone who HAS done it.Good Luck!jimbodo wrote: I just Finally succeeded in installing UB Funkeys on a 64 bit Vista OS. I will try to answer questions if any more arise but I did it using the Speak easy links (type 64 in the search on this forum). There are direct links to the info starting on the 2nd page of posts under that search. One of them actually had the files to zip to my computer without even calling Tech help.

The hardest part was figuring out how to rename the Funkey patch text file to a zip file so that the patch could be extracted. After that following the instructions in the readme worked.

Follow the instructions closely and start the install at the correct point in the patch or it will not work.Thank you Revvinon for the.Edit that had the link on renaming the filePudle wrote: I had to register to the forums just so I could voice the headache I have had with these Funkeys! Some clear and precise instructions should be posted for computer illiterate parents.First off, I think of myself pretty proficient with computers and electronics and should not have had to spend 3 days to get the Funkeys to work properly.I bought my daughter a starter kit and 5 Funkeys from different realms for Christmas.

I had no idea what they were ( now I know lots ). I plugged it in thinking a simple plug and play concept. No such luck. I find out you need to install the software first and ignore the windows drivers? I do this and still nothing! I think that I screwed up the drivers and do a fresh install.

Still nothing? I am thinking it has to be a 64 bit thing! After hours of no luck I call it a night. Next day I have no idea how I found it but I was reading this link.

As tempting as updated software sounded, I opted for the patch. Now this patch is not a simple patch? You have to apply it half way through the install! No worries, 'I got this covered. Patch successful! Game works and my daughter thinks I am a hero!

I found out that there are rares and codes and stuff from all my readings trying to get it working. I am actually getting into this game and thinking we are going shopping for more Funkeys! Now my daughter is saying that Raj is not working? I check it out and to no avail it wants an update! I do some more googleing and no luck! I finally break down and call support, I suggest maybe I should download the whole software file. He assures me that with the 64 bit patch I should be good to go!

Must just be Christmas and the servers are bogged? I read a few more posts on these forums and come to the conclusion that the update is not working! It was shortly after this I find out that the 64 bit patch only updated me to 3.0. Two days later and I muster the energy to solve this problem!

After hours of reading I make sure I have Adobe Flash 10 (installed with IE (I run Fire Fox)) and keep running as Admin. Still nothing. More reading and I think my connection is timing out. I fiddle with the hub to the point that it no longer registers and a reinstall is inevitable (now I have data I do not want to loose). After more reading I figure I will back up what data I have and download the latest software from the link above.

Still not getting it all? I try with a hard wired computer and still problems from the Mattel servers! I download a download attachment for firefox and I finally get the 4.8 software.

I do an uninstall and reinstall. Good to go, I get the 5.0 update and all seems good. I copy my data files as posted somewhere on these forums. I load up fine, log in and get stuck on 'loading funkeystown'. Uninstall and reinstall, this time not copying user data.

Ub Funkeys Installation Problems

Raj works and still had all my save data! Keep in mind that I am still in 4.8.

Funkeys Installation Problems

Only one update a day so I will try 5.0 tomorrow and report back.In short:Install Adobe 10 with IE (Just to be safe, I don't know if it makes a difference?)Get a download manager (4.8 is over 500mb and Mattel will cut you short!)Download the 4.8 version from the link above (The patch is only 3.0)Just to be safe, back up data. Was not necessary for me but you never know.InstallThe smaller 198 mb download from 4.8 to 5.0 should work. If not, I will post a solution tomorrow after I do it.I am admin so I never ran it as, You may still have to do this?Good luck, and I feel so sorry for parents that buy these things and just have no clue! Support has none either, It was from good people here and a lot of reading for me to figure this out.Hacksaw wrote: Just an FYI, there is no (none, nada, zilch) 64 bit software on any of the CD's that come with UB Funkeys. The ONLY way to install correctly is by downloading the software off of the website. If you install using the CD on a 64 bit system it will install the 32 bit drivers, which will not work.

You MUST un-install anything you installed from the CD before you try to install the version from the website. When they started making UB Funkeys almost nobody had 64 bit systems, so they never put 64 bit software on the discs. As usual make sure you run as admin, and add UB to firewall exceptions.If you still have the problem after you re-install, call tech support, that's what they are there for. Please don't let a phone call keep you from enjoying the game. Tibetan dream yoga techniques. We don't bite.