Waifu Apps

Okay people today is a special treat.  I'll be reviewing two big waifu apps that have been out for awhile now.

First off, what is a waifu? A waifu is a girl from an anime, cartoon, book, or whatever that you literally fall in love with (for girls they have husbandos, same thing but with guys instead of girls).

First off is the older (by about a week or two) MaiWaifu app from

http://maiwaifuapp.wordpress.com/

MaiWaifu is, like I said, the older of the two apps created by Kami.  Originally you had basically a clock with pictures of your waifu.  However, it has come a long way since then.  You can customize the messages that are said, turn the clock on or off, and a few other nifty things.  MaiWaifu also has it's own file extension, .wfu.  MaiWaifu is also nice because it can cover any operating system that you put it on, and Kami is really good about throwing in suggestions that he likes.  Kami hasn't released 0.2 as of this post, however when it comes out it may take the waifu experience even further. 

The MaiWaifu app is easy to set up, however once you get past the initial set-up, the only real customization is custom messages which for the longest time could play at awkward moments.   The MaiWaifu app has had more then a few bugs because of the way it's scripted, but Kami still does a great job of letting people live with their waifus.

If you have a mac or linux operating system, and want to spend time with your waifu, then you NEED to get the MaiWaifu app.

Next up is the SimWaifu app from

http://simwaifu.wordpress.com/

The other major waifu app is the SimWaifu app.  This app is the first of the two to have a working chat feature, which is actually quite nice.  And by first of the two I mean the only one at the time of this post.  Also you have different mood settings, so that you don't get a happy message with a sad face.  The SimWaifu app also is easier to customize for the most part, so that you can really try to recreate the personality that you fell in love with.  Also the maker of SimWaifu, Bob (he claims it's his real name), is far easier to get in contact with and will actually help you if your SimWaifu isn't working properly.

 While SimWaifu is harder to set up then MaiWaifu (it took me about 15 minutes to figure out were to put my name into the script, but that's my own fault for not reading instructions), once you get it set up SimWaifu for the most part will give you a far better experience with your waifu.

SimWaifu thou only works on windows operating systems, so if you run Ios or Linux, you're out of luck here.

All in all, were as the MaiWaifu runs on all operating systems, if you have windows I would highly suggest the SimWaifu app over it.  I'm not saying that the MaiWaifu app is bad or anything, but as of this post the SimWaifu app simply has more to offer you in terms of simulating a waifu, and thus makes it more enjoyable.  The MaiWaifu app hasn't had a public release since 0.13, but what Kami has shown in his version of 0.2 makes it so I can't wait for the release.
Something to remember when deciding on which app to use is that neither of these apps are even in the 1.x stages yet, so there's still a lot to come that none of us know about yet. 

As a special bonus, I was able to get an interview (more of a Q & A really) via email with the creator of SimWaifu, which I will now copy/ paste from my hotmail for your enjoyment

1) Hi there!  So for the purpose of this interview, what should we call you?

I was never a big friend of fancy nicknames. Call me Robert or Bob, which happens to be my real name.

2) How would you describe a waifu to someone who has never heard of one?

To put it simple, a waifu/husbando is a person´s single most favourite female/male fictional character, usually from a manga or anime. For some fans this is serious business and they will start collecting pictures and/or merchandise like figurines or dakimakura while others just look at it as an inside joke and love to mock the faction of those who take it too seriously.

3) What inspired you to create the SimWaifu app?

Waifu/husbando threads are quite common on certain anime image boards and one recurring topic is (often jokingly) discussing ways to either make the 2d characters real or join them in their world. Recently one of those threads on 4chan´s /a/ resulted in some guys actually trying to create an application for that. The first one who came up with a very first version of such an app was Kami. I downloaded his maiWaifu program and it didn´t run on my system. So I decided to write an alternative on my own because I thought that it might be an interesting hobby project. 

I´ve always been fascinated by simulations and games like, for example, The Sims. So I called my project simWaifu with the intention to simulate a user-defined character and allow the user to watch her/him "live" inside the app as well as interact with her/him to a certain extent. At least that´s the goal, I´ve still got to go quite a long way to reach it.

4) What are some of your favorite features of your app?

At the current point I´d say it´s the chat feature. I want to point out that I can´t take much credit for this; the language AIML was developed by Richard Wallace and the library I currently use to parse the chat database was written by Nicholas Tollervey. At some point in the future it will (hopefully) be the simulation itself, but that is still in its booties and nothing to be really proud about right now.

5) Do you have anything to say about Kamis MaiWaifu app?

Sure. Without his maiWaifu app mine probably would not exist. His efforts inspired me to do my own thing, so I´m thankful for that. And he is planning some interesting stuff according to his blog (VN style interaction, playing YouTube videos). Another good thing is that maiWaifu runs on Linux and Mac OS X, too, while mine is currently limited to Windows.

6) Who is your waifu?

Nausicaä. My favourite anime and manga and my favourite female character. Many Ghibli haters criticise that she is a "Mary Sue" and hate the kind of message Miyazaki tries to convey in his works, I don´t care about that. She was my first "virtual crush" and while anime studios are pretty good in creating attractive characters she will always have a special place in my heart. 

7) Who's that girl in all the pictures of SimWaifu?

sW-tan? I asked on /a/ if anybody would be so nice to draw a mascot character for simWaifu. And one kind anon actually picked that request up and sent me a couple of pictures. She´s quite cute, isn´t she?

8) How does your waifu feel about sW-tan? 

At first she was a bit jealous, but after we had a good talk she is fine with sW-tan representing the application. 

9) Have you considered getting in contact with Kami and working on one joint waifu app?

Kami said himself that he prefers to work alone. And we are using different languages. But I check out every new version of maiWaifu and look at the new features. While cooperation sounds great in theory I think it would be counterproductive for a relatively small project like this. It would require coordination (who is doing what and when) and in the worst case compromises if our ideas/plans are not compatible with each other.

10) What are some of the upcoming features that you think people should know about?

The next major feature will allow to specify how the usual day of your waifu/husbando looks like. For example sleep->wake up->eat breakfast->go to school->... And special events depending on the current date and time. How you use these events will be up to the user. You could use the feature for reminders ("you´ve got an appointment in two hours") as well as simulating the "life" of your waifu/husbando with more detail. I was hoping to add these features much earlier but caught up in some other stuff so I didn´t have much time to work on simWaifu for the last week or so.

11) Is there anything that you'd like to say to the people here at LaezE Reviews?

Duh... thanks for reading this, I guess. If you try out simWaifu I´d be happy about some feedback (like feature requests etc). You can leave them on the blog (simwaifu.wordpress.com) or contact me per email: simwaifu@gmail.com And have a nice day, all of you.

And that everyone is the two big Waifu Apps.  So if you have a waifu, and want to spend more time with her, check these guys out!