Patent ID: 7488231

Claim:
A system for use in interactive entertainment, the system comprising: a plurality of toy characters, each of the toy characters comprising: an outer covering; an inner portion surrounded by the outer covering; and a wireless transponder disposed in the inner portion, the wireless transponder further comprising: a memory for storing character information associated with the toy character, and an antenna portion for communicating the character information wirelessly through the outer covering without requiring exposure of the wireless transponder; at least one transceiver configured to receive the character information from the wireless transponder of each of the plurality of toy characters; a central server in communication with the at least one transceiver and configured to track a progress of each of a plurality of users in an interactive game, each of the users being associated with at least one of the plurality of toy characters; and one or more play effects in communication with the central server, wherein the central server is further configured to selectively activate the one or more play effects based at least on the progress of at least one of the plurality of users in the interactive game.