Seriously. Games that Matter.

Imagine you are a first responder to emergencies.

Now imagine a real world event like the Oakland hills fire in California.

Now imagine that you arrive on scene, but the hoses don't connect to the hydrants. Unfortunately, this is what actually happened.

Imagine the feeling of watching those homes, those lives, consumed by flame, while you stand by helpless, consigned to the role of spectator.

Now imagine that a training system exists with such fidelity and realism that you can train first responders to be aware of incompatible hose/hydrant couplings before the fire happened.

This is one goal of RealWorld.

For those who face-off against natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, terrorist actions like 9/11, or unexpected events like a city-wide blackout, the devil is in the details. In a RealWorld simulation, their game radios behave like the radio on their belt; fire hoses pump water at the correct pressure and squelch the fire at the same rate and in the same way that real water would. We believe our first responders and professionals will be better prepared and suffer fewer lives lost — both their own and civilians'.

Visuals count. If the game tools you are training with look worse than that X-Box game you play at home, how much confidence do you have in the simulation's realism and efficacy? In almost all aspects, the entertainment game play experience is superior to the technology used by these groups. Never has a concerted effort been made to bring next-generation, high-quality graphics and a fully interactive, immersive environment to the training of our public servants.

Budgets count more. Our first responders often struggle with budget cuts, low prioritization, and aging equipment. They pull together everything at their disposal to protect the lives and property of those they serve. This is the dilemma facing the many organizations and professionals whose responsibility it is to handle complex situations such as natural disasters, rescue operations, and other missions. These organizations also typically have little or no control over the development or modification of the games they use for training. Further, the standard practices for game development for this market are slow, expensive, and inflexible.

Flexibility when making entertainment games impacts time to market. In the serious game world, it has a whole different value — specificity. RealWorld allows scenarios to be developed on-demand so that an emergency like an earthquake scenario in the Bay Area can be designed in minutes by a First Responder unit commander in the field on his/her laptop. Then, after the team has rehearsed the scenario together (playing the game on their laptops), the commander can simply and easily change the scenario and the team can rehearse the new version. A few clicks and the job is done. This level of flexibility is impossible using typical systems.

When these groups turned to the entertainment game industry for help, Total Immersion's RealWorld platform made it possible to address the unique challenges of the serious games.

RealWorld is a commercial game development platform delivering all the cutting-edge functionality that the professionals on the ground have come to expect. It is built around a core generator engine that includes the renderer, behavior, script processing, math and physics, and audio modules. The architecture is modular and flexible, with well-defined APIs that allow developers to use a different 3rd party physics engine for example. RealWorld includes an open Terrain Data system that uses DTED, LIDAR, CAD/CAM, satellite aerial, photos, and video. RealWorld also includes components for After-Action-Review (AAR), Massively-Multiplayer Online Training (MMO), and a variety of simulation engines.

RealWorld built a radically different developer interface to the core platform. First, the Asset Creator builds and modifies databases and components for use in any type of scenario. Real World transforms the way the emergency response groups and other professionals conduct mission rehearsal exercises. As a unit enters a location struck by a hurricane, for example, team leaders can run through multiple scenarios, manipulating the degree of devastation or severity of reactions by the populace.

The Scenario Author allows developers with little to no training to create scenarios: Open laptop; select terrain; drag-and-drop assets; adjust attributes (such as crowd response to the disaster); press run. Simple. Powerful.

The system affords Total Immersion benefits as well. We can develop new games rapidly, creating multiple prototypes, and testing scenarios with game players. RealWorld reduces the time and cost of game production for both commercial ventures and serious game users like first responders.

Revolutionizing the Way Sims Are Built

• Rapid creation of mission rehearsal scenarios by those doing the mission
• Useable in the field with little or no training
• PC and console based, highly immersive 3D worlds
• Scalable, distributed
• Ingests real world terrain
• Robust entity level behaviors

This is not just about testing scenarios, but building a tool that enables cognitive training. It takes more than learning the dashboard and how to steer to drive an ambulance through traffic under emergency conditions. The driver needs to develop a pattern of thinking and awareness that allows him/her to handle the unknown and unplanned with equal facility. And, to coordinate with his/her fellow responders. In essence practicing together what would otherwise be "thinking on your feet".

Fidelity and immersion in the game simulator are vital to building the useful cognitive skills that will help the responders handle the complexities and pressure of the real situation.

A game simulator built with Real World delivers the fidelity and immersion that develops cognitive skills and provides the ease-of-use that enables commanders to create multiple realistic training scenarios. The responders then practice together, resulting in effective teams that respond as a single, coordinated unit. It's team-building at a whole new level. Team building that saves lives.

Total Immersion Software will take full advantage of this flexibility when designing entertainment games so their titles deliver almost infinite variations in engaging immersive play, unforgettable environments, dazzling effects, and intense action.

Imagine a time when a new, completely novel game could be created in record time using the RealWorld platform by drawing upon the assets in our Digital Backlot. That's why we built RealWorld — to allow us to build great games fast and that are fantastically fun and highly effective.

Every game we build will leverage the previous games and assets. RealWorld gets better and better with every game we build. That's powerful. And that kind of power in the hands of a talented game developer can only lead to the fantastic.