Serious Games
DARPA project
In 2005, Totally Games entered the world of Serious Games in conjunction with Digital Mill, to take on a project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that involved the military use of future Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVS). The goal of this project was to design a robust, extensible test bed for simulating the use of these remote controlled aircraft in a variety of futuristic combat environments and missions.
DARPA hired TG because of our deep game and simulation design experience. They wanted to have our out-of-the-box thinking applied to solve the interface problem posed by having a single operator controlling many of these UAVs simultaneously. We approached the project like any other of our past complex simulations, except this time we were able to push the envelope with our ideas and to solely design for an expert user.
The DARPA project was an example of TG being able to apply its best thinking and skills for a serious real world application. Our primary focus will always be entertainment, but being able to translate our skills for non-entertainment purposes is something we are eager to do. There’s plenty of cross-pollination that can happen; doing these types of projects pushes us to innovate, which then is reflected in our games.
“This project gave us our first taste of real-world impact, i.e. designing systems that would be used in non-game settings and environments. Having worked on various kinds of military vehicle simulations, this transition was totally natural for us. We always looked upon the game worlds we were creating as having their basis in reality. And our most non-serious games have always worked to gamers a deeper experience than just a piece of candy that they quickly consume. So ‘serious’ games are a natural for us.”
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