Harrington Group’s Vigilance has been selected by the National Training Systems Association (NTSA) as one of the finalists in the 2007 Serious Games Showcase & Challenge held at the Interservice/Industry Training Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC). As a finalist, Vigilance will be eligible to win distinction as "2007 Alion Best Serious Game" as well as the "2007 People's Choice" award which will both be announced on November 29th at the Orange County Convention Center during the annual conference.

The Vigilance serious game mod was designed using state of the art 3D technology to help train U.S military personnel to locate and identify Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). “IED weapons are the single greatest threat to deployed military forces in the Iraqi Theater of Operations (ITO) and are expected to be a continuing threat in future combat operations” stated John Brooks, Producer of Vigilance at Harrington Group. “The insurgents are very creative in developing new applications of IED weapons. The Vigilance team selected 3D technology from Crytek and Scaleform that enables training developers to rapidly add new levels to the game in response to changes in the insurgent’s tactics. ”

Vigilance provides a controlled educational experience, exposing players to both visual and verbal instruction on the specifics of IEDs. As players gain experience, they are asked to locate and identify IEDs among increasingly complex surroundings. To facilitate instructions and minimize the time to “learn the game,” a highly interactive user interface delivers navigation, mission guidance, and IED information. Following the instruction and simulation portions of the game, in-game performance is tracked, exam questions are administered and remedial information is provided.

A high degree of realism and low cost production methodologies were key to meeting the educational and design goals of the project. At the heart of Vigilance lies Crytek’s CryENGINE 2® gaming engine, which provides a level of immersion unmatched in the gaming industry. “CryENGINE 2 is a perfect fit for projects that demand photographic realism, exceptional character and environmental simulation, and rapid application development” stated Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek. “We are duly impressed with the Vigilance serious game mod and look forward to many more high-quality simulation projects based on CryENGINE 2.”

Scaleform GFx™ was used to facilitate the rapid production of the interactive user interfaces in Vigilance. “Scaleform’s UI solution is designed to support the demanding commercial game and simulation market by empowering artists with proven visual tools such as Adobe Flash™, which significantly improve the quality of the product, streamline the production pipeline and reduce development costs.” said Brendan Iribe, CEO of Scaleform. “Vigilance is a great example of how a small team using commercial middleware and off the shelf authoring tools can reduce the time and effort required to build a world-class simulation application.”