Saarbrücken/Quierschied, Germany - August 17, 2010 - xaitment GmbH / Inc., the leading artificial intelligence (AI) game tool provider for the video games and simulations industries, announced today a new licensing agreement with Epiphany Games, a game development studio based in Sydney, Australia.
Epiphany will use xaitment's five AI game tools to develop Frozen Hearth (working title), a fast-paced, real-time strategy game (RTS) set in a Celtic-inspired fantasy world. Epiphany will use xaitMap and xaitMove² for pathfinding, navigation mesh generation, movement and crowd simulations. xaitControl will be used for modeling character behaviors using hierarchical modeling structures, and for making live changes to behaviors while the game is being played using the tool's integrated debugger.
To model outstanding behavior in only a few steps, Epiphany will also use xaitment's tools xaitKnow and xaitThink, which enable non-player characters (NPCs) to manage their own knowledge, as well as more flexibly adapt their behavior to the behavior of game players more than ever seen before.
"Our project is an RTS game and we estimated that for us to build the AI ourselves, it would take quite a long time - time that we do not have," said Morgan Lean, CEO of Epiphany Games. "By using xaitment's AI tools, we can quickly and easily implement the AI elements we need into our game so we can concentrate on the story design. Using middleware will save us up to one year on development."
"Epiphany Games is an example of the potential and success of modern game development," said Andreas Gerber, Group CEO of xaitment. "Using xaitment's AI tool set in combination with the middleware of our partners allows for faster development and allows developers to concentrate on the core questions of the game, like how their AI behaviors and gameplay should look - instead of wasting time with doing the basics themselves."
