GDC: Speech-Controlled Game Bot Colony Makes GDC Debut

Today developer North Side announced the GDC debut of its fully speech-controlled game Bot Colony -- which is on display at the show and has opened registration for its closed beta. The game -- true to its name -- allows the player to interact with a colony of robots using only speech. Described by the developers as a "sandbox" game, though it also seems to have some classic adventure overtones, the game has been in development since 2007, based on proprietary technology originally developed for serious games applications. The technology which drives the speech recognition has been in development in the Montreal, Quebec-based studio for six years. It requires a massive server farm to process; results are delivered on the client side, requiring a subscription from the player to engage with the game software. North Side expects that the speech technology will have a variety of applications beyond gaming, including e-commerce. To find out more about Bot Colony, check out our interview with North Side founder Eugene Joseph, which covers the gameplay and inspirational aspects behind the game -- including details on the company's speech-parsing technology. Says Joseph, "In our game, the response will not be pre-recorded, but rather a result of a parsing, reasoning on a fact base, and generation (which means turning a logic formula back into English)." You can also visit the official Bot Colony website.