Vicious Engine Gets Serious With IBM

Developer Vicious Cycle has announced that its middleware solution Vicious Engine has been chosen by design agency Center Line to create INNOV8, a new business process management simulator for tech giant IBM. IBM calls Innov8 "an immersive 3-D educational game simulator designed to bridge the gap between the roles of IT teams and business leaders in an organization." The title was produced in conjunction with Duke University graduate students and the University of North Carolina, that "allows players to visualize how [a service-oriented architecture] affects different parts of the organization." Vicious Cycle says the use of the engine for a serious game highlights its "extreme accessibility," compared with its more traditional use in released and forthcoming titles like Flushed Away, Dead Head Fred, and Puzzle Quest. The company announced in February that it had begun a so-called "Rising Stars Program”, allowing start-ups to use the engine for an evaluation and prototyping period for any of its supported Wii, Xbox 360, PSP, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube, and PC platforms.