INTERACTIVE LIGHT'S KICK-IT!
The first arcade game developed on the Open Arcade Architecture PC Platform
By Martin Levy

You eye the goalie as you get ready to blast another soccer ball by him. He's good, but you're confident in your kicking abilities. You stare him down as you kick the ball -- and SCORE! The crowd goes wild, the music soars, and . . . a 3-D soccer ball character winks at you?

Welcome to Kick-It, the latest location-based entertainment (LBE) title from Santa Monica-based Interactive Light, makers of the recent hit game Home Run Derby. In Kick-It, players use a real soccer ball to try and outsmart an on-screen 3-D goalie. Using Interactive Light's patented Smart Beam infrared sensors, the game measures the exact movement of the ball after its kicked, then displays the shot coming in on a large monitor.

As the player physically kicks the ball, the onscreen goalie reacts like a real, live player as he leaps to block, catch (or miss!) the ball. Goalie, ball and a crowded stadium are all rendered on the fly in stunning 3D, a technique perfected by Interactive Light's software subsidiary, Immersia, Ltd. An animated "soccer ball head" character, soon to be named, lets you know how you did at the end of the game.

Goalkeeper movements are managed by a proprietary Hierarchical File Format, enabling him to react realistically to every type of kicked ball based on ball position, ball velocity, ball horizontal and vertical angles and goal keeper initial position.

The goal keeper's behavior is managed by a proprietary human behavioral algorithm which takes into consideration real-life parameters such as basic physical characteristics, ongoing weariness, attitude, state of mind, risk, gamble and others.

Interactive Light CEO Amir Rubin says, "After the goalie gives up a goal, his attitude changes respectively as well as his state of mind. His ongoing weariness changes in accordance with his previous moves and dives, and his decisions for taking risk or gamble for the next kick are affected."

The fully modeled 3-D stadium includes many active billboards, with the ability to customize background logos, team/country flags, advertisements and other signage. The game also boasts three different goal keeper "skill levels" to keep it challenging for players of all ages and abilities. The stadium chalk lines and goal net use a proprietary real-time level of detail rendering algorithm in order to keep them as sharp and detailed as possible -- from any angle they are viewed from.

Interactive Light announced Kick-It at the recent Amusement & Music Operator Association show in Atlanta, and began shipping the game to arcade locations October 15. Kick-It boasts all of the interactivity of Interactive Light’s previous games, but with an important new feature: it's the first game to implement Intel's PC-based Open Arcade Architecture.

"We worked very closely with Albert Teng’s group at Intel to develop Kick-It with OApen Arcade Architecture specs," notes Rubin. "They provided the direction and technical support necessary to bring Kick-It to the market on time."

The Open Arcade Architecture Have you ever considered what it would mean to the arcade and LBE industries if games could be developed right from the start in a non-proprietary, PC environment? Wouldn't it be great if a game only needed to be developed once, and could easily be upgraded to introduce new levels while giving the game greater earnings potential and longevity?

That's the mission of Open Arcade Architecture. The Open Arcade Architecture specification is based on the Pentium(r) II processor, and was developed by Intel(r) Corporation in response to an invitation by the Amusement and Music Operator Association and several coin-op developers. Open Arcade Architecture-based games like Kick-It take advantage of the Intel 3-D graphics accelerators, making it easier to process sound, video and graphics data.

"The Intel Architecture allows us to feature rich graphics and incredibly fast frame rates," continued Rubin. "And it's a sound financial model, comparable to how the movie industry produces sequels or migrates titles to foreign markets. We can showcase our games in the arcades and then release them to the home market sometime down the road."

"Not only does an open arcade game have a lower total cost of ownership," says Douglas Schiller, CFO of Interactive Light, "but with the current trend of reductions in the cost of PC technology, the up-front costs are lower as well, so we can introduce future games to the market more quickly and more cost-effectively."

Since Intel announced the specification (www.openarcade.com) in April, more than 80 companies representing all stages of game development from development tools vendors and hardware developers to coin-op game publishers, distributors and operators have joined together in supporting Open Arcade Architeture.

Their aim is to increase marketing opportunities for arcade and location-based entertainment, and provide consumers with top-quality games in arcades, and ultimately, in the home. It has the support of companies including Compaq, Microsoft, Namco, Sega Game Works, and Sony to name a few.

"Namco fully supports Open Arcade Architecture here in the U.S. we operate 650 locations with about 25,000 games -- so anything we can do to reduce operating costs while providing new titles for our players is critical to our future," said Namco Senior Vice President of Operations David L. Bishop. "The game business has gotten a little stagnant but we think OAA will provide a well needed lift to the industry," he continued.

Says Boston-based Dream Machine's Alan Frazier, "We think Open Arcade Architecture will be a boom for the market and one which will stimulate some creativity. Basically, we've survived on two figures fighting on a screen for years, but the new PC-based should provide players with some fascinating, interactive games. We have been planning on PC-based games for the past two years and we we're glad their finally here." Dream Machines is a mall-based coin op entertainment company with 35 locations around the country.

Open Arcade Architecture Benefits for Developers
Immersia Ltd., Interactive Light's software development subsidiary, made the decision to adopt the PC as its arcade game development platform about 18 months ago. "From a developer's point of view," says Joseph Deutsch, president and CEO of Immersia, "a critical factor is that you're working with well-defined standards, rather than a dedicated proprietary game platform, which most games use today." This allowed Immersia to easily staff their company with experienced software engineers in order to create games in a cost-effective manner.

Working on a PC, game developers use state-of-the-art tools including compilers, debuggers and version control systems which assure high-quality final products. Selecting the well-defined standard of the Open Arcade Architecture led Immersia to develop many infrastructure software modules, targeting arcade-specific issues such as the arcade operator, attract-mode, and game peripheral control.

These infrastructure modules, combined with Immersia's state-of-the-art object-oriented design and implementation methodologies, are now packaged as a Coin-Op Toolkit that Immersia's developers can use again and again as they develop each new arcade game.

The Coin-Op Toolkit will be available to other Open Arcade Architecture developers in the future, allowing them to concentrate on game content. Says Deutsch, "Game improvements are ultimately less costly because game developers can boost game performance much more quickly."

Interactive Light and Immersia management outlined some additional benefits of developing games based on the Open Arcade Architecture PC platform:

• Multiple Suppliers. Before Open Arcade Architecture, developers were forced to license proprietary dedicated platforms from a single source, often a competitor. Developers who use Open Arcade Architecture specs can choose a supplier for PC hardware from among many, increasing quality and reducing cost.
• Quick Turnaround. When developing for the PC platform, Open Arcade Architecture developers can quickly upgrade hardware, and need only send game operators a CD-ROM for quick software upgrades.
• Customizability. Open Arcade Architecture games can be customized on a per-location basis. Logos can be added, and special upgrades for events or holidays can be added and removed easily.
• Faster Development. Instead of spending valuable time porting the code to the PC, they can focus on making improvements and adding features to the existing game.