Army releases disaster response video game.

• Author: Machi, Vivienne

* A new Army video game is taking soldiers into the heart of foreign disaster zones and delivering real-world training from their laptop or tablet.

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A joint task force--including U.S. Army South, the Army Research Laboratory, the office of foreign disaster assistance and the Army games for training program--has put Disaster Sim into the hands of soldiers after two years of research and development.

Disaster Sim was created by the Army Research Laboratory and programmers from the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California as a cost-effective training tool for company grade officers and mid to junior noncommissioned officers engaged in foreign disaster relief, said Maj. Timothy Migliore, chief of the Army's games for training program.

"The more ways you can involve actually doing the task or the job at hand, the faster you learn," he said.

Hour-long vignettes based on real-world events familiarize users with operational environments they could encounter on the ground, and teach them how to work with the office of foreign disaster assistance, non-governmental agencies and the host country. The initial scenario challenges a soldier to respond to needs in Guatemala after an earthquake.

Although it was developed for Army South, the game's editor authoring tools allow it to be tweaked by developers to assist other organizations at a minimal development cost, said Col. Michael Panko, U.S. Army South...