Inside KOMRAD

November 25, 2015 Patrick Hickey Jr. Video Games 0

Former Chief Design Officer of IBM’s sophisticated AI platform, Watson, Brad Becker discusses his upcoming Apple Watch and iOS game, “KOMRAD.” Breaking down the development process, as well as his hopes for the title, Becker gives us the skinny on this nifty “conversation game.”

About KOMRAD, Courtesy of Sentient Play:

Your phone or Apple Watch chimes with a text message from an unknown number. In broken English, you’re informed that your online accounts have been hijacked — passwords changed, identity stolen. You can get it all back in return for a simple task: hack into a Russian computer untouched since the 1980s and probe it for useful information. How, exactly? That’s where your people skills come in, because K.O.M.R.A.D. isn’t any ordinary computer — it’s an experimental Soviet artificial intelligence that doesn’t know the Cold War ended.

Playing out as a real-time conversation between you and the roused AI, K.O.M.R.A.D. is a psychological narrative game based on real history and real technology. What does a Cold War era computer know, what assumptions will it make, and how can you gain its trust? Find out through brief text exchanges delivered via push notifications over several days. If you manage to make K.O.M.R.A.D. your ally, you can use this powerful technology for good. And if you fail, well, the fallout might be nuclear.

Inspired by 1980s text adventures and gamebooks, conversation games such as K.O.M.R.A.D. will tell stories via interactive dialogues optimized for Apple Watch and other mobile devices, in short bursts convenient for playing on the go and with branching outcomes that tailor consequences to players’ choices. K.O.M.R.A.D. will be the first release from the newly-formed Sentient Play, a lab Becker founded to explore the potential of interaction between people and advanced technology such as virtual reality, wearables, and AI.

Patrick Hickey Jr.: What has the development process been like?

Brad Becker: A lot of work! Developing for new technology always complicates things. But this was much more work because I essentially built the game three times from scratch: in HTML, then as a prototype app for the Apple Watch, and now as a real platform for conversation games with a full backend, multiple front ends, authoring tools, etc. I added additional developers to speed things up and to help ensure the game is a really good experience for players.

Continue Reading This Article From Review Fix Editor-In-Chief Patrick Hickey Jr. at Examiner.com

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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