Twintime is first artificial technology customer

EKI One middleware enhances “Odessa Twins”

Puchheim, 20 August 2008: The time has come! The first computer game to employ Artificial Technology GmbH’s innovative modular middleware EKI One (emotional & artificial intelligence) is under development. The award-winning technology created by the company from Puchheim near Munich is seeing its debut application in a game which is, quite literally, fabulous: the mystery game “Odessa Twins” by Twintime Software & Entertainment GmbH. This new Hamburg-based game design studio is relying on the three components of the EKI One system – Engine, Configurator and Support – to make its mystical adventure game even more realistic.

“We are very happy to be working together with Artificial Technology GmbH,” states Dieter Eichert, CEO of Twintime Software & Entertainment GmbH. “After performing extensive search, we are confident that Artificial’s highly motivated, capable and creative team is the perfect partner for us to turn ‘Odessa Twins’ into an entirely new kind of gaming experience. Artificial Technology will add a key ingredient to our prototype: artificial intelligence. Coupled with a captivating storyline and an all-new type of game control, this gives ‘Odessa Twins’ the edge with an unprecedented level of excitement and suspense.” The main character in “Odessa Twins” is Zorana, a 16-year-old girl with supernatural powers.

Hunted by evil forces trying to capture and abduct her, she has to make her way across perilous mountain ranges and through dense and treacherous jungles. Sheer suspense is guaranteed, as the game’s development team includes experienced producers, skilled storytellers and professional action and 3D designers. “Twintime is a great client, and ‘Odessa Twins’ is ideal for premiering EKI One,” Artificial Technology CEO Frank Gwosdz enthuses. “Our new middleware will make heroine Zorana’s escape an even more thrilling journey for the players.” Thus, a childhood dream is coming true for EKI One’s founders, Frank Gwosdz, Serein Pfeiffer and Daniel Renner.

Dedicated gamers and computer science graduates, they have long wished for virtual worlds to become more authentic and for their inhabitants to be more realistic and intelligent. They want to experience the story together with the characters and share the emotions of joy, anger, desire, rage and sorrow. They dream of games that have much more depth. The dream spawned a business idea. The group of friends set out to develop a software solution for video and computer games and founded Artificial Technology. Their product, the modular middleware EKI One, enables programmers and designers to give computer-generated characters intelligent and emotional behavior and thus make them much more life-like.

Apart from representing a clear technological advantage, the three components, EKI One Engine, EKI One Configurator and EKI One Suppport, reduce development cycles and therefore reduce game development costs. With this innovative solution for swift and efficient integration of artificial and emotional intelligence in computer and video games, Artificial Technology GmbH has already garnered several awards, as well as substantial support. Most recently the team, which now consists of ten members, received the LARA START-UP AWARD 2008 sponsored by the Bavarian Ministry of Economics, after being included in the EXIST Seed support program of the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. And perhaps, EKI One will pave the way for Artificial’s customers to join the ranks of the award winners.