Kynogon, the leading supplier of A.I. middleware solutions, confirmed today that Kynapse is being used by Real Time Worlds to develop Crackdown. Conceived by David Jones, creator of the Lemmings and Grand Theft Auto series, this Xbox 360 exclusive title “is the evolution of the free-roaming formula gamers have been waiting for.” (Game Informer, October 2005).

The title’s completely nonlinear and freeform gameplay makes A.I. an interesting challenge for Crackdown. The city is a highly interactive, vast open world with large numbers of destructible objects. Verticality also plays a major role: Crackdown is a play volume where the city spreads up. On top of that, it is a living city with civilians and vehicles to be contended with.

“Kynapse made our job a lot easier” says Stig Petersen at Real Time Worlds “It brought us out-of-the-box solutions to the complex path finding issues we were facing. Kynapse 3D dynamic topology analysis also allowed us to implement smart enemy behaviors. The game would not be the same without Kynapse, as we saved several months of work on the underlying AI system, so that we could focus on developing custom high-level behaviors and, above all, on making the game fun.”

The Crackdown production process also has to cope with the huge size and vast complexity of the city. “Kynapse automatic data generation was a big relief for our production process” continues Mr. Petersen.

Pierre Pontevia, Kynogon CEO explains, "Crackdown is delivering what is going to be the future of free-roaming titles. We are proud to be part of their effort in putting emphasis on revolutionary gameplay. Crackdown has an incredible potential to offer new experiences to gamers.”

(source kynogon)

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