The “serious games” industry continues to grow. Sandia National Laboratories has announced [1] a prototype project called “Ground Truth,” which is an interactive game aimed at preparing incident commanders and first responders for weapons of mass destruction/weapons of mass effect (WMD/WME) attacks in cities.

Sandia’s computer scientists are working with the University of Southern California’s Gamepipe Laboratory on the game. According to Sandia, Gamepipe Laboratory has a number of students studying serious gaming tools.

Sandia computer scientist Donna Djordjevich worked on the game and says gaming is a great fit for first responders accustomed to being on the scene.

The current “Ground Truth” scenario is a chlorine spill. Users are thrown into the disaster and required to organize resources to mitigate the damage. Sandia says “Ground Truth” calls to mind the “Sim City” city-building simulation game. 

WABC7 has reported [2] that $600,000 has already been pumped into the project. Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration Laboratory.

"Ground Truth" isn't the only recent "serious" homeland security training game; this year also saw the release of "Incident Commander," designed by Breakaway Ltd. [3] and commissioned by the National Institute of Justice. Read more about it in the October print edition of Security Management.