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Virtual Heroes, Inc.
Company typeDeveloper
IndustrySerious Game Development
FoundedRaleigh, North Carolina, 2004
Key people
Jerry Heneghan (Founder)
Randy Brown(Division Manager)
ProductsHumanSim, Unreal Engine Licensing, After-Action Review, GO Platform, Interaction Editor, Unreal Network (UGN), Unreal Web Player, Dynamic Terrain, Real-Time Physics, Terrain Databases
Number of employees
~40
ParentApplied Research Associates
Websitehttp://www.virtualheroes.com/

Virtual Heroes, Inc. is a serious game developer in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA. It was founded in 2004.

Organization

Virtual Heroes, Inc. was founded by Jerry Heneghan, formerly at Tom Clancy's Red Storm Entertainment and Research Triangle Institute (RTI).

In 2009, Applied Research Associates acquired Virtual Heroes.

Products

Virtual Heroes develops a variety of products and licensable IP that are sold generally within the commercial, medical and healthcare marketplaces. Product list includes:

1. Humansim Combat Medic: a state-of-the-art training and simulation tool for medical education that uses a 3D, collaborative virtual environment customized to combat medic needs addressing injuries associated with preventable deaths on the modern battlefield.

2. HumanSim Critical Decisions: A skins game which allows nurses to practice assessment, prevention and treatment of patient conditions related to patient skin integrity and pressure ulcers. The game features After-Action review to score the player.

3. HumanSim Mission Biotech: Game used to teach students about concepts, procedures, and tools used in real biotechnology laboratories.

4. HumanSim Sedation & Airway: Sedation and Airway tool that accurately reproduces patient vital signs during airway trauma, pain management and anesthesia induction. Couples with Virtual Heroes physiology engine to create an immersive training environment to educate personnel in trauma treatment scenarios for airway trauma.

5. HumanSim Zero Hour: Video game designed to train and exercise first responders to respond to mass casualty incidents such as earthquakes and terrorist attacks.

6. Unreal Engine Licensing: ARA/Virtual Heroes is partnered with Epic Games to offer UE licensing. With Epic, Virtual Heroes built the Unreal Government Network (UGN) - a portal for the government user of Unreal® technology. This support channel is the mechanism for government contractors and users to become part of a larger community of developers, and receive premium support from the experienced professionals at Virtual Heroes.

7. After-Action Review: After-Action Review or AAR is a post-training activity focusing on performance standards and objectives. AARs enable trainees to discover what happened, why it happened, and how to sustain strengths and improve on weaknesses.

8. GO Platform: The ARA-Virtual Heroes ‘GO’ platform is a browser-based single/multi-player immersive training and education platform based on the Epic Games Unreal® Engine 3. GO consists of a series of ActiveX/Netscape plugins that contain the Unreal Engine connected to back-end computer server infrastructure.

9. Interaction Editor: Virtual Interaction & Conversation Editor or VICE is a graphically-based software system for creating dynamic conversations and action branches in applications using the Unreal Engine. VICE is composed of two major components – the Conversation Editor and the Conversation Engine.

10. Unreal Engine Licensing: Unreal Government Network or UGN is the official site for government licensees of the award-winning Unreal Engine real-time technology.

11. Unreal Web Player: The ARA Unreal Engine 3 Web Player is a revolutionary PC browser plug-in that, allows content created with the Unreal Engine 3 (UE3) to be streamed to and run within a web browser. The plug-in capability was developed for the Air Force, to serve as a foundation for delivering realistic 3D simulations and training courses to AF service members.

12. Dynamic Terrain: The Shared Architecture for Dynamic Environment (SHADE) provides extensible, reusable dynamic environment capabilities to the US ARMY modeling and simulation community.

13. Real-Time Physics: The Real-time Physics Effects Library (RPEL) is an RDECOM-STTC funded effort that aims to advance the state of the art in live, virtual, and constructive modeling of weapons, weather, and other physical effects.

14. Terrain Databases: The Rapid Unified Generation of Urban Databases (RUGUD) application is designed to generate correlated terrain databases from real-world Geographic Information System (GIS) data. RUGUD development is directed by the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) Simulation and Training Technology Center (STTC), and is freely available for government-funded terrain database development.

Projects

Virtual Heroes' initial projects focused on creating new technology and content for the U.S. Army game America's Army.

3Di Teams

Main article: 3DiTeams

3DiTeams was developed in collaboration with Duke University Medical Center and used for medical education and team training.[1][2] The game is intended for training and exercising of medical teams of practitioners of many levels of clinical expertise.[3] The scope of practice of the tools in the game are geared toward care of a trauma patient and the interpersonal communications that surround the patient's care. The training is based on the United States Department of Defense Patient Safety Program and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's TeamSTEPPS curriculum.[4][5] In 2006, the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC), a division of the United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, funded a one-year $249,530 award to support the "3DiTeams: Gaming Environment for Training Healthcare Team Coordination Skills" study.[6] The team was also awarded a 2-year $291,248 grant from the NIH Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality for their study on "Virtual Health Care Environments Versus Traditional Interactive Team Training."[7][8]

Virtual Peace

The company was a co-recipient of a McArthur Fellowship Grant to create a serious game intended to train Non-governmental organizations entitled "Virtual Peace". [citation needed]

Zero Hour: America's Medic

Main article: Zero Hour: America's Medic

Zero Hour: America's Medic was described by Wired Magazine as 'training first responders for real-life natural disasters and terrorist attacks.[9] The project was developed with George Washington University's Office of Homeland Security on a 4.8 Million dollar grant from the Department of Homeland Security.[10]

Moonbase Alpha

Main article: Moonbase Alpha (video game)

Moonbase Alpha provides a realistic simulation of life on a natural satellite based on potential moon base programs. It was made by the Army Game Studio, developers of America's Army, and Virtual Heroes, Inc. in conjunction with NASA Learning Technologies. The game was released on July 6, 2010, as a free download on Steam.[11] Moonbase Alpha was designed as a tech demo to test ideas to be used in Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond, NASA's massively multiplayer online game.[12] It was also designed to encourage an interest in space exploration in school children.[12] At the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in 2010, the games won the top honors in the government category of the Serious Game Showcase & Challenge.

References

  1. ^ Taekman Jeffrey M, Segall Noa, Hobbs Gene W, and Wright Melanie C. (2007). "3DiTeams – Healthcare team training in a virtual environment". Anesthesiology. 107 :A2145.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Taekman Jeffrey M, Segall Noa, Hobbs Gene W, and Wright Melanie C. (2008). "3DiTeams – Healthcare team training in a virtual environment". The Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. 3 (5 Supplement:112).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  3. ^ Rupinta, Amber (2008-03-03). "Medical students using games to practice". WTVD. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  4. ^ Learning Systems (2008-12-01). "The Virtual Heroes Healthcare Learning System". Coggno. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  5. ^ "TeamSTEPPS web site". Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  6. ^ "News and Events: Taekman and Wright receive TATRC Funding". Duke Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  7. ^ "Games for Health: report from the games for health conference" (PDF). remedylimited.com. 2008. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  8. ^ Taekman, Jeffrey M. "Virtual Health Care Environments Versus Traditional Interactive Team Training Grant number: HS016653-01". Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Retrieved 2009-06-30.
  9. ^ Gaudiosi, John (2008-06-23). "Zero Hour Trains EMTs With Virtual Worst-Case Scenarios". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 2009-07-01. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  10. ^ Hom, Kathleen (2009-03-31). "Video Game Gives First Responders Advance Look at Emergencies". Washington Post. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
  11. ^ "Moonbase Alpha on Steam". steampowered.com. Retrieved 2010-11-09.
  12. ^ a b "A 3-D Immersive NASA Exploration Game". Retrieved 2011-02-14.
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