Kuma Games Tackles Dynamic Storytelling

Kuma Games has teamed up with American Film Institute's (AFI) Digital Content Lab to create customizable TV. Kuma Games is a publisher of free, episodic, web-based, ad-supported games. They have worked with AFI previously on a companion game to The History Channel series Shootout!

The new project, entitled Leaving the Game, was presented at the AFI Digifest 2007 earlier this month. The event showcased new digital and interactive content created for television, mobile devices, games and broadband.

Leaving the Game uses Kuma Games' videogame engine to deliver a customized movie-like experience in real-time to your console or PC. Collaborators on the project included IBM, Cartoon Network, Microsoft, Short Fuze Entertainment, Method, Stage 9, Dogma Designs, Furnace Media and Georgia Institute of Technology.

Keith Halper, CEO of Kuma Games, said, "Leaving the Game uses existing, widely disseminated technology to tell stories in a way which is simply impossible in the linear formats that dominate traditional and digital media today. We don't expect real-time renders like "Leaving the Game" to replace traditional entertainment--rather, we're here to demonstrate how entertainers should expand creative models, not just business models, as they embrace new technology."