Interactive entertainment software producer Digital Animations Plc is is set to float on London’s Alternative Investment Market later this month. The Glasgow, Scotland company has a non-exclusive three-year publishing agreement with Eidos Plc to dev elop a real-time three-dimensional game, Steel Legions, for release this autumn. Up to 256 people can play on-line simultaneously, or a single player on a stand-alone personal computer can play against 255 virtual opponents. Virtual characters stand in for human players and use artificial intelligence to learn real players’ characteristics and personality traits. Software engineers studied military textbooks before programming their robot warriors, but also designed some characters to fight li ke untrained peasants. The game has an almost Stepfordesque quality. When a human enters the game he replaces a character and vice versa. You can enter and leave at any point, and be replaced by a character that has learned to play like you. Marketing director Catriona Paton said the service could be available via dial-up Internet services and players could form teams to play against each other, but the final decision would ultimately rest with Eidos. The software is also being adapted for oth er games, said Ms Paton, such as a multi-player soap opera. Digital hopes to raise about 1.9m British pounds from the placing, which will value the fledgling company at 10m pounds. All capital will be plowed back into the company. Some will fund interactive CD-ROM games titles for personal computers over the next three years, and a research and development unit will be set up on the company’s current site to develop the next generation of interactive games. Ms Paton said development would be geared to broadband cable and digital satellite delivery mechanisms. Venture capital investment trust 3i Plc will maintain its 22% stake in Digital and is to invest a further 350,000 pounds. Ernst & Young will advise the group, and Tilnet & Co has be en nominated stockbroker.
