Human Soft's New 3D RPG Tech

Human Soft is bringing two new PC gaming technologies to the developer table with its announcement of the SEED engine and Magic 4s RPG system.

SEED adds a fourth dimension to 3D games with a new approach to shadows and lighting. Human will put its money where its mouth is when it releases a first-person shooter demo, also called SEED, in October to compete with engines from id and Epic. What's the big deal? SEED teases gamers by having shadows transform into creatures, some of which can only be seen in certain types of light or through puzzles you'll solve by aligning shadows with solid objects. Sounds pretty ambitious so far.

Magic 4s (pronounced "magic force" seeks to free role-playing games from the standard constraints of branched logic by allowing players to do "anything, anytime, anywhere" during the course of a quest. Human Soft's president Gabor K. Kadas says, "The solution to a puzzle isn't hard-wired into the game itself. So unlike most games, where players have to think the way the game designer thought or they won't be able to solve the puzzle, the Magic 4s engine looks at the overall effects of a player's action and proceeds accordingly.

"For example: Let's say you confront a guard who's standing in front of a locked gate. In most games, a few preprogrammed options are available: attacking the guard to get the key, casting a spell of friendliness to get the guard to open the door, and so forth. With the Magic 4s engine, game designers don't have to explicitly program any of those scenarios. Instead, programmers define parameters for the encounter - the guard's personality, the door's material, whether others are present (and their personalities) - and let the chips fall where they may."

To show off the Magic 4s engine, Human is developing a game called Chaos Kingdom to showcase its features at E3. You can also take a look at a technology demo that the company has publicly available at its web site.