"Information within Defence tends to be silo-driven and there is often not a lot of communication so we might have, say, a Brigadier playing a journalist. There will be a dramatic role play component that also requires technical innovations such as text to speech, using advanced avatars, and we are attempting to create a toolbox to create new scenarios quickly."

The software will be developed in partnership between the Australian Defence Force and Charles Sturt University. The ARC has funded A$110,000 (US$84,600) for the first year, $109,000 for the second and $86,000 for the third and final year when the game is expected to be fully tested and finalized.

Terry Bossomaier, CSU Professor of Computing Science, said the university currently has one honor student developing the game engine to run on multiprocessor machines as well as a new game engine developed in Java.

"We are basically looking at being able to provide an avatar on a screen which will enable a player to communicate in a game as realistically as possible so we need to capture gestures and the emotional content such as speech," Bossomaier said.

"We will eventually provide avatars with audible speech that provides the interface side of the game and use a lot of dynamics within the game of crisis events such as the progress of a flood as just one scenario."