Sailors are going to learn how to read another person's verbal cues and body language with a Kinect training game meant to curb a sexual harrassment/assault issue that has become increasingly embarrassing to the armed services.


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Like all great things in the military, this game has a very literal and no-fun title: "Avatar Based Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Training." I'm surprised they didn't just acronymize it to ABSAPRT, though God knows how you'd pronounce that. In any case, Avatar Based Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Training allows participants to act through scripted scenarios, with the avatars swappable by gender and race, in varying environments and scenarios. It'll be used at the Navy's boot camp at Great Lakes.


The developer is an outfit called Organic Motion, Inc., which has done other training games for the military in the past. It's part of an $86,000 government contract.

Navy using Kinect game to address sexual assault [GameSpot. Image by Associated Press.]