Kuma Games today revealed to GameDaily BIZ that they have concluded a partnership with the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI). They have joined forces to create episodic accounts of stories based upon real life missions of Marine and Navy personnel. The USNI episodes will be available for free download (at either USNI.org or the official Kuma website) starting this Friday.

"We've known the guys at the U.S. Naval Institute for a number of years, so we've been looking to work together for a while," Keith Halper, CEO of Kuma Games told GameDaily BIZ. "For our part, we've been telling the tales of soldiers for a long time, and this gives us a chance to give a more detailed account by tapping directly into stories of Marines returning from Iraq. We hope that by teaming up with the U.S. Naval Institute, we can make recalling these events significant for a new generation of servicemen."

The first episode in this new series is titled "Workman." It recreates the events surrounding the titular Marine's mission as he braved grenade blasts and intense enemy fire to rescue his fellow Marines trapped by two-dozen insurgents. For his bravery, he earned the Navy Cross, the highest honor of the Navy.

The "Workman" episode running on the Source engine

"With the vast majority of real world events we've tried to recreate, it's optimum to get access to the people that were there and not a secondhand account by a member of the press corp," said Dante Anderson, Director of Product Development at Kuma. "The stories the AP and Reuters guys run are very cursory on the tactics, which is fine for the audience they're writing for, but for us it's important to have the details of what went down. So access to guys who were on the ground really helps."

"The U.S. Naval Institute has a close relationship with the sailors and Marines, so we'll be able to get more intimate details than ever before. They'll also help provide historical context of what went on, so we're really happy with this deal," added Halper. "Putting together the pieces, recreating events in 3D using multiple accounts, is very intriguing. We think this will shed light on the history that's unfolding."

For its part, Kuma has been pushing episodic gaming for nearly the past four years. They've built up over 125 episodes of their various titles, some tied to the History Channel, and this latest episode "Workman" marks the 85th episode of Kuma\War. They also recently started employing the Source Engine (known for its use in Valve's Half-Life 2), upgrading the graphical capabilities of this latest game.

"They way we see it, we're a TV network that has games instead of shows. When users download the games, we show a couple of ads; it's that simple. They get all these games in this game client, and a new release every Friday. People have their favorite 'shows' but they'll often try out our other stuff. In the end, the reason that people stay with us is the content," explained Halper.

He added, "Fox News recently did something about a week ago called V for Valor about bravery in the field. They came to us and they asked if we had anything on the event they were covering. We recognized the event and we provided some machinima for them. There were no cameras there, so our recreation was the closet thing to the event. That's yet another way we're connected to TV."

Some have actively questioned the good taste in recreating events where American soldiers had died just days before. When asked about the reactions by soldiers and families of those close to the events, Halper responded, "We haven't gotten much feedback from families. As for the soldiers, they have been pretty supportive of it. Most of the reaction we've gotten is about the accuracy of the missions. How things look, saying we've gotten everything down but the smell. Things like that."