Intel technologies game: IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces

By Shmuel Gershon (Intel) (23 posts) on February 27, 2009 at 4:33 am

So... Are you a skilled IT Manager? Or, did you ever wondered if you're fit to the job?

Intel has released a new game: IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces.
It is a promotional game, sure, but a very cool one. From the user guide:

In IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces, you play the IT manager of a small company with global ambitions. Part of your job is ensuring that everybody’s desktop PCs, laptops and servers keep running smoothly. A huge number of things can – and will – go wrong. There are dozens of different software and hardware faults to tackle. Sometimes these are easy to repair; sometimes they aren't.

Using a collection of technologies (cooling, security, mobility, multi-core machines) you have to keep the servers running and the people working. Some skills are locked at the beginning, but experience gives you opportunity to add them to your arsenal.
The problems users face range from virus attacks or slow computers to broken disks or strange beeps. And the problems you face range from simultaneous support requests to spam in your inbox.

Unseen Forces
IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces

One nice thing is that your game can be saved in order to continue in later sessions, and another nice thing are the quizzes like "what is the TCP port used for TLS connection with Intel AMT?" (cheating hint: 16993 ;)).

Link to the game: IT Manager 3: Unseen Forces.

 

This is not the first game that includes Intel AMT as a 'weapon' :). In 2005, Intel Crime Scene game was released (see review by Ajay). Unfortunately, the Crime Scene game is disconnected for some reason (the disconnection happened a few months ago, as I played it with my wife recently) :( - I guess after 3.5 years it was out of date :).

 

Update: ITM3:UF was upgraded and include now more options!
See for this link more info.

Categories: Manageability

Comments (21)

February 28, 2009 5:02 AM PST


Bob		 This game looks cool but its soooo bad! I take it Intel didn't hire sid meier to work on this one.
February 28, 2009 9:10 AM PST

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 :) Bob, I am a fan of the Civilization games myself. But I guess building a company infrastructure from scratch and declaring war on other IT fleets is not the image Intel has of IT admins day-to-day work ;).

Anyway, at the beginning the game can be slow, but it get's harder and more fun as you go. I reached 1475 points and was getting already quite involved with the courses and skills one have to develop.
Look at the highscore board (http://www.unseenforces.net/en-us/ranking/default.aspx), there is a guy who reached 462644 points! That's a lot of playing :)
March 12, 2009 12:35 PM PDT

Gastón C. Hillar
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 The game is indeed interesting. Cool :)
March 12, 2009 12:45 PM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 :) Yes, it starts simple but it gets more involving and interesting with the time.
Gastón, will we see your name in the Top 10 leaderboard? (http://itmanager3.intel.com/en-us/ranking/local/default.aspx)
April 16, 2009 4:36 AM PDT


İbrahim Etem Aysu		 Hi, I'm attending IT Manager 3 from Turkey. Now I'm in 8th city (San Fransisco). I developed my all floor, all IT personnel. I educated myself and my IT personnel with all educations. I guess now I can't go another city because 8th city is the final city and I'll be in this city until I give up the idea of playing tihs game. Am I right?
April 16, 2009 4:49 AM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 Wow Ibrahim, that is impressive!
I can't comment on your question because I never reached so far in the game! Congratulations!

What is your position on the Leaderboard high scores chart? Which rank are you on as of now?
If you enter your profile page, it will say your current rank, and will also say the next rank in line.

It is very hard to attain all the ranks -- the leader of the board is, as of now, in rank 15 ('oracle') and is on his way to gain the 16th rank ('architect').
Keep playing and look at the profiles on the high scores -- you'll see medals and badges taht you may not have yet.

Good luck!! :)
April 16, 2009 7:37 AM PDT


İbrahim Etem Aysu		 I was 34th in my country and between 100th and 140th in the world a few days ago. That was very exciting, I had 152000 points and 2500000 intel money, all the technologies was opened and all IT personnels was educated, I can't open only three medals. Now I'm not playing because I can't go another office. There is no changing, there is no exciting :) so I said my previous message, I bored and I gave up the game.

But thanks to Intel, this game almost like an IT teacher's life in Turkey. You can fixed everything but nobody thanks to you and nobody satisfied with your job. This is incredible. So I can say this game like my family too. May be it is the reason that I gave up the game. Because my life is too boring when I am in my workplace.

Anyway, nice game, nice company. And thanks Shmuel Gerson for answering me.

Have e good day...
April 16, 2009 9:08 AM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 Wow, 100th in the world is a nice rank.

The game do becomes more exciting with time. And you are right when you say that the game immitates much of what happens in a real IT environment. Except, maybe, for the fact that you can play it while drinking your own tasty coffe from your home :).

Although you still had a lot to go (the leader in the high scores has got more than 800000 points), I understand that when one is done with the missions, one may get bored and move on to another game -- hey the same happenned to me after I finished the GTA SA missions ;).

Stay tuned, Intel has a lot of gaming things going on.
This year's game development contest is already running at: http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/levelup2009/contests.php
2008 winners (with downloads!) are at: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/spotlight-on-the-20.....t-winners/
And 2007 winners (with downloads!) are at: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/intel-game-demo-contest-winners/

There you go -- plenty of games to play, now it'll be hard to get bored :)
April 16, 2009 9:34 AM PDT


İbrahim Etem Aysu		 What did I say?

"Anyway, nice game, nice company. And thanks Shmuel Gerson for answering me."

You ask one question and take answers more than one. Because of this, Intel is a 1st. Absolutely satisfyingly.

By the way Mr Gershon, sorry for my English grammar faults. You know, I have learnt English in a school but I have learnet speaking English by Lost, Prison Break, Supernatural, Heroes, 4400 :). Now I discovered the other one: speaking with Intel's IT employees (Don't worry, it's a joke :) )

Thanks for everything, especially consumer support.
April 16, 2009 4:09 PM PDT


İbrahim Etem Aysu		 Hey, it's me again :)

I have an idea about ITM^3. I have about three million intel money. Why I can't spend this money for a car, a yacht, a house, a horse or why I can't have a girlfriend. We always working and working and all game is passing between 9:00 and 18:00. Maybe a new time interval between 18:00 and 22:00 and we can find something for enjoying ourselves and we can buy something new.

Is it possible?
April 19, 2009 5:15 AM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 Ibrahim, that's actually a good idea. Not only the game would develop into a geeky 'Sims', but there could be tasks such as "explaining to mom what your work is". :)

Sincerely I think it is hard that anyone would insert features in the game... :)
But you got me curious -- I'll try to discover who developed the game, maybe he can write about the process and the decisions they took.
May 12, 2009 11:23 AM PDT


adam		 All I can do in city 2 is train myself and staff members - no offices! Level 1 worked just fine
May 13, 2009 12:53 AM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 Adam, try to explore a bit more of the environment, maybe there are other floors or places?
Other players were able to go far beyond the 2nd city.

On the other hand, it might be a glitch in the game functioning.
If you believe this is the case, you can fill a support request at http://supportmail.intel.com/scripts-emf/welcome.aspx?id= . Maybe it would be useful if you included your player name in the request, so they can try to track the problem.

(Select Programs and Services / Web Services / Intel Software Network / Report a problem, as the product area)

Thanks for playing and participating!
May 17, 2009 6:12 AM PDT

leajones
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 I have the same problem as adam, no offices just a black screen with green lines on it. I cant even train. help!!!
May 17, 2009 12:53 PM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 Lea Jones,
Can you try to fill a support request at the link I posted in my previous comment:
Unfortunately I can't help with this technical problems :(.

http://supportmail.intel.com/scripts-emf/welcome.aspx?id= .
(Select Programs and Services / Web Services / Intel Software Network / Report a problem, as the product area)
Maybe it would be useful if you included your player name in the request, so they can try to track the problem.

Anyway, according to the numbers in the leaderboard, it seems like a big number of people are able to play, and pass, this stage. Good luck!
June 6, 2009 2:41 PM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 Hey, all of you with problems in the game -- the game was upgraded to a newer version (see link: http://origin-software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2009/06/06/new-.....en-forces/).

Please try again, the problems that got you stuck may be fixed now :).
June 23, 2009 12:45 AM PDT


mietek sztacheta		 Hey guys. I would like to ask U if U know of any way to speed up gathering of the points. I'm at the net prophet level atm and the points are going very slow, like 1k points per in game day. I'm wondering if spending money on the security ( since u can just spam click it in 1 comp, so its fast and u can do that while fixing other problems ) would increase the flow of the points cuz right now i have like 700 milions in budget and nothing to do with it. Thanks for any advices.
August 6, 2009 12:51 AM PDT

oscar.aranagmail.com
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 Hey guys. I had a problem with the game. My player name is RACSOFT. I managed to get to level 12 (Trojan Shogun) and 6 cities. I was in the game, then I received a call and I had to leave my office. I saved and paused the game. I would just leave for 30 minutes. When I got back I found a message that said "Your IT Manager had a Break Down.... GAME OVER". I thought "OK NO PROBLEM, I WILL RELOAD MY SAVED GAME", but when I reloaded it, the game was on the very beginning (first city, level 1), I did really had a break down !!.

What can I do ? Is there a way to get back until my last saved state ?

Thanks in advance.
August 6, 2009 1:35 AM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 @ Mietek:
I am not aware of any special technique (or of any cheat :) ) to speed up points.

Myself, I didn't make it to Net Prophet, so I can't feel your pain and/or confirm if this is the way it goes. Any super expert out there cares to answer Mietek and tell him if there's some other ability he needs to foster?

What you describe reminds me of other games, too, Mietek :).
Like WoW, where the first levels go quickly and then they slow down and moving from level 65 to 66 takes as much time as jumping from 4 to 14 :).

Good luck!
August 6, 2009 1:40 AM PDT

Shmuel Gershon (Intel)
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 @Oscar, hi!

Ouch, that must hurt :(
I am sorry, but I have no answer to this problem. Are you sure it was on 'pause'? Maybe there's a bug somewhere?

Let me suggest, at least, that you fill a suport request at http://supportmail.intel.com/scripts-emf/welcome.aspx?id= .
(Select Programs and Services / Web Services / Intel Software Network / Report a problem, as the product area)
Maybe it would be useful if you included your player name (RACSOFT) in the request, so they can try to track the problem (please add the full description you wrote above, too).
November 27, 2009 3:26 AM PST


Kate		 There is a good article on the game on http://bit.ly/6fgIxJ
I think that it would be good to have a game like this for other sectors - why only IT?

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