John Williamson looked relaxed as his Humvee sat on the side of the road, even though he eyed a broken-down truck not far ahead and knew that in a moment it would explode, ripping up one of the vehicles in Williamson's Army convoy.

Sure enough, the lead Humvee in his convoy sped past the truck, which exploded, causing the military vehicle to slump to one side, two tires flattened by the insurgents' roadside bomb.

The scene soon disappeared from three giant screens in a darkened basement of a downtown Seattle office building.

It's the home of Zombie Studios, a video-game-development company Williamson heads, where developers are pioneering a project to use consumer electronics and video-game technology to create the "Convoy Skills Engagement Trainer" under contract with the Army.

The goal is to train troops to identify improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, and better respond when a convoy vehicle is attacked — and ultimately save lives. IEDs are the leading cause of death among U.S. soldiers in Iraq, according to the Defense Department.

If soldiers were to experience such a simulated attack before they mounted a real convoy, fewer of them might be killed overseas, Williamson says.

Under a contract worth more than $100,000 from the Army Game Project, Williamson and a team of about 10 people built the simulator with hardware purchased at local electronics stores. The company hopes to show the Army it's the best and least-expensive way to train troops for convoy situations.

Though Zombie Studios is better known for making consumer shooter games, such as "Shadow Ops" and "Spec Ops," Williamson hopes the Army will expand the contract so he can send simulators to Army units all over the world.

But Zombie Studios faces an uphill battle. Lockheed Martin last year built a similar convoy trainer under a multimillion-dollar Army contract. Those simulators already have been used to train 16,000 soldiers, said Warren Wright, a Lockheed Martin spokesman.

Nonetheless, Williamson claims his system is more realistic, more engaging, more portable — and far less expensive. Williamson says his video-game trainers would cost less than $100,000 each, while the military has spent about $18.9 million for 16 Lockheed simulators, which are built into 53-foot trailers.

Retired Army Maj. Chris Chambers, now deputy director of the Army Game Project, contends that consumer and video-game technology is the way to go for such simulators.

"We've been striving to make this for quite a while," Chambers said.

Once completed, the Zombie project will have six or eight screens forming a 360-degree view that could be easily boxed up and shipped overseas, Williamson said. Troops could use it to safely train in a virtual world that mimics the one around them.

Soldiers would board a real Humvee surrounded by the screens, and an instructor would load a program to show landscape similar to one troops would encounter on a real mission. The instructor then could choose different types of encounters soldiers could have by ordering the program to generate snipers, IEDs and insurgents.

Each trainee would use a gun made to look and feel like the one they would use in the field, except they would shoot laser light picked up by the program.

By altering the maps, situations and time of day, soldiers could be trained to avoid suspicious situations and react properly when attacked.

"Once you wrap that screen around, and you get really good sound you get immersed," Chambers said. "You mentally make the leap that you're in this game. It's really amazing."

Brian Alexander: 206-464-2349 or balexander@seattletimes.com