Village Gamer

Modern Princesses: Bringing Elika to Life in Prince of Persia

Vancouver – ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver Chapter will be hosting an evening with Ubisoft Producer Ben Mattes and Team Leader Matthew Clark on Wednesday, February 11 at the VanCity Theatre in Vancouver. The evening’s topic will cover the design and development of Elika, the Prince of Persia’s new AI-controlled companion. As stated on the event’s information page, “The science of creating a relationship between the player and the controllable, main character is a well-documented one. (3Cs, etc.) The same can be said about the art of establishing relationships between characters themselves. Therefore, the challenge for Prince of Persia was to create a bond between the player and a character over which he has no control. The presentation will explore and expose the animation and programming techniques used to create such a bond.”

Tickets for this event are now on sale, please check the event site for more details. Admission is $20.00 for non-members, $10.00 for members.

Vancouver – The new Women In Games International (Vancouver) Chapter will be hosting a social networking evening during the upcoming Game Design Expo. Women In Games International will be presenting a panel discussion at Vancouver Film School’s Open House about – Women In Games – on Sunday, February 8th. There will also be an announcement from the group in regards to a new $30 000.00 scholarship fund for VFS’ Game Design Programme. Please note that both days of the 2009 Game Design Expo are sold out.

The mixer will be held at Digital Alchemy Entertainment’s studio in Gastown. Those who are interested in attending, please RSVP on WIGI-Vancouver’s FaceBook event page. There are sponsorship opportunities for this event; interested companies or individuals are asked to contact Maria [at] radical [dot] ca. There will be drinks and appetizers along with some music and good conversation.

First Annual Game Developers Conference® Canada Announced: May 12-13, 2009, Vancouver, BC

Vancouver – Registration is now open for the Game Developers Conference® Canada (GDC Canada). Building off of the success of the Vancouver International Games Summit (VIGS), GDC Canada will be a forum for Canadian developers to share best practices for fostering ingenuity and quality games. Presented by Think Services Games Group and Reboot Communications, GDC Canada will take place May 12-13, 2009 at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre (VCEC) in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Conference is offering a special registration period for those who have attended past VIGS events. Paid conference delegates to either the 2007 or 2008 VIGS are entitled to special alumni savings of up to 25% on conference passes. Those who qualify for Alumni Rates will receive an email directly from GDC Canada which will give further registration details.

GDC Canada Conference Tracks

The Game Developers Conference® Canada emphasizes studying the challenges and opportunities of creating games with long production cycles, large development teams, and multi-platform releases. Unique to GDC Canada’s content lineup, is its focus on the production cycle of game development with tracks focused on:

• Concept/Preproduction
• Production
• Finalling
• Post Launch/Analysis

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Video Game Play and Addiction – A Guide For Parents
Author: Kourosh Dini, MD
April 2008
151 pages

Update: Video Game Play & Addiction has received a 2009 Silver Award from Mom’s Choice Awards in the Resources category.

This book impressed me from the moment I cracked the cover and began reading. Kourosh Dini has written the most comprehensive, wide-view truth about game play and addiction book that I have read to-date.

In no way is this book stuffy or full of statistics and scientific mumbo-jumbo; instead, Dini uses a common-sense approach to the topic, but he does not limit his discussion solely to children who are addicted to video games. He begins by talking about the positive aspects of gaming, and why humans like to game – to learn and to enjoy the aspects of play in our lives. Play and Addiction gets extra points from me because the author discusses the fact that our school systems are very outdated and no longer meet the needs of our tech-savvy children.

Parents are also encouraged to be an active part of their child’s game play – observe, participate – learn and play together. I think that this is a very important section of the book, because as parents in a high-achievement oriented business world, time to play and connect with our children can often become a lower priority. One of the biggest benefits of following Dini’s suggestions is that we remain able to converse with our children, to know who they are, what they are doing, and why they like to play the games they do.
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