Village Gamer

Surrey – KrabbitSoft is pleased to announce that KrabbitWorld Origins is now available on Direct2Drive for both Windows and Mac for $14.95. KrabbitSoft has burst out of the gate at full speed, garnering kudos from journalists, gamers and even lawyers. The Davis LLP blog says that “Indie developer Krabbitsoft has done what some thought was impossible, developing and releasing an exciting, graphics-laden Action/RPG based on their own IP.”

Furious hack n’ slash combines with customizable Krabbits and choice to play in Story Mode or Battle Modes including Arcade, Versus, Team and Survival. Six playable Krabbits can be leveled up to 99 in sandbox or linear gameplay style. No grind and loot aplenty, characters level quickly in Story Mode, gaining XP with every action. Building your Krabbit doesn’t stop at level 99. Continue building powers to 999. Character building includes gaining XP, building stats, and changing appearance any time. 3D drag n’ drop inventory and paper doll windows are featured along with account share bins, colour cloning bins, dye vendor, click map to travel and Ruby Slippers of ‘return to Adobe’.

KrabbitWorld Origins is a creative game focused on colour. Players are encouraged to experiment with dying their Krabbits to their heart’s content. Choose from 8 Realms of Origin colour palettes to design a Krabbit influenced by Darkness or Light, Death or Dreams, Solar or Contrivance, Beast or Archetypical KrabbitWorld. Transfer your Krabbits from an earlier version to a newer version or from laptop to desktop PC. Re-install a new version over an older one and still retain your already leveled Krabbits.

New Features This Week:
• Brutal Moves
• Built-in Patcher
• Elemental Bracers & Weapons Packs

There are still a few tickets left for Wednesday evening’s SIGGRAPH Vancouver presentation of Bringing Dragon Age to Life. BioWare’s Lead Animator Clove Roy and Lead Character Artist Shane Hawco discuss the challenges faced in creating digital actors for BioWare’s newest award-winning role-playing epic Dragon Age: Origins. This presentation will provide an in-depth look in how to tell a huge complex story through an interactive narrative complete with hundreds of emotionally engaging digital actors. I am so not missing this session – and tonight I am playing through the Final Onslaught and taking on the Archdemon for the first time. Soon all of you will be able to find out my thoughts on the entire game. If you missed my first 48-ish hours in Dragon Age, you can catch up here.

Montreal – As Day One of MIGS gets underway, all reports thus far say the seminars have been fantastic – along with the weather. Eidos Montreal kicked off their MIGS week with a very successful open house event which saw over 500 guests come through the studio – and get a few glimpses at Deus Ex 3 and Thief 4 goings-on. I’m feeling just a touch of envy here.

Also in Montreal, Bug-Tracker has announced that Wolfgang Klingel is its new General Sales Manager for Europe. This move closely follows Bug-Tracker’s expansion strategy into Asia and Europe and its ever increasing focus on those critical markets.

With over 15 years’ experience in the video game industry, Wolfgang Klingel will be responsible for extending the company’s foothold in the European video game market as well as strengthening its exposure to the publishers and developers in this area. Klingel’s duties will involve collaborating and developing synergies between the North American and Asian studios in order to improve communication throughout the whole group and thus enhancing overall customer satisfaction. Klingel’s past experience includes Director of Development at Vivendi Games’ Coktel Studio and Vice-President Europe of Enzyme Testing Labs, another major quality assurance and localization company, and helped contribute to its successful development.

“Wolfgang will greatly help reinforce and grow our presence in the market we started out in 10 years ago” declared Antoine Carre, founder and CEO. “He will bring together and integrate key components of Bug-Tracker’s worldwide studios, in order to shape, lead and create new market opportunities. Adding an accomplished European video game business veteran such as Wolfgang to our team demonstrates our commitment to continuously fortify our leadership role in the QA and localization industry.”

Calgary via Digital Alberta – Alberta’s minister of culture says the province’s film industry will finally be getting its own state-of-the-art film studio after reaching an “agreement in principle” with the owners of the Canada Olympic Park site to purchase land for a new facility.  The studio, which is estimated to cost $26 million not including the purchase of the land, will be built on four hectares to be purchased from WinSport Canada, which operates Canada Olympic Park. Blackett says he hopes to start building in the spring, but stressed that negotiations between WinSport, Calgary Economic Development and the Government of Alberta were still ongoing.

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via New Media BC – Vancouver is hosting its first iPhone Forum, a one-day event on Nov. 24 at the downtown campus of the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). The Forum, sponsored by Bell, is a joint initiative between CBC/Radio-Canada, New Media BC and BCIT.

“Bell is pleased to take a leading role in bringing the iPhone Forum to Vancouver following the launch of our new network earlier this month,” said Rick Jones, Director, Business Sales Western Region for Bell Mobility. “Bell’s new high-speed wireless network is the fastest and largest in Canada, bringing the benefits of mobile broadband access to some 20,000 cities and towns across the country.”

The day kicks off with a keynote address by iPhone creator Apple Inc., followed by speakers from Canada and the US, sharing their experience and best practices for doing business in a market where people are always connected.

“Mobile computing is coming to the masses with smartphones like the iPhone, which is fundamentally changing how people interact with media,” said CBC’s General Manager Digital Programming & Business Development, Steve Billinger. “We’re bringing business leaders, legal professionals, engineers and designers together to learn and share as much as we can about this rapidly changing new world.”

This is a must attend event for professionals of all stripes to gain the knowledge and insight required for strategic advancement. The Forum offers two tracks of discussion: Technical sessions for those that want a deeper understanding of how to design and develop for the Apple Touch Platform; and Business sessions that focus on leveraging the Platform’s market potential.

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Winnipeg – Indigo Rose Software has launched Setup Factory 8.2 with full support for Microsoft Windows 7. Software developers can now build a single software installer program that works just as well on the latest Windows operating systems (Windows 7, Server 2008, Vista) as it does on legacy systems like Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP. This makes Setup Factory 8.2 a unique solution for software developers who require the widest compatibility for their setup programs.

An easy-to-use Project Wizard helps programmers create ready-to-build software installation projects in minutes. They can simply drag and drop files and folders onto the project window and they’re ready to build. Setup Factory outputs a compact, single-file setup.exe that is ideal for distribution via Internet download, CD/DVD-ROM, USB memory keys and corporate networks.

“Indigo Rose is excited to launch this new version of Setup Factory,” said Colin Adams, President at Indigo Rose Software Design Corporation. “Making Setup Factory compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 ensures that our customers can deploy their software development projects on the widest variety of Windows operating systems possible. It’s just one more reason that over 20,000 companies worldwide rely on Indigo Rose’s software development tools to help deliver their digital products.”

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