10th February 2010

marblemedia Contributes to CODE

marblemediaVancouver – Demonstrating marblemedia’s gold medal talent at the 2010 Cultural Olympiad, the award-winning production company announced today that it will be a contributing artist to the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad Digital Edition (CODE).

“All of us at marblemedia are excited and honoured to be a part of Canadian history,” said Mark Bishop, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of marblemedia. “We want to thank CODE for allowing marblemedia to go global at the Winter Games!”

Two of marblemedia’s kids properties, This is Daniel Cook-Figure Skating; and This is Emily Yeung-Learning Ballet (co-produced with Sinking Ship Productions) and two films from the marblemedia anthology series The Art of Seduction – Electric Chairs and On Fire (co-produced with the National Film Board and Bravo!FACT) have been selected to be featured on towering high-definition screens at the Vancouver and Whistler Celebration Sites during the 2010 Olympic Games.

digital albertaCalgaryDigital Alberta invites you to come learn about Google at an event which will take place on the evening of February 23 at Mount Royal University. Come and meet some Canadian googlers at this exciting event where they will discuss some of the technical challenges faced at Google, with highlights from 3 areas of focus at Google Waterloo: Ads, ChromeOS and Mobile. Read the rest of this entry »

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10th February 2010

VFS Grad Presentations and Game Design Expo 2010

VFSVancouver -Last night we attended the GD14 Pitch ‘n’ Play Presentation at Vancouver Film School, and as always, we were impressed with the talent and innovation shown by the school’s Game Design Programme students.

Two of the games were built using the Unity engine, while two were built using the Unreal Developer’s Kit. Nerves and glitches aside, all four teams did very well with their presentations and follow-up play sessions. It’s also good to see so many industry people attend the presentations to provide valuable feedback to the students.

The first game presented was Premonition, which was built using the UDK. Premonition is a third person action adventure game featuring a hero who has the ability to see one second into the future. The premise of the game is to complete challenges utilizing this ability to avoid traps and defeat enemies and ultimately triumph over the evil forces who have taken over the game’s world. The trailer for Premonition was very well done, and with some further polish I believe that this title has good potential.

The second game to be featured was I Don’t Know How Not To Be A Robot. This game, in the words of the team, is a “twisted retelling of the story of Pinocchio” featuring a very cute little robot named Pin. The trailer for this game was also very well done and through the antics and easily understood expressions of Pin was quite engaging. The environment design for this game was very rich and made good use of depth and advance lighting features available in the Unity engine. Again, we feel that with more polish and design correction, this game has good potential, although I prefer to attack enemies outright, and would like to be able to put Pin’s talents and power-ups to better use and not have to depend so much on avoidance mechanics.

Title number three was Smart Shopper and is a multi-player game built using the UDK. Smart Shopper is a fast paced food fight which takes place in a grocery store. With over 60 different items to use as weapons, the design team assign a calorie count value to the store’s items based on size and weight. The higher your calorie count, the better your game standing. This first-person-thrower was highly imaginative and I believe that the team met their goal of creating a visually silly, easy to play game.

 

Eat Em Up

Eat Em Up

The final title to be showcased was Eat ‘Em Up, and I have to say that this is the presentation which we chose as our personal winner for the evening. The team built their game on the Unity engine, and in our opinion made the best use of their short development period. Their presentation was polished and well thought out with well-placed injections of humour. Eat ‘Em Up is a colour matching strategy game done in the style of a 1950’s TV show. The objective of this game is to turn buildings into yummy treats for your evil minions to devour while avoiding the cops who will beat your minions and steal your cash. This game also had a very well-done trailer and does a good job of getting the viewer to want to try the game.

Congratulations to all of the students for their efforts and presentations.

Game Design Expo 2010Tickets for Vancouver Film School’s very popular Game Design Expo will go on sale to the public on February 16th. Tickets to the Expo, which takes place April 10 & 11 will cost $75.00 (+ applicable service fees) for the Saturday Industry Day, with the Sunday Open House at Vancouver Film School being free. I have attended every year since the first Game Design Expo, and in my opinion this is a great event to attend and as it always sells out, I recommend getting your tickets as soon as they go on sale. Read the rest of this entry »

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10th February 2010

Canadian Innovation and New Releases

Congratulations to the teams of Assassin’s Creed 2 and FIFA 10 for making the shortlist in the BAFTA Game of the Year nominations. The public are invited to vote in this category, so I hope you’ll head over to the vote page and support our Canadian products. The Awards ceremony will take place on March 19th at the London Hilton.

IUGOVancouverIUGO‘s fantastical and ridiculously fun dual stick shooter, Daisy Mae’s Alien Buffet is now available in the App Store for the introductory price of $1.99 USD.  Daisy Mae’s peaceful, simple life in her little desert trailer park will never be the same. A full scale alien attack on earth has begun and Daisy becomes the unlikely heroine outta nowhere. Take hold of the steering wheel and help Daisy Mae shoot and blast her way to victory in this fun and quirky dual stick shooter. Aliens: you have been served!

Features:

* More aliens than you can shake a stick at!
* The baddest selection of weapons known to folks ’round these here parts
* Purty graphics and fancy sounds effects
* Sassy costumes to unlock for Daisy Mae’s alien hoedown
* Daisy Mae “taunt” moves to kill the aliens dead in their tracks
* Control options to suit every varmint’s needs
* VIP points to be earned towards an additional costume
* Global leaderboards
* Auto save

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OMDCToronto – The Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) proudly announces that it has invested $2.9 M in funding support through its Entertainment and Creative Cluster Partnerships Fund (PDF) to leverage an additional $7.1 M from 94 partners to support 17 innovative projects.

The Partnerships Fund was designed to help Ontario’s entertainment and creative industries invest in smart ways to grow and increase their competitive advantage in the global marketplace. The industries eligible for funding include book and magazine publishing, music, film, television, interactive digital media and commercial theatre. Read the rest of this entry »

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posted in Associations, Awards, Business News, Careers, Casual, Digital Products, Early Childhood, Education, Events, Everyone, Everyone 10+, Game Dev, Government, Mature, Mobile, National News, New Releases, Peripherals, Research Studies, RPG - MMORPG, Social Media, Software, Sports, Studios, Teen By: | Print This Post Print This Post

10th February 2010

TransGaming Appoints GameTap Creator Blake Lewin For GameTree.tv Digital Home Division

TransGamingTorontoTransGaming, Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Blake Lewin as President of TransGaming’s new GameTree.tv digital home division. The company is also establishing a dedicated office in Atlanta, Georgia, that will serve as headquarters for all GameTree.tv development. Blake Lewin was most recently the Vice President of Media & Entertainment at Turner Broadcasting and is renowned as the creator of GameTap, the first-of-its-kind broadband entertainment network. As President of TransGaming’s digital home division Blake will lead the design, development, and commercialization of GameTree.tv, a comprehensive on-demand games platform which will provide consumers with constant access to a broad range of video games through their connected consumer electronic devices.

GameTree.tv is a powerful on-demand digital distribution games platform available to consumers through their Intel CE Media Processor powered set-top box or consumer electronics device. The platform will provide consumers with the ability to instantly play a broad range of games from the comfort of their living rooms, while providing CE device manufacturers and cable/satellite partners with new revenue opportunities. The first set of Intel based CE platforms are expected to be available to consumers in the coming months with GameTree.tv being commercially deployed before the fall. Read the rest of this entry »

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