Village Gamer

Burlington – Available now on Xbox LIVE Indie Games, Curling 2010 brings the sport of curling to a new (less-old) generation. The first release from newcomer dadoo Games hopes to blow the dust off the often mocked sport by demonstrating the strategy and skill required to curl.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZwDGIRCNEU]

Curling 2010 features multiple game play modes, from traditional matches to target competitions to a fully featured practice mode. Most importantly, the game features a guided tutorial and detailed explanations of the rules of curling to give those new to the sport a fighting chance. Online play against up to three other players over Xbox LIVE allows curlers to compete for worldwide bragging rights. Competitive computer opponents come in three levels of difficulty to make learning to curl enjoyable for all ages. Download the free trial from the XBox marketplace today, or purchase the full game for only 240 MS points!

Montreal – EA Mobile™ has announced that it has signed an agreement with THQ Wireless, a division of THQ Inc., and independent software studio Team17 Software, which grants EA Mobile the worldwide publishing rights to the existing mobile Worms™ catalogue and the license to develop future Worms games on mobile phones. As part of the deal, the first new title in development at EA’s Romania studio is WORMS, which is now available to download for mobile phones around the world.

The classic turn-based comedy war game returns to mobile with a bang. Celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, the original experience is being updated for 2010 with all the favourite weapons and outlandish fun of the series. WORMS also includes a host of new features such as weapons, modes, levels and enhanced graphics to keep players worming their way back for more explosive fun.

Effective immediately, the catalogue of existing games licensed to EA Mobile also includes Worms 2008, Worms 2007, Worms Forts 3D, Worms Crazy Golf and Worms 2. Team 17 retains the rights to existing and future iPhone/iPod touch versions of the Worms franchise.

“At EA Mobile we are great fans of the Worms series and are pleased to be able to expand the hugely successful franchise with new exciting content as seen in the all new WORMS, and make it available to a larger fan base around the world through more channels and in more countries than ever before.” said Luca Pagano, Vice President, Publishing, EA Mobile.

Adds Team 17 Joint CEO Debbie Bestwick “As the market leader in mobile gaming, EA Mobile’s reach and breadth of partner relationships will massively help Worms’ positioning and greatly increase appeal to a new generation of mobile gamers.”

Toronto – Wild Apricot, a leader in membership management software for small associations and non-profits, has released a Software Selection guide to help association leaders review, compare and choose the best membership software for managing member-driven organizations. Member-management software is technology that helps organizations manage their member and contact database and build their membership website, and includes tools to automate member sign-up and renewals, event registrations, and online fundraising.

Wild Apricot’s Membership Software Selection Guide is a downloadable eBook that is aimed at giving association leaders the tools and processes necessary to make the best software selection to:

* Manage members/contacts databases
* Build and maintains membership websites
* Automate member sign-up and renewals, event registrations, and online fundraising

The Wild Apricot Membership Software Selection Guide also includes two spreadsheets to help nonprofit and association leaders evaluate the features of different software packages, and to compare real costs. Comparing the costs of different website builders and membership management tools can be tricky, as some companies charge monthly fees, set-up fees and per-transaction charges.

“It’s time-consuming and tedious for association leaders to evaluate their own software needs and to conduct price and feature comparisons of the best software available to run their organizations,” said Dmitry Buterin, the ‘Chief Apricot’ at Wild Apricot. “We know how busy association volunteers and staff can be, and so our guide includes a series of easy-to-follow steps for a smooth review process,” he added.

Wild Apricot has built a reputation for educating, assisting and being transparent in its approach to helping the non-profit and association world, and the company is adhering to those same beliefs by offering its Membership Software Selection Guide.

“Obviously we would love people to use check out the free trial of our affordable, easy-to-use software, but our priority is for association leaders to conduct an educated review of the best software for their goals, budgets and know-how to produce a quality membership website,” said Buterin.

Also in keeping with its drive for transparency and community openness, Wild Apricot is copyrighting its Membership Software Selection Guide under a Creative Commons license, which encourages free sharing to benefit the nonprofit and association industry.

Toronto – HyperLocalLive.com a new media startup that promises to change the way events are discovered and shared in cities across North America, is launching this week. HyperLocalLive.com is a free service that enables real time posting and word of mouth sharing of information through social media networks.

Users of HyperLocalLive.com endorsing and sharing event information through Twitter, Facebook and Buzz are directly contributing to their neighborhood’s sustainability. “Events shared through social media can reach hundreds, and even thousands of eyes literally in a matter of seconds. When you have the population of a big city like Toronto discovering, posting and sharing events around the clock, it creates dozens of targeted, high impact word of mouth marketing campaigns circulating at any given time.” said Pierre Hage, one of the founders and president of HyperLocalLive.com.

Long after Tweets have been sent, messages have been Buzzed and Facebook statuses have been updated, HyperLocalLive.com events remain searchable on the web and on popular Twitter clients such as Tweet Deck and Seesmic. To drive traffic to their events, businesses, event planners and non-profits using the service are encouraged to include some type of special incentive that will entice users to share with their social networks.