Village Gamer

Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, and the Canadian War Museum have officially announced a collaborative agreement for the delivery of Lest We Forget workshops across Canada. These workshops allow students to consult and research primary source documents by looking through the military service files of Canadian soldiers, doctors or nurses who served in the First World War or who were killed in action in the Second World War.

Under the terms of the collaboration, librarians and other trained individuals across Canada will be able to organize and deliver Lest We Forget workshops using the online tools provided by Library and Archives Canada.

The workshops will be held in four libraries across the country as well as at the Canadian War Museum. Current collaborating libraries include the Burlington Public Library, the Fraser Valley Regional Library, the Winnipeg Public Library, and the Toronto Public Library.

“We are delighted to see that our Lest We Forget project is being expanded,” said Dr. Daniel J. Caron, Librarian and Archivist of Canada. “This new collaboration with the Canadian Urban Libraries Council and the Canadian War Museum will allow students from across Canada to experience a Lest We Forget workshop with a trained facilitator.” Read the rest of this entry »

Seventy-three entries, seven judges, and over 62,000 online votes cast has produced a winner: Taryn Green, a 28-year-old freelance film editor from Sudbury, Ontario, has claimed first prize of $5000 in Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital’s filmpossible contest, which challenged entrants to create a video bringing visibility to disability.

Taryn’s winning video, The Triangle Girl Retold, is a touching retelling of a story she wrote at age six, in which the triangle represents her disability, Cerebral Palsy. She longs to be like everyone else, but in the end, she becomes more confident and proud and embraces her disability, or “inner triangle”.

“Filmpossible was a great learning experience for me, as well as a very humbling one,” said Taryn. “I was competing against so many amazing videos that really challenged my own perception of disability. Through filmpossible, Holland Bloorview initiated a great change toward the public perception of disability. We need to keep this dialogue alive long after this contest is over. It is important to keep watching all the videos and to keep telling our stories.” Read the rest of this entry »

Canada’s largest independent game development studio Artificial Mind & Movement (A2M) has walked through a hole in the fabric in time and re-launched itself with a new brand that is really its old studio name, Behaviour. The change is a return to the name the company was formerly known by when they were a small upstart developer of PlayStation® games in the 90’s. Today that company has grown to 375 talented employees in Montreal and Santiago, Chile and is a licensed developer for all of the major game consoles, handheld and online platforms.

While Behaviour has always been recognized as a premiere work-for-hire game studio, the company has renewed their focus on developing original IP on multiple platforms alongside its work-for-hire business with major publishers. With five specialized internal studios (gamer, portable, online, downloadable and family), Behaviour offers a development solution for any project.

“We are and will always strive to be the best and most trusted independent game development studio in the industry,” said Rémi Racine, CEO, Behaviour. “The change in name is not only a return to our previous name but also an indicator of the evolution of the company. We have developed a strong reputation as a high-quality work-for-hire studio as well as a creator of our own original content and will continue to pursue both sides of the business. The new name reflects the renaissance of the company.”

“Wet 2 (multi-platform), Naughty Bear 2 (multi-platform), Doritos Crash Course (XBLA) as well as Rango (multi-platform), which was announced by EA and Paramount Digital Entertainment on November 4th, are all currently in development at Behaviour,” added Jamie Leece, Senior Vice President of Business Development. “We have just completed Sims 3 (Wii), and are also working on several unannounced games for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo’s Wii and DS systems, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, next generation handhelds, a Facebook game to be launched in November and a Casual MMO to be launched early next year. The studio’s platform diversification strategy has been well received by our publishing partners, allowing cross platform executions while leveraging Behaviour’s established technologies.”

Inspired by an initial exhibition at Galerie Arludik in Paris, Ubisoft Montreal has announced that Assassin’s Creed: The Exhibition will be on display at Montreal’s Galerie d’art Yves Laroche from November 15th to 27th. The Montreal event will feature a brand new series of concepts arts depicting the world of Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s Creed II, and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. Indeed, art fans and gamers will discover over twenty artworks created in Montreal by illustrators at the Ubisoft studio, where Assassin’s Creed games are produced and developed. These works will be seen around the world in months to come, Montreal being the first stop of this travelling exhibition.

“Assassin’s Creed: The Exhibition is a chance to honor our artists’ talent and to share the artistic brilliance of the world-renowned Assassin’s Creed franchise. This event is also in line with Ubisoft’s transmedia strategy, whose goal is to enlarge our brand experience on different platforms and to showcase our creativity”, Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat says.

From October 5 to 30, Parisian art gallery Arludik presented a first version of Assassin’s Creed: The Exhibition. Its featured artworks were sold at prices ranging from $800.00 to $2800.00, all within the first week of the exhibition, which attracted an average of 200 visitors each day.

Created in the initial stages of a game’s development, concept arts materialize a game’s artistic vision and inspire its world. Within a large production team, the work of Gilles Beloeil, Martin Deschambault, Patrick Desgreniers, Maxime Desmettre, Vincent Gaigneux, Vincent Gauthier, Raphael Lacoste, Patrick Lambert, Olivier Martin, Khai Nguyen, Namwoo Noh, and Donglu Yu guide the game’s artistic vision and is essential to its development.

With 19 million copies sold worldwide, Assassin’s Creed is without question one of Ubisoft’s – and the video game industry’s – most popular franchises. Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed II, released in 2007 and 2009, each sold over nine million copies.

On November 16, 2010, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, the franchise’s third title, will be released in over 55 countries. This game was crowned “Best Online Multiplayer” at the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo, and has shattered Ubisoft’s previous pre-sales records.

Ubisoft has also announced that those who purchase Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood for the PlayStation 3 will receive complimentary access to the system-exclusive Copernicus Conspiracy add-on pack. The Copernicus Conspiracy add-on will be available for download through the PlayStation Network on release day, and will feature the Renaissance-era astronomer who first advocated that the earth revolves around the sun. Ezio has been charged with defending Copernicus from those who wish to bury the scientist and his theories, which leads the player through exclusive missions that include courier, assassination, and protection assignments.

Bitcasters spin-off Social Game Universe, pioneers of the concept of inter-connected social games, has announced the launch of the Inter-Game API (IGAPI), a solution for game developers to drive traffic by letting users “play” through a cross-promotion bar.

IGAPI uses the power of the social graph to let players interact with their friends across games and apps without leaving the game they are currently playing. Rather than seeing a typical banner ad or cross promotion, players see IGAPI “Action Cards” that they can play on their friends in other apps. Action Cards can vary from the simple (e.g., “Give film to your friend Nathon to help him grow his studio in Hollywood Tycoon”) to the more zany and bizarre (e.g., “Release a horde of zombies on your friend Jen’s horror set!”). IGAPI’s actions are limited only by the imagination and creativity of the developers looking to attract attention to their games.

Originally developed for Social Game Universe’s own critically acclaimed Hollywood games, the IGAPI technology let players in the movie-mogul sim game Hollywood Tycoon hire actors from the fame and stardom game Avastar. Having seen the power of interconnecting the games, Social Game Universe turned IGAPI into a scalable, point-and-click tool that any third party developer can use. The result is greater player interaction, site engagement, and increased awareness of new apps.

“The IGAPI inter-game action system is very innovative, and I think it will improve the way games drive traffic, re-engagement, and revenue across the industry” said Hussein Fazal, CEO of AdParlor, a leading social application marketing business.

According to Eric Goldberg, Managing Director of Crossover Technologies, “IGAPI is a step forward in the cross-promotion of social games and a great tool for independent developers to reach new players”. Mr. Goldberg has now joined the advisory board of Social Game Universe, along with Manu Rekhi (Vice President of MySpace Games & Content) and Greg Bate (Co-founder of Neverblue).

Nathon Gunn, Founder and CEO of Social Game Universe, added “We knew we had something special going on between Avastar and Hollywood Tycoon, and we’re even more excited now that these innovations can be shared by other developers.”

On a side note, Social Game Universe is hiring. Check out their Jobs page for more details.

Toronto’s Longbow Games, one of the few selected for this year’s PAX 10 showcase winners, is proud to announce that their strategy wargame, Hegemony: Philip of Macedon, is now available on Steam. In addition, they have lowered the price to only $19.99.

“As an independent developer, it’s always a struggle to gain the attention of your audience,” said Jim McNally, president of Longbow Games. “We’re very excited to be launching Hegemony: Philip of Macedon on Steam, where we can share our game with a much wider audience.”

Longbow Games is currently working on their next title, Hegemony Gold: Wars of Ancient Greece, which will soon be in beta testing. Customers of Hegemony: Philip of Macedon can help test the new game for free at www.LongbowGames.com.

Hegemony: Philip of Macedon lets you conquer the ancient Greek world in this PC RTS war game that follows the rise of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. Players campaign across a continuous satellite-accurate map of ancient Greece encountering the full range of warfare from reconnaissance to raids to field battles to mountain blockades. The game also features:

* Innovative supply system – Siege and starve the enemy by cutting their supply lines or burning their crops, all the while building and protecting your own supply network to support your growing empire.
* Steeped in history – In-game pedia and 100+ historical objectives recreate the rise of the Macedonian empire.
* Detailed and stylized world and map – Transition smoothly between the detailed 3D world and the stylized board-game map while maintaining complete control over your empire. Read the rest of this entry »

GameON: Finance 2011 will return to the Design Exchange on January 20 and 21, 2011, and the Kick-off rate of $489.00 is available now through November 15th 2010. Early Bird Tickets go on sale from November 16th through December 15th, with a price of $559.00. Once the Early Bird rate expires, ticket prices will go up to $699.00 if you purchase online, or $874.00 if you want and buy them at the conference. Interactive Ontario members will save an additional 30% off all ticket prices. See the event site for details.

GameON: Finance is Canada’s top business forum for the interactive entertainment industry connecting developers, innovators, investors and industry leaders. Delegates will gather in downtown Toronto for two days of keynotes, case-studies, lectures and panel discussions which will provide insight on topics such as:

* Emerging opportunities in game project financing
* The bottom line on equity investments
* Dealmaking across transmedia platforms
* Tips and tricks to optimize public finance opportunities

GameON: Finance’s 2011 Advisory Board members are: David Crow (Influitive), Jason Della Rocca (Perimeter Partners), Vikas Gupta (TransGaming Technologies), Marc Jackson (Seahorn Capital Group), Sean Kauppinen (International Digital Entertainment Agency), Jim Laird (Bedlam Games), Wanda Meloni (M2 Research), Ray Sharma (XMG Studio), Scott Steinberg (TechSavvy Global), John Sutyak (DDM) and Dean Takahashi (GamesBeat).

To compliment the release of Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, Ubisoft has launched Your Shape Centre, a website which works in tandem with the game, offering a truly personal online gym centre.

· Track your workouts and set yourself fitness challenges
· Compete and compare your progress with friends
· Set yourself fitness challenges
· Get advice from other players and fitness experts to help you reach your fitness goals
· Share your fitness achievements on your Facebook or Twitter

To help organizations meet expanding requirements for archiving, eDiscovery and regulatory compliance, Waterloo’s Open Text will embed Oracle technology to deliver a new set of enterprise content solutions. Read the rest of this entry »

IUGO Mobile Entertainment and Capcom Mobile are proud to launch Lil’ Pirates, a free-to-play social game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. This marks both IUGO and Capcom’s entry into the mobile social gaming space. Lil’ Pirates is launching with Facebook Connect, allowing players to invite, hire and interact with their Facebook friends as part of their pirate crew.

“The launch of Lil’ Pirates begins IUGO’s entrance into the dynamic space of mobile social games,” states IUGO’s VP of Business Development, Sarah Thomson. “This space is something we as a company have been thinking about, preparing for and watching for a long time. Lil’ Pirates builds upon what other companies have pioneered in social games for the iPhone. We believe IUGO has evolved the gameplay to create a compelling experience that is uniquely IUGO. Our partnership with Capcom is exciting and we’re thrilled to have Lil’ Pirates published under such a prestigious brand.”

Lil’ Pirates features hundreds of items to customize both users’ ships and avatars. Mini games, gifting, ship battles and jobs for crew members offers a robust experience balanced by a “pick-up-and-play” simplicitiy in game design. Lil’ Pirates was created by IUGO and owned by Capcom Mobile. Lil’ Pirates is available and free to download on the App Store now.

Avast ya scallywags! Drop anchor and prepare to be boarded. There be Lil’ Pirates in these waters!

Amass your perfect crew and craft the finest ship as you set sail for adventure and plunder as the captain of your own pirate vessel. From a modest beginning you’ll transform your ship into an object of fear and envy and amass a fortune fit for a king.

Features:

* Customize your ship as you see fit from a ghostly galleon to a pink gilded princes to a multi-mast ship of destruction.

* Assemble a crew with diverse skills and dress and equip them as you please with more than 100 items.

* Recruit friends to the pirate life through Facebook and share the adventure.

* Exchange volleys of cannon fire in ship-to-ship combat.

* Bury booty on Treasure Island to increase its worth or plunder a friend’s buried loot.

* Direct your crew to go on missions and amass more treasure!

Electronic Arts Inc. and Paramount Digital Entertainment today announced a distribution agreement that will catapult an upcoming Paramount property into the hands of gamers worldwide. Rango The Video Game is an action-adventure title inspired by the upcoming animated feature film starring the voice of Johnny Depp.

In development at Artificial Mind & Movement, Rango The Video Game invites players to continue on Rango’s wild journey through new adventures inspired by the movie. The game is set in the Old West town of ‘Dirt’ where players romp through a gritty, pint-sized, Wild West filled with wild rides, off-color characters and frantic shoot-outs. Rango is Paramount Pictures’ first full-length animated feature film; both the film and the video game will be released in March 2011.

“We are thrilled to be working with Paramount and the upcoming release of the video game version of its first animated feature,” said Sinjin Bain, Vice President of EA Partners at Electronic Arts. “Rango is a one-of-a-kind character that we know kids will love. We’re excited to give families worldwide the opportunity to take the humor and fun from the big screen into their living rooms.”

“We are pleased to team up with EA to deliver an exciting, action-packed adventure game that captures the spirit of the film and puts the fate of Dirt in players’ hands,” said Tom Lesinski, President of Paramount Digital Entertainment. “We’ve added exciting twists and turns in the video game that will challenge players of all levels on their adventures as Rango.”

Rango The Video Game will be available on console platforms including the PlayStation®3, Xbox 360®, Nintendo Wii™ and Nintendo DS™ in March 2011. Rango The Video Game has not been rated by the ESRB.

Sales of EA SPORTS FIFA Soccer franchise titles has surpassed 100 million units lifetime during the launch of FIFA Soccer 11, according to EA internal sales data. The best-selling sports videogame franchise in the world, now in its 18th year, sold a record-breaking 2.6 million copies in the first five days after launching FIFA Soccer 11 to become the fastest selling sports videogame of all time. Counting the first four weeks of sales, FIFA Soccer 11 sales are up 20% versus last year on a comparable basis with sell-in approaching 8 million units. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow – one day away and so much went on yesterday! Of course, catching up with yesterday has put me behind for today, but I’ll get all caught up eventually – even on all those games I’ve been trying to get to for reviews. I had a non-digital project to complete and ended up in a very demanding crunch time, because my time line for delivery did not match the deadline that my Mother implemented, and we all know that Mom’s always right…

For those who aren’t already aware, Ubisoft has acquired Longtail Studios’ Quebec City location, and will absorb most of its staff into their own studio. Longtail had contributed to Ubisoft’s Michael Jackson: The Experience, and while this means that Longtail Quebec is no longer in operation, both of Longtail’s maritime studios – Charlottetown and Halifax are still open for business. The Halifax studio recently launched its latest title, Dance on Broadway. By the way, the Halifax studio is currently looking to fill four career positions, including that of Game Tester.

EA Mobile put several of its titles on sale for 99 cents yesterday – if you live in the USA. The only exemption to the USA location restriction is Reckless Racing, which was put on sale worldwide. The other titles currently on sale in the US App Store are:

Tiger Woods PGA Tour – Skate It by EA – Command & Conquer Red Alert – Yahtzee Adventures – Trivial Pursuit – Boggle – Clue – Spore Creatures – Boggle for iPad – Snood – EA Sudoku – Spore Origins – Star Trek – Lemonade Tycoon Read the rest of this entry »