Village Gamer

Cackleberries, the latest online virtual world introducing children to the future of education is now open for familes to explore. This living community, full of fun learning and adventure, is the brainchild of entrepreneur Eronne Foster, a passionate mother cared so much about the future of children’s education and the promotion of a safe online environment to learn in that she assembled a team of educationalists, British Columbia’s finest animators and game developers to develop an imaginative world rich in learning and packed with entertainment.

“Information technology provides us with opportunities to make learning material more visual, interactive, and accessible,” Eronne says. “We encourage children to learn through creativity, playful thinking, social integration and computer skills. Cackleberries is designed to allow young children between the ages of 3 and 7 to play and learn. It’s not just about reading and math, but embodies life skills, social practices and cultural integration.”

Cackleberries, named after an Australian word for “egg,” reside in a live, ever changing, exciting virtual world. Aside from the wondrous characters and structures illustrated by Vancouver artist Ken Rolston, many unique features contribute to this learning environment.

“We have strived to make the learning seamless” says Eronne, “in the reading skills component, for example, it is the word bar that helps children learn. It brings together both visual and audio cues. Multimedia learning is enhanced with this combination of visual and auditory stimuli, and the beauty is that children are fast tracked into learning outcomes without even realizing they are learning. ”

A highlight of Cackleberries experience is the safety aspect. Using Adobe AIR, developers of Cackleberries are able to build and deploy rich web applications and content directly to the desktop. They have developed a proprietary “Cackleberries Desktop Safety Icon.” The safety icon takes your child into the online world of Cackleberries with no access to the wider internet and no one on the internet has access to your children. The wondrous characters children interact with are carefully crafted computer generated avatars that deliver the fun and education.

“While many parents have recognized the advantage of online supplemented early education, there is nevertheless a fear of allowing children unrestricted access to the internet,” says Eronne. “At Cackleberries we are passionate about providing the safest online environment for your children to play, explore, and learn in. We take early childhood education and online safety very seriously, and consult with some of the top experts.”

“It’s important that parents are able to engage and help direct their children’s play and learning outcomes,” continued Eronne. “We are building a growing resource centre with current information on parenting, early childhood education and child safety. To this end the Cackleberries team has developed Club C for grownups. Club C is for anyone who has a child in their life – parents, grandparents, educators and caregivers.”

In Cackleberries world children develop their own avatars, which are engagingly interactive and kick start the child’s creativity. Children participate in a growing, living world, with houses, streets and communities that evolve around them. The creators imagined a place for children where everyone is accepted, differences are never feared and innocence still exists.

“We are always developing exciting new learning delivery methods which encompass a wide skill set,” enthuses Eronne.  “As borders open between nations, ethnic diversity has become part of the mosaic of life. Cackleberries teaches acceptance, understanding and caring; and shows our young audience how to celebrate, not fear differences.”

After experiencing the great success with their two iPhone apps “Stylish Girl” and “Cool Guy” (more than one million downloads and over 100000 active users worldwide), the Toronto based DDN Media team has decided to expand their fan club by inviting Android users in it. They gave advantage? to the girls first and developed “Stylish Girl” for Android so that they could feel as stylish as their iPhone friends.

Stylish Girl is a multifunctional fashion app focusing on three major fashion elements:

1. users’ virtual closets where they can create numerous outfits

2. Shopping by allowing users to combine items from the online fashion stores with their own and shop from their phone directly

3. fashion news on style and tips from professional stylist The social element anchors the fun by the allowing users to post links and pictures of items and outfits with comments to twitter and Facebook

Stylish Girl was presented by Apple on New York Fashion Week as a successful symbiosis of mobile technology and fashion and later included in their well-known campaign for the app store”There’s an app for that.”

Indie game developer Hothead Games is very excited to announce that gamers can now eat up their tastiest action RPG, The Baconing on Xbox LIVE® Arcade, PlayStation®Network, Windows-based PC, and Mac. This epic adventure of bacon goodness is available on Xbox LIVE Arcade for Xbox 360 for 1200 Microsoft Points, and on PlayStation®Network, Steam, and the Mac App Store for $14.99.

Mike Inglehart, Producer on The Baconing commented: “This stand alone sci-fi adventure is our best game yet. If you like Hothead’s games, be prepared for plenty of our charm, humor and adventure. If you never played a DeathSpank game before, jump in with The Baconing – it’s very, very tasty and available for everyone, regardless of what system you want to play on.”

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F48fnGVMbg&hd=1]

In The Baconing, hero DeathSpank, oblivious of an ancient Thongolith myth, carelessly pulls on all six Thongs of Virtue at the same time, summoning an unspeakable self-evil, the AntiSpank. DeathSpank must bear the incredible heat and enter the Fires of Bacon to destroy five of the six thongs to vanquish the AntiSpank.

With an improved tactical combat system, players can defeat evil on their own or partner up with new side-kick, Bob from Marketing and other characters for local co-op play. Along the way, DeathSpank travels through sci-fi inspired worlds, meeting a hilarious cast of characters, and obtains new Weapons of Justice and suits of armor as he fights to return peace to his beloved Spanktopia.

Electronic Arts and Euroleague Basketball have announced a licensing partnership that makes the global interactive entertainment software company an official partner under the video gaming category. Under this agreement EA Sports will include Turkish Airlines Euroleague players in the upcoming release of the mythical arcade game NBA Jam: On Fire Edition.

This is the first time that European clubs will be officially represented in the NBA JAM franchise, one of the most successful video games in sports history. All fans will be able to choose any of the four participating teams in the last Turkish Airlines Euroleague Final Four. Dimitris Diamantidis and Mike Batiste of Panathinaikos Athens, Lior Eliyahu and Sofoklis Schortsanitis of Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, Bo McCalebb and Ksistof Lavrinovic of Montepaschi Siena, Sergio Llull and Carlos Suarez of Real Madrid will be amongst the players representing the four Euroleague teams in the 2–on–2 basketball games.

Currently in development at EA Canada,  NBA JAM: On Fire Edition will change the way players play this iconic franchise. All your favorite moves, spins and dunks are still available but now includes a host of gameplay improvements.  NBA JAM: On Fire Edition brings you even more to this basketball arcade classic.  Enhanced gameplay, ground breaking artificial intelligence and exciting online features continue to bring countless hours of enjoyment to this over-the-top experience.  The game will be available via digital download.

Frima Studio and Build-A-Bear-Workshop® have announced that Bearville.com™, the online virtual world extension of the Build-A-Bear Workshop brand, has surpassed 20 million avatars. Bearville™ is a premier virtual world experience for children, families and fans of the Build-A-Bear-Workshop brand. Co-developed and maintained with Frima Studio, Bearville is a free online virtual world and entertainment destination where Guests bring their furry friends to life, interact with other users, play games, take on virtual jobs, buy virtual items and explore.

Since its launch in 2007, Bearville has entertained millions of young fans and earned a spot as one of the top children’s virtual worlds. With exciting adventures, avatar customization and mini-games, Bearville has solidified Build-A-Bear Workshop as a leader in kids interactive entertainment. With the success of Bearville, the company continues to extend its brand from retail shops into e-commerce, online virtual worlds, mobile entertainment apps, and more.

“We’re extremely proud to reach the twenty million avatar milestone with Bearville and are thankful to all of our loyal fans who visit the virtual world each day,” commented Maxine Clark, Founder and Chief Executive Bear of Build-A-Bear-Workshop. “This achievement reinforces our commitment to provide a fun, interactive experience for our guests.”

“Frima Studio has been a critical partner for us in developing the online world on Bearville.com. From concept to twenty million Guests, Frima has been with us every step of the way,” noted Dave Finnegan, Chief Information Bear, Build-A-Bear-Workshop. “Their strategic partnership, creative thinking and technical expertise have been essential to the success of Bearville.”

“This has been an exciting project for us from the start and we’re honored to have been a trusted partner of Build-A-Bear-Workshop for almost five years now,” remarked Steve Couture, CEO, Frima Studio. “Bearville is one of our biggest projects here at Frima, an incredible family brand and a very forward thinking entertainment company.”

Big Blue Bubble Inc. has announced that the will be releasing 5 new titles across iOS and Android devices, PC, Mac and Facebook in the next business quarter. Not all titles will be available for all platforms, please see individual titles for details.

“We’re excited to see our next round of amazing original IP be released simultaneously and across multiple platforms.  The range of genres covered will further cement our standing as Canada’s top gaming company.” said Bryan Davis, Director of Business Development of Big Blue Bubble.

Burn The Rope: WORLDS, the sequel to one of Big Blue Bubble’s most successful games, brings totally new and unique gameplay mechanics combined with the well-known gameplay and visual style.  Burn The Rope: Worlds is a challenging game where players try to burn as much rope as possible in each level, but there’s a catch – naturally. The fire only burns upwards, leaving the player to tilt and turn the phone to keep the flame alive.

As the player progresses through the levels, he will encounter bugs crawling along the rope. Different bugs have different reactions to the flame. For example, burning the ant changes the color of the flame so rope of the same color can be burned, and burning the spider shoots out a web bridge so the player can access parts of the level that were inaccessible before. Burn The Rope Worlds will launch in September 2011 for iOS, Android, PC and Mac.

Fling a Thing is a simple game where you shoot your Thing in the air and collect all the bubbles.  The player advances onto the next level when all the bubbles are collected.  The player has a limited amount of shots and when they run out, the round ends.  The Thing is shot in the air by touching and pulling it back like a slingshot.

Once released it bounces around the screen collecting bubbles and power-ups. The goal is to collect as many bubbles as possible and beat your last high score. The player needs to pay attention to the Suckies’ Hunger Meter because when it’s empty they can head on over to the “Feeding Ground”. As the player taps the bubbles, the Suckie jumps up and collects them, filling their Hunger Meter. Fling a Thing will launch in September 2011 for iOS and Android devices, PC, Mac and Facebook.

Dark Incursion is a side scrolling hack and slash game that gives the player a full stereoscopic 3D experience. It takes place in an alternate reality in the late 1800’s, amidst an industrial revolution and a world war.  The player is the character, Anya, who is one of the few who know about a secret military laboratory developing biological weaponry that could devastate the entire planet if it got out of control.

The player has a multitude of melee and ranged weapons at their disposal to eradicate the abominations from the city. Weapons and attributes are upgradable to best suit their play style. The deeper they get into the secret bunker the more advanced and powerful these monsters become. To top all of this off, the player must complete their mission before the government gives the order to send these bio-soldiers on to the battlefield where there will be no stopping them. With a vivid steam punk art style using new 3D technologies, the creatures will literally jump off the screen. Dark Incursion will be released in September 2011 for iOS and Android devices, and will be available for PC and Mac in October 2011.

Hamster Cannon is a physics-based puzzle game in which the player combines and launches various hamsters out of cannons to collect Golden Noms.  The player will select three different hamsters out of a possible eight – each with their own special skills.  The player will use angles and bouncing to navigate the levels with a myriad of different surfaces that can react differently depending on which Hamster is being used.

The points awarded for collecting Noms can be traded in the In-Game Store to unlock different upgrades. Hamsters are fired out of the cannon at a high velocity, and the player has the ability to adjust the angle of the cannon to maximize the special skills of each hamster. Hamster Cannon will be available for iOS and Android devices, PC and Mac in September 2011

iOracle is one of the most unique trivia games out there! It has players predicting actual real world events, in order to earn the admiration of their fickle followers, who come and go based on the accuracy of the player’s predictions.  The more questions they get right, the more followers they will earn. There will be new questions asked every day, with answers being supplied on the following day.

Players will have their own temple which they can decorate to attract different types of followers. Each follower type asks a different variety of questions – sports, movies, weather, etc. In-app purchasing will also be available to help players get past tougher questions, decorate their temple, or customize their avatar. This will all contribute to the players goal of accumulating more followers.  iOracle will launch in October 2011 for iOS and Android devices as well as Facebook.

Android smartphone owners are finally able to play the addictive “Cows vs. Aliens” game by XMG Studio, now available for a limited time as a free download on the Google Android Market. The aim of “Cows vs. Aliens” is to save herds of cows from invading aliens by pushing the cows safely into the barn and keeping the aliens out. It sounds simple but when waves of nasty aliens are descending on your innocent cows you will need all eleven fingers on the screen.

Launched for iOS in February 2011, “Cows vs. Aliens” has enjoyed huge success on the Apple App Store, with many players instantly falling for this easy to pick up but hard to put down game. “Cows vs. Aliens” introduces a new way of interacting with your game, using a pushing gesture to move the cows and aliens around the screen. Unlike other games, which rely on line drawing or touch and drag gestures, the pushing mechanic is a much more organic and lifelike interaction.

Like it’s iOS counterpart, “Cows vs. Aliens” for Android appeals to both to casual and serious gamers by keeping the mechanism simple and intuitive, but making it more and more challenging, when moving up the levels. The Android version also allows you to compete with other players and unlock special achievements and awards using OpenFeint’s leaderboard and achievements.

“This game launch includes another significant development for XMG,” says Ray Sharma, founder and CEO of XMG Studio Inc. “We are responding to popular request for our hit games to be available on Android. We have modified our Kanban Agile game development process to be able to more efficiently address this important community. Its important for the tens of millions of XMG users to know this is just the beginning of our Android efforts. To that end we wish Android touch screen users all the best and we hope you enjoy our free game promotion as our way of getting things started!”

Funcom has opened the official beta registration for ‘The Secret World’, the highly anticipated upcoming massively multiplayer online game set in our own, modern-day world, and currently in development at Funcom Montreal. Gamers can now register to be evaluated for participation in the upcoming phases of beta that will be running up to the launch of the game in April 2012. During the next months Funcom will be increasing the number of beta participants gradually.

The launch of the beta registration also signals the start of the first phase ‘The Secret War’, an interactive online experience that engages community members in the conflict between the Templars, the Illuminati, and the Dragon – the three factions in ‘The Secret World’ – even before the game is released.

“One of the most interesting features of ‘The Secret World’ is the three profoundly different secret societies that players can join,” says Funcom SVP of Sales & Marketing, Morten Larssen. “Since we first announced the game we have gradually revealed more details about them, and what we have seen is that thousands of gamers in our community have come to identify with them and form a loyal bond to other community members belonging to the same society. With ‘The Secret War’ experience we are excited about the prospect of allowing for even more community interaction and engagement.”

The first phase of the experience allows users to take a unique personality test to determine which secret society they belong to and then choose which society to join. After making the ultimate choice the user is automatically registered as a beta candidate for ‘The Secret World’ and will also be eligible to take part in the upcoming second phase of ‘The Secret War’ interactive online experience.

The second phase of the experience will allow users to expand the influence of their secret society through a social media connected, web-based game. Here users can recruit friends and deploy them as agents for their cause, scoring points for themselves and their secret society. Users can also share assets from and information about ‘The Secret World’ to score more points, allowing them to climb through the ranks of their secret society and unlock achievements, exclusive in-game equipment and weaponry, in-game titles, and even the coveted guaranteed beta access reward.

Through ‘The Secret War’ interactive online experience users will also take part in weekly sweepstakes where they can win a trip to the Funcom Montreal studio, signed collector’s editions of the game, and even the opportunity to have their name integrated into ‘The Secret World´ game.

Other Ocean Interactive’s love letter to both the bygone era of cinematic platformers  such as Prince of Persia, Out of this World and Flashback, and the work of H.G. Wells in The War of the Worlds is nearing release. The studio is celebrating a new milestone with the launch of the game’s official website. On the new site, you will be able find a host of information on the game including screenshots, videos, and other exclusive media that you won’t find anywhere else on the internet.

The War of the Worlds takes a unique spin on the classic science fiction tale, putting players in control of Arthur Clarke, a man trapped in the midst of an alien invasion in 1950’s London. As Arthur, you’ll make your way through the assault by passing through a variety of London landmarks, avoiding alien drones and fighting for your very survival. Featuring the voice of Patrick Stewart as the narrator, The War of the Worlds is an exciting and atmospheric survival-adventure game that you will not want to miss.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUaHg4kUorE]

The War of the Worlds, which will be published by Paramount Digital Entertainment will be available on Xbox LIVE®Arcade and PlayStation®Network as a Digital Download title later this year.

From the floor of PAX Prime (no, we’re not there) here is the latest fact sheet for Dead Rising 2: Off The Record.

Photojournalist and original hero of Dead Rising’s Willamette incident, Frank West takes center stage once again in Dead Rising® 2 Off the Record. Forget what you know about Dead Rising 2, as players will experience a reimagining of the Fortune City outbreak.

The new “Off the Record” storyline means an all new Dead Rising 2 experience. Frank will face off against more twisted enemies, build more outrageous combo weapons, follow his own unique mission structure and explore brand new areas of Fortune City to get his biggest scoop yet. Join Frank as he indulges in the insanity of “Uranus Zone”, Fortune City’s very own theme park. Full of deadly rides and crazy attractions, the sci-fi themed Uranus Zone is a true zombie-killing paradise.

Fans have asked for it and now Dead Rising 2 Off the Record delivers a fully realized Sandbox Mode! Available from the outset and supporting both single and co-op modes, players can now explore all Fortune City has to offer without having to worry about the clock. In addition, Sandbox Mode offers a selection of gruesome and unique challenges such as ‘Rumble in the Jungle’, ‘Chop Suey’ and ‘Silver Strip Smackdown,’ all with online leaderboard support.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz0RcXXrc60]

Frank’s come-back also means the return of his trusty camera, with players able to earn Prestige Points (PP) for specific photo opportunities that are graded against criteria such as horror, drama, erotica and brutality. In addition to the new scenario, Sandbox Mode and gameplay enhancements, Dead Rising 2 Off The Record offers a suite of technical updates including load time optimizations, improved network performance and a host of system upgrades to deliver a more satisfying Dead Rising experience.