Village Gamer

Vancouver VFX studio The Embassy has been nominated and short-listed in the AEAF Awards for their work on the short film Terminus. The list of finalists were narrowed down from over 200 submissions in 11 categories. Award winners will be announced at the AEAF Awards ceremony on November 12th, which is held in conjunction with Sydney, Australia’s Digital Media Festival. Terminus was also an Official Selection at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and was chosen as the Best Canadian Short Film at the 2008 Montréal ‘Just for Laughs’ Comedy Festival. Terminus was directed by Trevor Cawood and co-written by Jason Cawood.

According to writer Jason Cawood, Terminus is about a 1970’s businessman who, after he unknowingly offends “a strange entity that accosts him on his way to work, quickly finds himself in the midst if a bizarre predicament. What follows is a rapid descent into madness, a journey both eerie and darkly humorous. The exact nature of the businessman’s tormentor is purposefully ambiguous, lending itself to a variety of interpretations. Is Terminus a surreal critique of human alienation in the modern urban environment? or is the protagonist’s struggle an internal one, his mysterious stalker a manifestation of his repressed subconscious mind? Either way, Terminus’s innovative visual effects and distinctively vintage atmosphere make it a highly engrossing experience.” From the IMDB listing for Terminus

Montreal – In conjunction with Festival Arcadia, a Virtually Fashionable evening will be held at 9 p.m. on Saturday, November 8, at the Society for Arts and Technology [SAT]. For this world first event that merges the fashion and videogame industries, ten of Quebec’s best-known fashion designers are creating costumes for famed videogame icon Lara Croft. Two of these outfits will be incorporated into Lara’s official wardrobe as downloadable content for Tomb Raider: Underworld post launch. At the show, Bodybag by Jude, Complexgeometries by Clayton Evans, Denis Gagnon, Helmer, Marie Saint Pierre, Philippe Dubuc, Tavân & Mitto, Travis Taddeo, Valérie Dumaine and Yso will unveil designs that have been made specifically for the heroine’s upcoming new adventure.

Attendees of Virtually Fashionable will get to see the designs on real life and virtual models as they strut down the catwalk to music mixed by event sound designer Frigid. After the show, a jury that includes Cynthia Cooper, Curator of the McCord Museum, Herby Moreau, host and journalist, Stephane Le Duc, Editor of Dress to Kill Magazine, and Sandrine Belleteste, fashion consultant, will decide on one outfit that will be incorporated into Lara’s official wardrobe, with the designer taking home a $3,000 purse. A second outfit will be chosen by the public and both will be made available for download via Xbox LIVE® (Marketplace for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®) so gamers will have the chance to play through the entire Tomb Raider: Underworld experience in a new award-winning outfit.

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World War III is only a mouse click away… Supreme Ruler 2020 expansion – Global Crisis announced

Ontario – Paradox Interactive today announced a new expansion pack for the Geo-Political, Military Strategy game Supreme Ruler 2020, developed by BattleGoat Studios.

“This is the first time we’ve developed an expansion pack and we wanted to ensure that we had significant new content for our dedicated players to enjoy,” remarked David Thompson, BattleGoat’s Lead Designer and Co-Founder.
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Website Platform Enables Designers To Boost Revenue and Reach New Markets

VANCOUVER – Press Release –Sitemasher’s new online website platform puts the focus on the website and not the programming and IT development needed to create it. Today, Sitemasher goes one step further in letting professional web designers be web designers and not IT people by launching a partner program aimed squarely at firms focusing on website design, development, and brand marketing and consulting. With Sitemasher’s website building platform, partners will be able to earn more revenue by speeding the design and development process and to access new markets by maximizing the skills of the entire team.

Sitemasher changes the game in building and managing websites. Traditionally a sophisticated, interactive site requires several people, including a designer, developer, back-end IT administrator and a project owner, to implement a full project. But the Sitemasher website platform enables designers to create pixel-perfect, full-featured custom sites that can be implemented easily without programming and IT integration.

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