Village Gamer

Montréal – Ubisoft® has announced that it will launch a new title in the Might & Magic universe. Might & Magic Clash of Heroes, a puzzle RPG, was developed by Toronto’s Capybara Games, creators of award-winning handheld and mobile games, specifically for Nintendo DS™ for release in August 2009.

In this game, through five unique and epic quests, players will alternate exploration and turn-based puzzle battles to save the world of Ashan from demonic chaos. Might & Magic Clash of Heroes also adopts a brand new manga-style art design that is perfectly suited to Nintendo DS. In a world populated by knights, elves, wizards, necromancers and demons, gamers can manage their own hero, customize their army and lead campaigns in the mythic Might & Magic world.

“Our fans have always appreciated the depth and richness of the Might & Magic universe,” said Romain de Waubert de Genlis, senior producer at Ubisoft. “The teams at Ubisoft and Capybara were inspired to extend that universe in a unique way onto DS, creating an engaging new game experience.”

Created for Might & Magic fans while also attracting new audiences, Might & Magic Clash of Heroes can be played in solo mode or shared with a friend in two-player peer-versus-peer mode.

Vancouver – Take command of your armies and unleash the fury of the dragons upon your rivals. Seize land and resources in order to grow your empire. Only one Dragon Lord can survive. Do you have what it takes to reign supreme?

A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Games is pleased to announce the release of their latest iPhone title, War of the Dragon Lords, which is available in the App Store for a limited time at the introductory price of 99 cents.

War of the Dragon Lords features classic turn based combat, allowing players to seize territory and claim reinforcements while unleashing horrific destruction with a single command to your dragon force. Up to eight opponents can compete in a world full of random maps – but don’t expect to complete the maps any time soon, as there are over four billion possible scenarios to compete in. Players may also choose to take on the game’s AI instead of playing in multiplayer mode.

War of the Dragon Lords is compatible with both the iPhone and iPod Touch, but does require the iPhone 2.2.1 software update.

Banff – “The Banff World Television Awards have long been recognized as one of the most prestigious awards in the industry celebrating outstanding television programs by international TV creators,” comments Peter Vamos, BANFF Executive Director. “The 2009 nominees for the Entertainment and Documentary ‘Rockies’ are once again outstanding.”

Canwest presents the Banff World Television Awards. ‘E! News Weekend’s’ Arisa Cox will host the Categories’ Awards on Sunday, June 7. ‘ET Canada’s’ Rick Campanelli will host the Grand Prize Awards honouring ‘Best of the Best in Banff’ on Monday June 8.

The Interactive Awards will be handed out during BANFF’s sister conference, nextMEDIA, on Saturday, June 6, 2009. All ceremonies will be held at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada

New additions to this year’s Rockies include the now expanded Sports program categories separated into two categories – Sports Documentaries and Sport Entertainment Programs. A complete list of nominees for the Entertainment and Documentary categories for the 2009 Banff World Television Awards follows below.
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Calgary – Digital Alberta is asking for interested parties to create a design concept to be used in a Poster Advertisement for the February 2010 Media Fresh Awards. Design must be suitable for other media such as invitations, promotional mailers, direct mail, static displays, newspaper/magazine advertising, website and print catalogue of which will include mediaFRESH’10’s finalists work and contact information.

Target Audience
Professionals, artists who work with digital media and students (both post-secondary and grades 9-12 with an interest in New Media).

Communication Objectives
• Create a venue that highlights achievements and excellence in design by digital media professionals and students
• Increase awareness of mediaFRESH Digital Alberta Awards being hosted in Calgary at Mount Royal College on February 26, 2010
• Encourage participation in this event and in Alberta’s Digital media industry in general
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Montreal – Eidos-Montréal is excited to unveil its previously secret second title in development at the studio, Thief™ 4, the next installment in the legendary series – and to go along with this momentous occasion, Eidos-Montréal is also pleased to announce the official opening of their online store, featuring Deus-Ex and Thief 4 merchandise.

The original Thief game, Thief: The Dark Project redefined first person gaming and established an entirely new genre of stealth based game play. The critically and commercially acclaimed Thief series has won numerous awards and accolades including GameSpy Hall of Fame, GameSpot Greatest Games of All Time and The Academy of Interactive Arts And Sciences Outstanding Achievement in Character and Story Development.

Eidos-Montréal, which is also currently producing the much anticipated Deus Ex™ 3, has recruited the very best core team for the development of Thief 4. The team is comprised of industry veterans who have worked on an incredible collection of AAA titles and who each bring personal expertise in their respective fields.
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Toronto – The Canadian Television Fund (CTF) today announced that the Digital Media Program has been renewed and has been increased from $2 million to $10 million dollars for 2009-2010. Guidelines for this program, which outline the application process, program changes, criteria, and deadlines, are now available on the CTF website.

“The tremendous demand for the Digital Media Pilot Program demonstrates that there is a strong need for this type of funding and that the industry is transitioning quickly to leverage digital extensions of traditional television programming,” said Valerie Creighton, President and CEO of the CTF. “The support provided by CTF funding is critical for producers as they complement their shows with webisodes, mobisodes, games, and other digital products.”
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Vancouver – United Front Games Ltd. today announced that it is developing an action-based game set in Hong Kong for Activision Publishing, Inc.

Based in Vancouver, BC, United Front Games was formed in 2007 by former employees of Electronic Arts, Radical Entertainment, Black Box Games, Rockstar, Action Pants, Propaganda Games and Next Level Games.

“Over the past two decades our core team has led development of some groundbreaking games, so we have enormous expectations of ourselves,” said Stefan Wessels, United Front Games’ General Manager. “We have assembled industry talent from around the world, who have worked in senior positions on renowned titles such as the Need For Speed series, SKATE, Bully, Scarface, Godfather, Hulk, Spore and the NHL Sports franchise.”

“We are honoured to be working with Activision,” added Stephen van der Mescht, Executive Producer. “It’s exciting to see so much talent come together to unite this new studio and deliver our best work ever.”

Burnaby – Electronic Arts Inc. today announced that EA SPORTS™ has innovated a new, physical brand of hockey that includes first-person fighting in NHL® 10 to match the toughness and emotional intensity real-world NHL players endure in pursuit of a Stanley Cup™ Championship.

Towel Wave

The franchise that has won 19 sports game of the year awards over the past two years begins a new era with gameplay innovations that deliver a new standard of toughness, the emotion of playoff hockey on the ice and in the arena, and over 200 gameplay refinements that replicate the skill and finesse that every fan sees throughout the NHL playoffs.

A new first-person fighting engine enables players to trade punches with an NHL tough guy. Feel what it’s like to be on the ice in the skates of an NHL player to throw and dodge punches. Grab and tug an opponent’s jersey to land a punch that ignites the fans and sparks your team to victory. Challenge a skill player and an opposing team tough guy will step in to settle the score.
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Vancouver – I will be honest – in the weeks leading up to GDC Canada, I had my reservations about what type of event it would be. I had heard that not many people would be attending and that there would be very little in the way of exhibit booths. I imagine that a large part was played by the current economy in keeping businesses and attendees away, but it didn’t take me very long once I had arrived at GDC Canada to feel that it was going to be a great event. Even though there wasn’t an abundance of exhibit booths, there was a good many people present – early estimates put the number at about double the attendance of 2008’s VIGS – the previous incarnation of GDC Canada.

The conference organizers – Think Services and Reboot Communications, along with their staff, volunteers and the Advisory Board are to be congratulated on a very good inaugural event. I feel that GDC Canada will continue to grow in the future, and I know that more than just a few of us are hoping to see more features added to next year’s conference – especially a Canadian version of the GDC Game Awards.

Overall, I think that Vancouver Digital Week has been thus far a great success. Today we will be dropping in on Digital Kung Fu which is taking place at the Great Northern Way Campus, followed by the Wired Woman seminar about computer forensics. I have loads of notes and photos to post from GDC and all of the accompanying events, but unfortunately it looks like I won’t have the time to do them all justice until tomorrow – but that just means you have more new and informative content from Village Gamer to look forward to.

I do want to send a shout-out to one of our regular readers whom I had the pleasure of meeting at GDC, so “Hi!” to Ryan Arndt from Certain Sound – I hope you had a great time at GDC Canada, and thank you for letting me know that you find our site to be a useful source of information.

Vancouver – The New Media BC PopVox Awards were held last night at  Workspace on Water Street.  While Village Gamer did not attend the Awards due to conflicting events, we’ve heard reports that the Awards were a lot of fun and that a good time was had by all.

The winners for 2009 are:

Best Digital Animation: Pride of Frankenstein – Jibber Jabber

Best Digital VFX: Inside Out – Switch Interactive

Best Digital Learning Initiative (Technology): The Film Lab – thesubstream
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