Village Gamer

Montreal – Today marks the first day of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed 2 Twitter Assassination Experience (Beta). I’ve seen several tweets about the game, and it appears that the Frag Dolls are in on the experience as well. This real time game allows participants to assassinate other players via Twitter, SMS or other Twitter client. Twitter assassins are assigned random targets throughout the day via Tweets from the Assasin’s Network. Players need to carry out their assassinations within a set amount of time. For those who wish to the rogue, players can enter “aggressive mode” and directly attack other players. Targets are able to launch counter attacks, but again, only within a certain amount of time.

As players move through their list of targets, they gain skills and weapons as well as increased rank on the leader board. Watching the game through the Visualizer can be mesmerizing. At last glance, there had been 7441 matches,  4369 assassinations and 56 escapes made by 349 players. Ademdevincent was in the lead with 2270 points when I checked the leader board.

Skills & Weapons Visible On Profile Page

The Twitter mode is played exclusively in Twitter, using “reply tweets” to respond match assignments from the Assassin’s Network. The Aggro Mode, for you rogue assassins, is played exclusively on the Assassination Experience web page. Here you can attack up to five opponents as once – or, conversely, you can be attacked by up to five opponents. When you attack someone in Aggro Mode, their Twitter icon will be added to the victims’ column, along with the time remaining for them to respond to an attack. Players also have the option of turning the assignment mode “off”, meaning that they will not receive Tweeted assignments until they switch their mode back to “on”.

Players are given 100 points for a successful assassination, 150 points for a successful counter attack, and 50 points can be earned by escaping. Level one weapons include a dagger, axe and sword, but more weapons become available as skills are improved. In keeping with the ESRB rating for Assassin’s Creed, players must be 18 years of age and over; logging in with your Twitter account is required in order to participate in the Assassination Experience game.

Canada – Underwriters Laboratories (UL) is notifying consumers that the “Airspan” Ethernet Adapter, identified below, bears an unauthorized UL Mark for the United States and Canada. This product has not been evaluated by UL to the appropriate standard for safety and is not authorized to bear the UL Mark. It is unknown if this product complies with U.S. and Canadian safety requirements.

Name of Product: “Airspan” Indoor Ethernet Adapter, Model SDA-1 Type 2

Number of Units: Unknown

Manufacturer: Unknown

Date of Manufacture: Unknown

Identification On the product: The product has a label with a UL Mark for Canada and the United States, along with the following information.

SDA-1 Type 2
c (UL) us AC Input: 100~240Vac
LISTED 50/60Hz
I.T.E. DC Output: 48VDC / 500mA
POWER SUPPLY P/N:09200080
E151748 YCL
3T57

This product may also be marked “AIRSPAN” on the face cover.

Montreal – Ubisoft will lead a detailed panel featuring Assassin’s Creed II today from 1:45–2:45 p.m. in Room 6A at Comic-Con in San Diego. The panel entitled “Assassin’s Creed II: Video Games and Hollywood Converge” will touch on the evolution of entertainment creation and distribution while highlighting the bridge between video games and film. Panel hosts will be Yannis Mallat, chief executive officer at Ubisoft Montreal and Pierre Raymond, founder and chief executive officer of Hybride Technologies, the visual effects studio behind 300 and Sin City, along with special guest Corey May, Assassin’s Creed II video game scriptwriter.

Recently, during the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, Ubisoft announced production at Hybride Technologies on a series of short films based on the upcoming Assassin’s Creed II video game. The Comic-Con panel will include a discussion of the production of these short films, a viewing of a teaser video showing new shots from the filming and development of the short film series, as well as the first public demonstration of the Assassin’s Creed II video game.

“Ubisoft has detailed our vision for convergence over the past two years. Now, at Comic-con, we are exclusively revealing one of the first building blocks to this strategy: Assassin’s Creed II: Lineage,” said Yannis Mallat. “We’ll be discussing the links between the game and the short film series with some of the key players of the project. We are thrilled to be able to share the results of our efforts with the Comic-com audience.”
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Montreal – EA Montreal has announced that renowned comic artists, Chris Bachalo and Jock have lent their artistic talents to Army of Two™: The 40th Day. The sequel to the 2008 multi-platinum co-op shooter, Army of Two: The 40th Day sees the return of the ultimate two-man private military team, Salem and Rios. As the action heroes fight for survival in a city under siege, the soldiers must make moral choices cooperatively that affect the pair as a team. Each moral decision sets players on a course that affects the gameplay and direction of the storyline. Bachalo and Jock have been enlisted to illustrate the long term impacts of these ‘morality moments’.

On July 24 and 25 from 2pm – 4pm PST during San Diego Comic-con, Chris Bachalo will be signing original Army of Two: The 40th Day artwork at EA’s booth (# 5213).

“Chris and Jock are amazingly talented artists. We’re excited that they have been able to contribute these evocative illustrations to depict the long-term consequences of the players’ key moral decisions,” says Reid Schneider, Executive Producer, EA Montreal.

“These new morality choices are an innovative new feature that we believe will give a new layer to the cooperative experience in the game. Chris and Jock’s work give players’ decisions real weight and resonance,” added Alex Hutchinson, Creative Director EA Montreal.
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Vancouver – On July 26, Nintendo Canada invites everyone to kick back and transform their living rooms into a tropical island adventure with the Wii Sports Resort™ video game, the next chapter in the Wii Sports phenomenon. Wii Sports Resort introduces a new era of motion controls with 12 resort-themed sports enhanced by the included Wii MotionPlus™ accessory. This accessory attaches to the base of the Wii Remote™ controller to bring exacting precision to games that are specially designed for it. Wii MotionPlus recognizes the slightest twist or turn of the Wii Remote controller to bring players deeper into their games. Wii Sports Resort leverages this technology as players escape to a virtual resort and experience all the fun activities of the island setting.

The 12 sports (archery, basketball, bowling, golf, table tennis, Swordplay, Air Sports, canoeing, cycling, Frisbee®, Power Cruising and wakeboarding) allow players to use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk™ controllers in different ways, and while some sports require both controllers, others can be played using only the Wii Remote. In archery, players hold the Wii Remote vertically like a bow while drawing back the Nunchuk. In Frisbee, players motion with the Wii Remote as though they were tossing a real Frisbee. And while playing wakeboarding, players hold the Wii Remote sideways as though they were hanging onto the end of a tether behind a speedboat.
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Montreal – Bug-Tracker Laboratories, one of the world leaders in quality assurance dedicated to the interactive entertainment industry, holding their main offices in Montreal, confirms it will widen its range of services by acquiring Monde Media Solutions, a young Montreal based institution specializing in translation, localization integration and cultural adaptation for video games.

“We are very happy with this new acquisition and the synergy that it creates between both companies”, declares Antoine Carre, President of Bug-Tracker Laboratories. “The combination of our respective services allows us to offer all-encompassing proposals to our customers, bringing an operational solution to recurring needs felt by many major players in the video game industry”.

Bug-Tracker’s presence in Canada, Europe and Asia affords many new outlets and opportunities for Monde Media Solutions in these territories.
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Vancouver – Yummy Interactive, Inc. today announced the release of GameShield Version 4.5 that provides protection and licensing options for Flash-based games. By supporting Adobe® Flash applications, GameShield’s Digital Rights Management system delivers new distribution and revenue opportunities for game developers and publishers who create content with Adobe® Flash.

“Flash developers can leverage GameShield in order to sell their Flash content alongside other types of games on retail websites, or on their own websites, in ways they may not have considered before,” said Christopher Hennebery, Director of Software Distribution at Yummy Interactive.

With GameShield Version 4.5, Flash application executables can now be protected and packaged in the same way as standard Microsoft Windows® executables are. SWF movies can also be directly protected with minimal effort. Unique to GameShield’s wrapper technology is the ability to embed resource and peripheral files, such as audio, video, dlls and data, along with the source code, into a single wrapped executable.
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There is so much to catch up on after being away for two days. I hope you’ve enjoyed the book reviews I’ve been sharing with you – I still have a rather large stack of books to read, so there are more on the way.  I have a few press releases to catch up on as well, which I will be posting shortly. This was my first year at Casual Connect, which offered dozens of very informative and entertaining seminars and panels. I had a great time at the conference and definitely plan to attend next year – hopefully for the full conference. 

First, I want send a shoutout to a few of the people I met at Casual Connect and the Women In Games Leadership Development Forum. It was great to meet people from three eastern Canada studios – Alien Concepts, Big Blue Bubble and Cerebral Vortex – it’s always nice to finally meet people from the studios whose news gets posted on Village Gamer. Thank you also to Krissie Franco of Hydrogen Whiskey for all of the great introductions. There were so many Vancouver people at Casual Connect – including Ryan Arndt from Certain Sound, James Karg of Twisted Majic, consultant Adrian Crook, game producer Mart Lume,  and EA talent recruiters David Chandler and Brooke Coade. There were many Canadian companies present at the conference, but unfortunately I didn’t locate them all. I would’ve liked to have had a chance to meet all those others from studios which we write about – but that will be a goal for next year!

It was also nice to finally meet Sarah Thomson from IUGO Mobile Entertainment – funny that while we are both from the Vancouver area, we finally got to meet in person at a conference in Seattle. Sarah participated in the Leadership Development Forum as part of the Marketing Casual to the Hardcore roundtable discussion along with Dell Monson of Hidden City Games, Carolyn Carnes of Flash Fire Communications and Tracy Williams from Activision. Also attending the conference were Michael Cole and Mark Baxter of Fit Brains, another great Vancouver studio. Mark had some very interesting information and views on designing casual games for women, the panel which he took part in along with Dierdra Kiai of HotHead Games, Charmie Kim from Big Park, independent designer Tara Mustapha and A.C.R.O.N.Y.M. Games‘ Sandy Spangler. I would also like to thank my panel co-participants: Paige Meekison from No Robots Interactive, independent consultant Naomi Kawase of Vancouver, Lani Blazier of NCSoft and our moderator, Dell Monson of Seattle’s Hidden City Games.

The first exhibit table I saw at the conference belonged to the folks from Vancouver’s Yummy Interactive, who are celebrating the release of Game Shield 4.5, which now delivers DRM for Flash games (full details in my next post).  Many thanks again to Kerry Corlett of Annex Pro and Brenda Bailey of Deep Fried Entertainment for a fantastic dinner at Wild Ginger on Monday evening. Annex Pro was one of the sponsors who helped make the Leadership Development Forum a success, and Brenda Bailey participated as both a moderator and panel member for the Forum. We were also joined at dinner by Dennis Chenard from Masters of Digital Media, Rochelle Grayson, and Asra Rasheed.  I also had a chance to meet Tom Higgins of Unity 3D; he will be in Vancouver on Friday night for the official launch of the Vancouver Unity 3D Users’ Group (which we will be attending, and we hope to see you there, tickets are still available, get some). Last but not least, I want to thank Plimus for drawing my name in the iPod Shuffle prize draw – what a great way to end my visit to the conference!

I would be entirely remiss if I did not thank everyone from Women In Games Vancouver, Women In Games International, the IGDA Women In Games special interest group and the Casual Games Association for an incredible job of pulling the Leadership Development Forum together. General consensus about this inaugural session was that it was a great event, and everyone is looking forward to expanding the concept and repeating the Forum at next year’s Casual Connect.

A very special thank you to our sponsors, without whom this event would not have been possible: AnnexPro, Big Fish Games, Pandemic, Massive Black, Ubisoft, Slant Six Games, EA, Sheppard Mullin, 31337 Recruiters, Konami, Flash Fire Communications,  Hotel Max (comfortable rooms, very courteous and helpful staff) King.com and Mary-Margaret Networks. Congratulations to all of the groups, organizers, sponsors and participants for a very memorable day.

Weirdos In The Workplace: The New Normal – Thriving in the Age of the Individual
Author: John Putzier
FT Press August 2004
Paperback: 224 pages

Finally a book for the weirdos out there who find it hard to fit into a regular working environment and for those of you who work with us. I definitely fall into the “doesn’t do well in a set environment” category, so there is a lot of material in this book I could relate to. The content in this book is also directly related to the next book review I will be sharing with you later this week. Personally I think that if a company doesn’t have at least one or two weirdos in the mix, they aren’t doing things right. Creativity and individuality is what it takes to make the innovation wheel go around, something which many corporations are learning the hard way. Who would’ve thought that weird would be cool in the 21st century.

Throughout this well-researched work, Mr. Putzier lets us know that it’s okay to be an individual in the 21st century. He successfully identifies many personality types and gives tips on how to work with those personalities, thereby helping them to achieve career satisfaction. While I was reading the book, it was very easy to identify myself – and many industry friends – with each turning page.

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Seattle – I will be making several shorter update-like posts over the next two days, as time and battery power allows. As many of you know, I am in Seattle at the Women In Games Leadership Development Forum, followed by the Casual Connect Conference.

We are currently enjoying a luncheon at the Triple Door while Megan Gaiser, President and CEO of HeR Interactive presents a keynote address on the importance of leadership. A very entertaining and engaging presentation, Megan emphasized the importance of mentoring and developing talent, as well as encouraging girls to consider game development as a career choice. Megan gave a brief history of HeR Interactive, and then went on to talk about the Nancy Drew franchise and how it has helped to draw women into the industry. She also went over business culture and how studios can further develop the working. Several excellent questions followed Megan’s presentation which looked at different aspects of girls and women in gaming. I personally liked Megan’s statement at the end of her presentation  – “Creative Opportunities are Limitless!” …and so they are. It has been said before that we are only limited by our imagination.

I’m looking forward to a very educational and entertaining forum, and as I said above I will post updates when possible. For those unable to attend, the Forum is being streamed live at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/leadership-development-forum