Village Gamer

Today at its Digital Days event, Ubisoft shared more details about several of its upcoming titles. First on the information list is Child of Light, a digital title to be released in 2014 on current- and next-generation platforms as well as PC.  The game is being created by a small team of seasoned developers based at Ubisoft Montreal. Child of Light has been developed on Ubisoft’s UbiArt Framework, a powerful engine that lets programmers and artists to bring their art to life by allowing original concept art to be inserted unedited into the game world. In Child of Light, the effect is that playing becomes akin to stepping into an interactive painting.  Read the rest of this entry »

BroadbandTV, one of the largest Multi-Channel Networks (MCN) on YouTube, signaled its continued growth today by announcing that it has reached a billion monthly impressions. The network now boasts more than 100 million subscribers from over 10,000 content partners, an increase of 2,200 content partners in just two months. In June this year, the company announced an initial $36 million investment from RTL Group, the leading European entertainment network. At the time, the deal marked the largest private placement in a Canadian Internet media company since 2007 and will support the business in its expansion plans. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifteen open, online textbooks in subject areas ranging from math and chemistry to marketing, psychology, and business have been reviewed by post-secondary faculty and are now freely available for download from BCcampus. More than 38 instructors and professors from post-secondary institutions around the province reviewed existing open textbooks for quality and relevance in British Columbia. These 15 textbooks have been found to be of high quality and appropriate for use in B.C. institutions (complete list below). Read the rest of this entry »

Five major Canadian digital media funding organizations have joined efforts to facilitate international digital media co-productions through the creation of a shared and simple framework (PDF 125KB) that sets the basis for co-producing digital media projects with Canada and to access their respective funding programs. The new framework was developed by the Canada Media Fund, the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, the Independent Production Fund, the Quebecor Fund, and the Shaw Rocket Fund. It provides a unified administrative approach to ease negotiations between Canadian producers and their foreign partners. Read the rest of this entry »

Quebec’s Squeeze Studio Animation has released its first Live Wallpaper on Google Play. The app, which is on sale for 99¢, features Fernutz the dancing farmer, one of the studio’s original characters. Fernutz Latino Dancing is a fun Live Wallpaper showcasing a highly detailed funny 3D animated character, challenging the studio’s artists with some crazy meringue-inspired dance choreography. More than a simple Live Wallpaper, Fernutz Latino Dancing proposes a cool ‘Match the Pose’ mini-game triggered by a quick touch of the on-screen joystick icon. Read the rest of this entry »

Nearing its one-year anniversary, Microsoft Corp.’s all-in-one music service, Xbox Music, continues making strides to deliver all the music people want, wherever they want it played. Today, Microsoft announced its plans to bring Xbox Music to iOS and Android devices, as well as free streaming on Xbox Music via the Web – see below for further details and conditions. Read the rest of this entry »

Game industry veteran Raphael van Lierop has announced the formation of independent developer Hinterland Studio, a new creative studio located in the picturesque Northern Vancouver Island wilderness. With a roster of established industry veterans who have collectively worked on over 40 triple-A games, the studio is also pleased to announce development of its first title, The Long Dark. A first-person post-disaster survival simulation, The Long Dark is set in the aftermath of a geomagnetic super storm that has destroyed North America’s technology infrastructure. In the first season of this episodic series, players experience this grim new reality through the eyes of bush pilot William Mackenzie, isolated with other survivors in the Northern wilderness as a result of the event. Gameplay emphasizes exploration to gather resources and knowledge about the world, while mastering a deep survival simulation to overcome the myriad natural and man-made hazards of the new frontier. Players will also face difficult moral choices that will affect the outcome of gameplay, story, and ultimately, the course of humanity’s recovery. Read the rest of this entry »

EA Sports™ announced today that the highly popular mode Online Seasons* is now coming to Hockey Ultimate Team in NHL 14.  The most played game mode in EA Sports NHL®, Hockey Ultimate Team allows players to build their ultimate fantasy team from more than 4,000 players from leagues around the world, and compete with other players to prove their team is the very best. Winner of the prestigious Game Critics Award for Best Sports Game at this year’s E3, NHL 14 will be available for Xbox 360® and PlayStation®3 on September 10 in North America and by September 13 worldwide. Read the rest of this entry »

Big Blue Bubble Inc. is proudly celebrating the 1 year anniversary of My Singing Monsters with a major content update and over 1 million dollars’ worth of premium gifts distributed among all players. The anniversary update introduces the long-anticipated Ethereal Island, with new features, a new song, and of course, new singing monsters! Also included are new storage structures designed to enhance the player’s experience, new remixes available for download, and more. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week Ubisoft uncovered another Dedsec directive mission, along with some startling statistics on how the Watch_Dogs have motivated the citizenry, rallying them to their cause. The mission software has seen over 121 000 downloads to both the iOS and Android platforms, resulting in over 4 million hacked locations. With a new directive being issued, there’s no telling how far this movement will spread across the country. Read the rest of this entry »