Village Gamer

The PROFIT HOT 50, which is celebrating its 12th anniversary, is Canada’s premier ranking and awards program for successful young businesses. Anyone who manages or knows of a fast-growing young company is invited to submit a nomination by completing the simple entry form before June 30th.  Candidates or nominators looking for more information can call the toll-free PROFIT HOT 50 hotline at 1-800-713-GROW or visit the Hot 50 web site.

PROFIT will honour Canada’s Top New Growth Companies in its October issue and at GrowthCamp, an exclusive summit at which HOT 50 leaders share ideas, learn from experts and make valuable new contacts. Past winners have called it the best business event they’ve ever attended. Winning firms are backed by a national publicity campaign that generates extensive consumer and trade-media coverage.

Past PROFIT HOT 50 winners include Robert Herjavec of Dragons’ Den; Tony Lacavera of Globalive Communications and Wind Mobile; and Stephan Cretier of Garda World Security, a billion-dollar global security firm.

Collect shiny gems raining down from the sky, but beware of lurking sea monsters, all while playing four exciting mini-games – in tvokids.com’s The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay.

TVOKids.com continues to lead the way in teacher-approved, kid-tested fun with the launch of its new online educational game that was developed in close collaboration with students from a Toronto community school. The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay, which launches today on the TVO Kids web site, is an online board game that can be played by one to four players on the same computer – perfect for families.

Built from the ground up, over a one-and-a-half year period, game developers and educators from tvokids.com worked with a group of 10 children, aged five to seven, to incorporate their ideas and preferences into an exciting and challenging game. Not only is it adjustable for different skill levels, but The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay finely balances a mysteriously fun game while reinforcing the Ontario school curriculum.

The tvokids.com team began by building a life-sized physical board game and workshopped it with kids to determine the best way to make the educational elements of the game really come alive.

Players select one of six unique characters and compete to collect the most gems by playing four types of mini-games. Each game is designed to help kids with adding (Nice Dice), patterning (Ball Fall), geometry (Shape Escape), and spelling (Word Herd). The game’s adventurous setting incorporates suggestions from kids to add hidden passageways, top-secret trapdoors and wonderful surprises.

“The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay is the result of a collaborative effort between kids and tvokids.com – we really listened to what they liked in their favourite games and tried to pack as much as we could in this game,” says manager of tvokids.com Marie Morency-Lee. “When we showed the kids the final game, they were excited and screaming, ‘This was my idea!’. The game is a great tool to practice math and language concepts while having a blast playing with friends and family.”

AOL Canada introduces Canadian teens to Cambio, an online entertainment destination that allows fans to connect with their favorite celebrities and combines original programming with interactivity to offer “entertainment 2.0” for teens. The website, launched last July in the United States, is the result of a partnership between AOL, The Jonas Group and MGX Lab.

Cambio features up to the minute news on today’s brightest stars and original online specials and series including Live Chats with fan favorites Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas; live streaming of Red Carpet Events such as Disney’s Prom Premiere; and an inside look at the childhood homes of top celebrities, like Matthew Morrison, in Cambio Goes Home.

The goal of Cambio is to offer a next-generation online network that fuses exclusive video, information, social interaction, and compelling entertainment taking teens from Fans to Friends.

Cambio resonated as a premium advertising opportunity for Toronto agency, J3 and they turned to Neutrogena^® to be a partner in this endeavour. As a result, this summer, Cambio is partnering with Neutrogena for their Canadian campaign “One Less Stress” and will feature video interviews with celebrities on topics that matter to them and on how they cope with stress in their busy lives. Read the rest of this entry »

Maplesoft™ has announced a new release of MapleSim™, the high-performance physical modeling and simulation software. With its broader application scope, streamlined modeling environment, and ability to efficiently simulate even more systems, MapleSim 5 makes it easier to tackle large projects and get results quickly.

MapleSim 5 comes with over 150 new components, including new libraries for magnetics and thermal fluids, which means the power of MapleSim can be applied to even more modeling projects. With these components, customers can use MapleSim 5 to quickly develop a wider range of applications, such as the solenoids in dialysis machines and fuel injection systems, saturating motors and transformers, and heat exchangers for machine cooling systems.

The MapleSim 5 interface includes many new and improved features to reduce model development time and help customers manage the complexity of their models. For example, enhanced diagnostic tools provide early feedback related to the definition of the model itself, such as identifying inconsistent initial conditions. MapleSim then provides assistance in resolving the problem, so corrections can be made before running the simulation. Other additions include increased control over parameters and initial conditions, easy export of 3-D animation simulation results, and streamlined design environments for building both model diagrams and 3-D model representations. The improved simulation engine in MapleSim can now generate highly optimized C code for all MapleSim models. This royalty-free code can be incorporated into other software in the toolchain.

MapleSim uses a fully developed symbolic modeling engine to handle all of the complex mathematics involved in the development of engineering models. This symbolic engine offers unique advantages that expand the modeling and simulation capabilities of engineers. Each MapleSim release further develops these capabilities, which include automatically generated model equations in full parametric form, equation-based custom components, optimized code generation for real-time systems, revolutionary multibody technology, and an interactive analysis environment that captures the full engineering knowledge that goes into each project.

“By leveraging symbolic computation technology, MapleSim offers unique advantages that enable our customers to succeed at very difficult design projects they simply cannot do with other tools,” says Laurent Bernardin, Executive Vice-President and Chief Scientist, Maplesoft. “MapleSim reduces model development time from months to days while producing high-fidelity, high-performance models. With MapleSim 5, our customers can apply those time and cost savings to even more projects, while further reducing the time needed to design their complex models.”

New Brunswick indie studio On The Fly Entertainment has announced the launch of the studio’s first Xbox Live Indie Games release, math-based puzzle fighter Sum Fighter. Choose from one of six high school archetypes, use their unique abilities to bury your opponents and rise to the top of the school math competition.

To crush your opponent, rapidly add numbers to destroy blocks on your board and drop them into your opponent’s board. To destroy your blocks, you must drag adjacent blocks together, combining their face values. Once you’ve connected as many groups together as their face value the blocks disappear (players would connect five groups of the value 5 to destroy them or two groups of the value 2 and so on). The first player whose blocks reach and stay at the top for ten seconds loses. Our narrated tutorial steps the player through our mechanics before their first match.

Each character has their own path through story mode with their own unique character interactions and ending. The Jock, Nerd, Emo, Tagger, Principal and Librarian each have a unique ability they can unleash on their opponent, in order to be crowned the Sum Fighter Champion!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1hZSjLyxF4]

Sum Fighter Features:

• A fully animated intro
• A narrated tutorial
• 2 Player vs Mode and Story Mode
• 6 Animated characters at a gorgeous 720p
• 6 Character Endings
• 8 Expertly composed and varied music tracks

Sum Fighter is available now on Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 Microsoft Points.

I only have a few minutes left before I have to head off for work, so here is a quick rundown of event news:

* If you haven’t yet registered for SIGGRAPH 2011, you should do so now, because ticket prices go up at midnight on June 18th.  Having the conference in Vancouver this year is a huge opportunity for our many-faceted digital media industry, and I hope that you all take advantage of it. We’ll be at the show, and we really hope to see you there, too.

* The Full Indie Game Jam that is happening this weekend at the Centre for Digital Media is sold out, but there is a waiting list. Registration is also now open for the June 23rd Full Indie meetup event, and with limited space available, I suggest signing up now. Games from the jam will be featured at the meetup.

* SIGGRAPH Vancouver Chapter presents The Art of Lighting and Rendering Rio next week at District 319. Jim Gettinger, Lighting Supervisor, will discuss lighting and lighting design as it pertains to the overall aesthetic of Blue Sky Studios’ latest animated hit, RIO. This talk will explore the developmental work pursued by Jim and his team taking the listener through many stages of the production process at Blue Sky. Lighting and lighting techniques will be presented from concept art, through pre-visualization, master lighting, and compositing.

* The next Women In Games Vancouver Martini Night is June 23rd at Guilt & Company. Ladies, come out for a relaxing evening of socializing with other women from the interactive media industry. RSVP on the event’s Facebook page.

* Annex Pro is hosting three (and free) software events in Vancouver; please click the event links for more information and to register. The first is happening tomorrow – Test-Drive Native Performance with new Avid Pro Tools|HD Native will be held at Annex Pro. Don’t Just Edit. Finish. Autodesk Smoke for Mac OS X takes place at Vancouver Film School on June 22. On June 28th, you can spend An Evening with The Foundry: Nuke 6.3, NukeX 6.3, Mari at Rainmaker Entertainment.

* New Media Manitoba presents iPad User Interface Design on June 21st. Chris, Olga, and Lee of Velocity Branding will guide you through their methodology for project management and designing for Tablets. This is a free event, and will take place at the NMM offices from 5-7pm.

* Interactive Ontario presents Interact Networking Mixer: Special Documentary Edition on June 29th at The Annex Live from 6 – 8pm. This event is free for DOC & IO Members or $10.00 for Non-Members. You are invited to come out and mingle with professionals in the interactive and documentary media industries, with the opportunity to uncover new possibilities for creative and business partnerships. This event is co-presented by docSHIFT (an initiative of the DOC Toronto) and Interactive Ontario.

* Tech Cocktail is coming to Vancouver on July 9th. The event will be very much focused on the future as we partner with Futurists:BetaLaunch as part of the World Future Conference by the World Future Society, a 45-year old non-profit organization dedicated to advancing ideas of the future. We’re also looking to engage with the local Vancouver tech community, inviting them to participate in this exciting event.

* Amazon invites you to come out and meet the Amazon Vancouver team, where you can learn about all the job opportunities at one of Amazon’s newest Software Development Centers in Canada. Meet and mingle with all the different teams that are growing and hiring at the new office. This will be a great opportunity to meet our engineers, learn about our culture, and find out about the exciting opportunities Amazon Vancouver has to offer. Have a drink and appetizers on us, but don’t forget to bring your resume. RSVP through LinkedIn required.

* The nationwide DEMO Innovation tour is back – it will be in Vancouver on June 23rd, Toronto on June 26th, and Montreal on July 15th.  Matt Marshall, DEMO Executive Producer and the DEMO team will travel around the country to connect with the DEMO community in search of the best innovation to showcase at DEMO Fall 2011, and they invite you to submit an application for a 30 minute private meeting with the DEMO team and leading Venture capitals in a city near you. There are ten spots available per tour stop. Each company selected will also have the opportunity to address a larger audience at the DEMO Tour party in the evening open to the entire DEMO community of VCs, investors, media and PR professionals.

Remember this is just a very small sampling of upcoming events – visit our Events Page for more listings.

Montreal-based regulated-gaming industry developer Amaya Gaming Group Inc. has closed its previously announced bought deal private placement of 3,300,000 common shares of its share capital (the “Common Shares”) at a price of CAD$3.10 per Common Share for aggregate gross proceeds of CAD$10,230,000 (the “Offering”). The Offering was conducted through a syndicate of underwriters led by Canaccord Genuity Corp. and including Laurentian Bank Securities Inc. (collectively, the “Underwriters”).

In addition, Amaya has granted the Underwriters an over-allotment option exercisable at any time, in whole or in part, up to 30 days from the closing of the Offering, to purchase up to that number of additional common shares of Amaya equal to 15% of the Common Shares sold pursuant to the Offering, to cover over-allotments, if any, and for market stabilization purposes (the “Over-Allotment Option”). If the Over-Allotment Option is exercised in full, the total gross proceeds to Amaya will be CAD$11,764,500.

Amaya intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering for the Chartwell acquisition announced on May 12, 2011, for various online gaming initiatives as well as for general corporate and working capital purposes.

Amaya has paid the Underwriters an aggregate underwriting commission of CAD$613,800 and has granted the Underwriters compensation options (the “Compensation Options”) to purchase an aggregate number of 198,000 Common Shares, representing 6% of the total number of Common Shares sold pursuant to the Offering, at a price of CAD$3.10 per Common Share until June 15, 2013.

Amaya has received conditional listing approval from the TSX Venture Exchange for the Common Shares sold under the Offering, and the common shares underlying the Compensation Options.

The Common Shares issued as part of the Offering are subject to a four-month plus one day statutory resale restriction ending on October 16, 2011.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities in the United States, or for the account or benefit of U.S. persons (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended).

The Saskatchewan Science Centre has partnered with IBM and its subsidiary, ISM Canada, as part of IBM’s Celebration of Service through which IBM  employees, retirees and business partners donate their time and expertise in communities around the world during IBM’s Centennial year.

On June 15, the Science Centre is hosting the third of many robotics workshops planned for this year using special educational robotics kits and laptops donated by IBM and valued at $10,000. Volunteers from IBM, ISM Canada, and the Science Centre will lead today’s robotics workshops for Imperial Community School students from Grades 6 through 8. Over the course of 2011, about 100 volunteers from IBM and the community are expected to participate in the program.

“The Saskatchewan Robotics Challenge workshop is a perfect fit for us, truly inspiring minds through science and innovation,” said Saskatchewan Science Centre Executive Director Sandy Baumgartner.  “Our volunteers make learning fun and accessible, and they help the students see the possibilities for futures in science.”

The Saskatchewan Robotics Challenge places special emphasis on reaching out to young people from First Nations and Aboriginal schools. “We’re finding that our First Nations are under-represented in science and technology careers, and we want to help change that,” said Hugh Hudson, IBM’s Senior Location Executive for Saskatchewan. “The Robotics Challenge workshop is a way of opening career doors. Students become more aware of the possibilities, and we hope they discover that the experience of building a robot with one of our mentor-volunteers sparks their interest in learning more about future careers in technology.”

In recognition of 100 years in business, the 2011 IBM Celebration of Service spans more than 120 countries where IBMers live and conduct business. The Saskatchewan Science Centre offers over 20 curriculum-based workshops designed to supplement what educators are teaching, or to introduce new concepts using resources not available at every school.

Score Media Inc., home of theScore Television Network, theScore.com, ScoreMobile® and theScore Satellite Radio, has added the hit HBO comedy series Eastbound & Down to its programming line-up. The story of Kenny Powers, a former star pitcher whose arrogance and bad behavior knocked him out of Major League Baseball, Eastbound & Down is a hilarious, no holds barred comedy that takes viewers on Powers’ journey as he struggles to get back in the game.

Starring comedian/actor Danny McBride, directed by David Gordon Green and Jody Hill, written by Shawn D. Harwell & Jody Hill & Danny McBride, and with a star-studded line up of executive producers including Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy, Eastbound & Down has become a hit since its launch on HBO in 2009.

“We’re really excited about adding Eastbound & Down to our line-up,” says Greg Sansone, Vice President, Television, Score Media Inc.  “I really think our viewers will enjoy watching Kenny Powers’ hilarious path to self-destruction.”

Following last Sunday night’s talked-about plot twist in the penultimate episode of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, the epic first season comes to a conclusion on HBO Canada, a multiplex channel of Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central (Western Canada) and Astral’s The Movie Network (Eastern Canada) on Sunday, June 19 at 9 p.m. In the finale episode, “Fire and Blood,” the stakes are high for the Stark House as aspirations and ambitions, secrets and feuds come to a head in the quest to control the Iron Throne.

Seeing audience growth week over week, Game of Thrones has connected with subscribers, becoming one of the top three performing series on HBO Canada since the channel’s launch. Based on its success in the US, Game of Thrones has been renewed for a second season by HBO.

The season finale premieres Sunday, June 19 at 9 p.m. ET/MT on HBO Canada and the entire season will be available:

• On The Movie Network OnDemand, Movie Central On Demand, and HBO Canada On Demand
• In Western Canada via Movie Central Online with participating television providers
• In Eastern Canada via Bell TV Online, Rogers On Demand Online and Videotron’s Illico Web

Based on the bestselling fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones is a 10-part epic fantasy series that follows kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and noblemen as they vie for power and control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.

I already know where the story goes, because I’ve read the books (still waiting on the next one, Mr. Martin…) so the burning question I have is – WHEN IS SEASON 2?