THIS WEEK IN TECTORIA

A community blog celebrating Victoria's booming tech sector

CONTACT THE TECTORIA BLOG

Got a cool story about technology and creativity in Victoria? Email stories, tips, pictures, links and anything of interest to Tessa Bousfield at: tectoria@viatec.ca

The Zone at 91-3fm

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Our Tectorian of the Week is: The Zone at 91-3fm!

It’s not often a Tectorian is a non-tech company, but we just can’t ignore the great support coming from this radio station, especially this last week!

Radio host, Jon Williams, had the CEO of Codename Entertainment on his show to talk about all things gaming.

Eric Jordan dived into Victoria’s Video Game Sector covering upcoming events and resources we can all refer to. Check out the full blog and radio interview right here.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Eric Jordan gets comfy at the Zone at 91-3fm

Tectorian of the Week: TinyMob Games

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Our Tectorian of the Week for April 11 is TinyMob Games. …You may have heard of them in Tech Cruch.

TinyMob unveiled their first game earlier today at the massive PAX East Boston gaming conference. It’s hard to believe TinyMob, led by Tectorians Chris Hoefgen, Alex Mendelev and Jamie Toghill, opened their studio last fall, just a few months ago.

Besides getting critical home-town recognition in a glowing Times Colonist article today, TinyMob and its new game is also the subject of a longer Tech Crunch profile published just this morning.

Tiny Realms, a Unity-based real-time strategy game for iPad and iPhone, looks like it’s going to be awesome, and it’s very cool that a Victoria-based company is creating eye candy that appeals to millions of gamers around the world.

The game lets you build worlds, assemble armies, wage wars, and build empires.

Tiny Realms is also generating a lot of exciting in a mobile games industry always seeking innovative ways to remain competitive and profitable.

“We have content and features planned out for the next 12 months post launch that not only add content, but will also expose more of the underlying mythology we’ve created for our world,” Mendelev says in the Tech Crunch interview. “The way we bring this to life is through player events actually having an impact on the fabric of the Tiny Realms universe. Player actions will leave indelible marks on the game we’ve created that other players will get to experience, too.”

The team unveiled the name, images and a trailer of game play at the PAX East Boston gaming conference. The finished product will be released later this spring.

 

Orcajam 4 begins September 6

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OrcajamGaming developers ahoy! The fourth annual Orcajam begins on September 6.

The event attracts developers, designers and producers from Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and Washington State for two days of intense game creation. Around 80 people are expected to attend, reports the Victoria Times-Colonist.

It costs just $20, Bring your own computer but there will be food, prizes and access to brilliant minds. Orcajam is part of Thinklandia – a festival of imagination, which sounds intriguing.

Another gaming studio coming to Victoria

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Kixeye, a San Francisco-based gaming company, is opening a 50-person development centre in Victoria’s downtown core, according to this news story.

According to Clayton Stark, the firm has already received “many, many CVs” and aims to open shop in January. Stark is best known as the creator of Flock, a web browser that integrates social media. Flock was bought by gaming giant Zynga, famous for making Farmville, in 2011.

Microsoft already has a gaming studio in Victoria.