Current Category: News

Help Protect Animal Habitats With Venture Africa

Posted May 28, 2007 @ 8:40 pm - Filed under: News

Wildlife Tycoon: Venture AfricaPocketwatch Games has donated 4% of the income generated in 2006 by Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa to The WILD Foundation, a Boulder, CO based non-profit dedicated to protecting animal habitats in Africa.

Pocketwatch Games will also motivate others to support The WILD Foundation by providing a link to the WILD website in their upcoming game, Venture Arctic.

Pocketwatch Games has described the “Venture” series of PC/Mac video games as the ultimate “Interactive Nature Documentaries”. The games allow players to create and control animals in a variety of biomes around the world. Venture Arctic also requires players to deal with challenges facing modern ecosystems such as global warming and deforestation.

“When we released Venture Africa, we made a promise to our customers that we would help to protect the animals that inspired us,” said Andy Schatz, CEO and Founder of Pocketwatch Games. “I know our donation to The WILD Foundation is working directly to protect the precious animal habitats in Africa.”

The cash donation is significant since it is coming from an independent video game studio. Typically, “indie” studios operate on such a small budget that they cannot afford to make charitable contributions. Pocketwatch Games founder Andy Schatz was the sole programmer and designer of Venture Africa (PC), which had a total development budget of 8,000 dollars.

The WILD Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Boulder, Colorado. WILD works internationally to protect and sustain wilderness and wildlife while meeting the needs of human communities. For more information, visit www.wild.org.

Learn more about Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa
Download Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa (16.94MB)
Purchase Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa ($19.95)

Zeebys Winners Announced

Posted February 13, 2007 @ 8:28 am - Filed under: News

Winners of the first annual Zeebys award for the best casual games of the 2006 have been announced, following Internet voting, and presentation of the awards at the CGA (Casual Games Association) conference in Amsterdam.

People’s Choice Awards (voted by gamers) were:

Craft Awards (voted by CGA members) were:

Congratulations to the winners, and if you haven’t checked out these games yet, this is a good chance to do so. Who’ll be nominated next year? It’s way too early to tell, of course, but keep and eye out for the best games of 2007, then vote in next year’s Zeebys!

Learn more…

First Annual Casual Game Awards

Posted January 19, 2007 @ 4:19 pm - Filed under: News

Vote for the Best Casual Games - First Annual Casual Game AwardsWhat were the best casual games of the 2006? You get to decide by voting on the Zeebys, the casual games industry’s version of the Oscars.

You can vote for the winners of the “People’s Choice” awards for the best games of the year in categories such as arcade games, puzzle games, strategy games, word games, cards games, and the big prize, the Best Casual Game of the Year award.

Nominations were chosen by members of the Casual Games Association (CGA). The nominees for the Best Casual Game of the Year are:

CGA members have also chosen, and will vote themselves, for “Craft Awards” in technical categories such as game design, story, graphics, sound, etc. The top overall achievement garners the Craft Achievement of the Year award.

The complete list of nominees and categories is available on the Zeebys web site. Voting is open until the end of January, and winners will be announced on February 8, 2007, at CGA Europe West: Amsterdam.

Vote Now!

Top Casual Games of 2006

Posted December 26, 2006 @ 10:36 am - Filed under: News

Top Casual Games of 2006GameTunnel has released their list of the top five 2006 Casual Games of the Year. Here they are:

  1. Eets: Hunger. It’s Emotional by Klei Entertainment
  2. Tube Twist by 21-6 Productions
  3. Blast Miner by Cryptic Sea
  4. Scrubbles by Oberon Media
  5. Egyptian Addiction by Big Toe Software

Prior winners include Professor Fizzwizzle, Revolved, and Dungeon Scroll.

Read the article for the complete details.

Watch The WorldWide Web Games on GSN

Posted November 28, 2006 @ 10:30 am - Filed under: News

The first-ever WorldWide Web Games (W3Games) will premier on GSN (Game Show Network) on Sunday, December 3, 2006 at 8:00pm EST.

70 competitors, who had qualified by playing online tournaments at FUN Technologies’ casual games sites, SkillJam and WorldWinner. The contestants, ranging in age from 20 to 63, represent six countries and 22 U.S. states.

You can view the promo below:

Practice up at SkillJam and WorldWinner - you could be the next million-dollar winner!

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