Reporting on the games made in Canada and the creators behind them
Here's another video of me playing Watch Dogs 2. In this one, you hack into the Ubisoft San Francisco office to steal an unreleased/unannounced game and release it to a gaming website (not TorontoGameDevs.com).
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Another Toronto developed game was brought to my attention the other day on Twitter, Use Your Words.
Fun fact! Did you know that the game @brentalfloss and I are working on, @UseYourWords, is being made entirely in Toronto? @TorontoGameDevs
— Julian Spillane (@JulianSpillane) November 14, 2016
Use Your Words is a game that invites players to respond to a variety of mini-games and prompts with the funniest answers they can think of! Players play using their phones and tablets as controllers, making game-play seamless and quick to pick up. Players who get stumped can use one of the hidden "House Answers" to lay a trap for their fellow players once it's time for everyone to vote for their favorite.
You can out the games Steam page right here, but it is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, and Steam early next year.
Solo indie dev expert and longtime friend-of-the-site Devon Wiersma joins us to talk their latest release Centauri Dark, working across AAA, mid-sized and solo indie dev and how to fix this goshdarn industry.
David B joins us from the west coast best coast to talk about the upcoming Quiver Games Incubator!
Bizdev extraordinaire Eric Beer joins us to give his Hades II impressions and chat v-bucks subsidized game preservation.
We break down Baldur Gate 3's unprecedented success & the knock-on effects it'll have on the industry and how we make games moving forward. We also speak to Ontario-based indie game devs Twinolli about their upcoming action-puzzler Highlighters which just got a (Dad Deck-verified) Steam demo!
We speak to Québécois game dev Dragon Slumber, creator of Tech Support, Aethernaut and many more!
We reveal the winners of our ‘23 Community Awards poll and discuss Drinkbox’s latest teaser for their next project- and more!
This week thousands more game developers join Stephan in the "terminated by evil, stupid people" camp as layoffs hit tons of studios all over Canada and the world. We discuss Sonic as well. Sonic supports Unionizing your Workplace!
Hey everyone! Since Ubisoft was kind enough to give me a code for Watch Dogs 2, I'll be posting some videos for is. The first one is below! Enjoy, and subscribe!
Watch Dogs 2 is collaboratively developed within the Ubisoft family, including Ubisoft Toronto. It's out November 15th for PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It'll be out on Steam on November 29th, and Ubisoft released a launch trailer:
Ubisoft Toronto (@UbisoftToronto) has announced that Vivid Foundry (@VividFoundry) has earned the Grand Prize and Kitten Cup Studio (@KittenCupStudio) has won the Special Prize in the 4th Indie Series, with Massive Damage (@massdmginc) getting an honourable distinction.
Lots of marketing push for Watch Dogs 2, as we'll see the game released this month. Ubisoft have released a Watch Dogs 2 'Live Dedsec Hack" video, which is to give an overview of the Dedsec R3sistance Campaign.
On October 13th, 7:30pm ET, the hacker group known as DedSec launched a live hack operation on HAUM Electronic Inc.'s smart home demo, located in Toronto, Canada.
Ubisoft Canada selected Canadian fans to participate in the tour of this cutting-edge smart home as a promotional stunt for the upcoming release of Watch Dogs 2.
Unbeknownst to the visitors, this operation was broadcast live on Ubisoft Canada's Facebook & YouTube channels simultaneously and invited viewers to decide how DedSec would hack the smart home.
This was the climax of DedSec's campaign against HAUM in Canada. Check the rest of the campaign on DedSec's Canadian Hub: www.dedsec.haumcanada.com
Watch Dogs 2 is out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One on November 15th, and Steam on November 29th. You can check out some further details about Dedsec R3isistance below, and at their website.
About the Dedsec R3sistance Campaign
Last September, Ubisoft launched the Dedsec R3sistance Campaign, inviting Canadians to immerse themselves in the world of WATCH_DOGS 2 and explore its themes of privacy and ultra-connectivity. Fans were encouraged to visit the Dedsec Canada Hub to fight alongside a collective of hackers and participate in weekly missions and hacking challenges that culminated in the ultimate live hacking challenge in Toronto on October 13. During this final part of Dedsec Canada’s mission, a group of fans got a sneak peek of the Show HAUM in-person, while Canadians on the Dedsec Canada Hub were invited to hack it in real time, from the comfort of their own homes.
About USER PROFILED
Ubisoft Canada and VICE Canada partnered to create USER PROFILED, a two-part documentary series exploring themes from WATCH_DOGS 2, such as growing concerns around online user profiling, its implications for user privacy and the increasing threat it poses to Canadians’ civil liberties. Both episodes of USER PROFILED are available here.
The nominations for the 7th Annual Canadian VideoGame Awards have been announced, and there are quite a few Toronto developers being nominated for various awards. I tooked at the local games being developed, which you can check out below.
Nominations (Local Developers Only)
Game of the Year:
Best Console Game:
Best Mobile/Handheld Game:
Best PC Game
Best Virtual Reality Game:
Best Animation:
Best Art Direction:
Best Audio:
Best Educational Game:
Best Game Innovation:
Best Indie Game:
Best Musical Score:
Best Narrative:
Best New Character:
Best Technology:
Fans’ Choice Award: Best Canadian-Made Game:
You can check out the full nominations at the official site.
While it is certainly fun for a while, it suffers from the same problem other mobile games on Steam do: Cube Samurai: RUN!’s price tag of $5:49 feels a little steep for the amount of time you might ultimately get from it, so I’d recommend installing the mobile version and giving it a go on the commute to work or on the toilet and see if it’s the sort of experience you’d enjoy on the PC. This aside, it certainly does seems like it would make for an equally fun mobile experience, but it doesn’t do anything exceptionally different than what most people have seen in an infinite runner before.
Overall, Kapsul Infinite’s $4.49 price point on Steam doesn’t quite feel worth it to me. There simply isn’t enough to keep me invested in the gameplay for very long, and without any integration of achievements or leaderboards of any kind it just falls a little flat. It is, however, a game that would be perfect for a mobile device where one play session consists of a few levels on the bus or while waiting out an unpleasant family reunion on the toilet. While the PC is not the platform to play it on, I’d definitely recommend giving it a try on mobile devices.
We live in an age where it’s easy to get bogged down in new features, and developers often seem to push for complex mechanic after complex mechanic. N++, however, sends itself off with a warm reminder that the series has always been created around one sole value: fun.
Despite flaws such as these, I honestly do myself blown away by the potential the game has down the road. It features a robust level editing tool that allows for the creation of scenarios and huge, complex maps. It has Steam Workshop support for user-generated content and (if the patch notes and Longbow Game's Facebook page are any indication) it's still being improved and updated tirelessly by the team at Longbow so many issues described here could very well be patched and improved in future updates.
Alone With You gives you an exceptional story about love, and loneliness, with gameplay that gives you a little more than your traditional visual novel.
There was once a girl named Cally, who was an ordinary girl who lived an ordinary life. One day she found her parents kidnapped by Herbert, a mad scientist seeking revenge for a tragic past. Cally, deciding it was in her best interests to not have her parents in distress and doing what any respectable young woman would do in this situation, grabbed her semi-automatic pistol and medieval bastard sword and made chase, filling anything that got in her way full of lead before tearing it asunder.
Lost Orbit is a 2D top down, action-arcade game with a focus on quick reflexes and the age-old struggle to beat a stage faster than you did two minutes ago. It features a time trial mode devoted to achieving exactly that speedy time as well as a campaign mode geared towards a more laid back experience for casual players.
Far Cry Primal has players controlling Takkar, a Wenja tribesman who is stranded in the fictitious world of Oros. The story comes down to pretty much "I hate that other tribe, so let's go kill them" but over the course of 20 or so hours players will hunt and control animals, craft and improve weapons, and gather your people to rebuild the Wenja tribe.
PlayStation VR launched today, and while no Toronto developer was involved in the release, we only have to go as far as Ottawa to get some Ontario content. Steel Crate Games, who released Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes' on Steam last year (and came in third in our Game of the Year voting)
Happy #PlayStationVR launch day! Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is now available in the PlayStation Store! https://t.co/UeVDQSwgAB
— Keep Talking Game (@KeepTalkingGame) October 13, 2016
You can pick up Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes on the PlayStation Store right here, which currently has a 10% discount going.
In a video recapping the For Honor alpha, and then later reported by IGN, Ubisoft has decided to drop split-screen from its medieval brawler For Honor. It can be heard at the 4:20 mark from producer Stephane Cardin in the video below.
"It was a feature that we loved, but, when we looked at what needs to be done to support online co-op, for us it was critical to make a decision now so we can polish all the features at the AAA level and make sure that we have the most amazing experience."
If you didn't get a chance to play in the Alpha, you can sign up for the Beta right here. For Honor is available February 14, 2017 on Xbox One, PlayStation®4 system, and Windows PC.
Our statement on the site’s future Ubisoft coverage and why we won’t be nominating any Ubisoft games for our game of the year voting this year.
Ubisoft announced Ubisoft Collegiate Esports, their first-ever proprietary collegiate esports league, premiering with Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, that will kick off this month as part of the new North American ecosystem.
During ongoing sexual assault and harassment investigations, Ubisoft Montréal (@UbisoftMTL) announced a new FPS battle royale Hyper Scape this week as well as a technical test which began immediately.
Ubisoft has announced that a new North American League (@R6esportsNA) League for Rainbow Six Siege (@R6esports) is rolling out this year featuring a Canadian division for the first time in Rainbow Six Siege eSports history.
Ubisoft has announced a new game aimed at teaching kids how to code their own video games. Ubisoft Montreal released Rabbids Coding, a free educational game that you can get on UPlay.
Ubisoft is having a special Halloween event for For Honor - live now until November 1st the “Fans of the Otherworld” in-game event is free for all players. It comes with a new game mode, exclusive Halloween-themed loot, and new executions
Ubisoft Montreals epic Assassin’s Creed Odyssey got the final piece of DLC earlier last month. Titled Judgement of Atlantic, the final episode The Fate of Atlantic is now out Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.
Ubisoft announced that Season 3 of their third year for For Honor on August 1st will introduce new Viking Hero ‘Jormungandr’, as well as a new Breach map, and various quality of life and balance changes. Check out the full trailer below.
Continuing the trend of dishing our videos, Ubisoft have released a new story trailer, as well as "10 Ways It's Bigger, Better, and Bolder than the Original". Check them out after the jump.
Read MoreAs previously announced, Jazzpunk: Director's Cut is out now on PlayStation 4 and can be downloaded from the store for $19.99 (currently on sale for $15.99).
Jazzpunk is a comedy adventure set in an alternate reality Cold War World, plagued with corporate espionage, CyberCrime, and sentient martinis. Gameplay is inspired by spoof comedy films and cartoons of yesteryear, with a focus on weird gadgets, exotic locales, and open-world style exploration.
Kitchener-based indie studio Fluxscopic have released their 2021 puzzle-loaded action adventure game Mayhem in Single Valley on consoles.
Toronto-based Komi Games partnered with Limited Run Games to release a physical edition of their 2021 arena fighter Mighty Fight Federation for PS4 and PS5.
Montréal-based Paper Cult Games have partnered with Limited Run Games to release a physical edition of their “one-hit kill die-retry murderballet” game for PlayStation 4 and 5.
Saskatoon-based Foolish Mortals have released their turn-based strategy game Kaiju Wars on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 (playable on PS5 and Xbox Series S|X).
WB Games Montréal has announced that the last-gen (PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) versions of their upcoming co-op action game Gotham Knights have been cancelled.
Massive Damages Star Renegades, the rogue-lite RPG that is available on Xbox, and Steam, is out now on PlayStation. Currently going for $24.74 CAD with a PlayStation Plus discount, you can pick it up here.
Mighty Fight Federation, the throwback 3D arena fighter from Ontario-based Komi Games is out now on Steam and PlayStation consoles.
Canadian indie dev Dylan Meville (@DMeville) and Everglow Interactive have released their multiplayer party game @PartyPanicGame on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Oakville and Regina-based game developers Studio MDHR (@StudioMDHR) have released the originally Xbox console exclusive Cuphead for PlayStation 4 today, the last major gaming platform it was absent from (besides Ouya).
During today’s PlayStation 5 stream Montréal-based indie studio KO_OP Mode (@KOOPMode) announced Goodbye Volcano High for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Steam.
For Honor has been announced for a while, but I just learned/figured out that Ubisoft Toronto is working with Ubisoft Montreal on bringing this game to life. They've released some gameplay trailer showing off the Warden, the Raider, and the Kensei.
Read MoreHey everyone! I'm back again with another week in review! Check it out below and remember to subscribe!
We're heading into the holiday season, and so Ubisoft is in full force with its Watch Dogs 2 hype. You can check out some Open World gameplay with multiplayer elements.
"Watch the first-ever open world, free-roam gameplay walkthrough for Watch Dogs 2. In this new demonstration, a small slice of the expansive San Francisco Bay Area is explored, as Marcus wanders through such world-famous landmarks as Coit Tower and Fisherman’s Wharf. Enhanced hacking and driving mechanics, use of drones, deeper customization options and world activities are on display in this extensive look into the gameplay experience. Marcus also encounters various online multiplayer scenarios, where he gets caught in Bounty situations - both as the hunter and the hunted - and joins a friend for co-op missions."
Watch Dogs 2 comes out November 15th for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Continuing the trend of dishing our videos, Ubisoft have released a new story trailer, as well as "10 Ways It's Bigger, Better, and Bolder than the Original". Check them out after the jump.
Toronto game developer Necrophone Games announced late last year they were bringing their comedy adventure game Jazzpunk to PlayStation 4. Check out the trailer for the Director's Cut here!
Read MoreMetanet Software had just released N++ on Steam, and someone on Twitter asked if the game could come to Xbox One.
Read More
Game Award nominated, Montréal-based indie studio Guard Crush Games joins us to talk Absolum, Streets of Rage 4 and more!