This year we need more volunteers that can help make the magic happen. There will be a volunteer meeting and August with the race happening in September.

We need people to help pre-race for the following:

-Location scouting
-Test running the course
-Promotion
-Registration management

On race day we need people for:
-Registration management
-Race Marshals
-Crowd control
-Cheering

If you’re interested in helping please email adam [at] Wero Creative dot com.

If you’re interested in participating next year join our Facebook group.

Check out the photos!

Stay tuned for more events from Wero Creative!

Check out the site to have an questions about Idiotarod Toronto answered and each team needs to register. We’re happy to see that Torontoist as already picked up on the race.

The Iditarod is the famous Alaskan long-distance dog sled race, the IDIOTAROD is similar. Except instead of dogs and sleds, it’s people and shopping carts, it’s in Toronto, and it’s not long.

The competition winner was revealed by Wayne Clarkson, Telefilm Canada’s executive director, at the opening gala of VIDFEST – Canada’s biggest annual digital content event.

“Canada’s best and brightest video game talent participated in the first-ever Great Canadian Video Game Competition,” says Clarkson. “The competition was tight, but MindHabits best demonstrated the Canadian creativity and innovation that our panel of esteemed industry judges was looking for.”

The Competition took place in three rounds that mirrored traditional industry financing. In January 2007, an industry jury awarded 10 companies Round 1 status (Innovation) and each received $50,000 in financial assistance to explore their gaming concepts, develop a visual identity and elaborate a plan to raise initial private-sector investment. In March 2007, four of the 10 companies scored Round 2 status (Project Development). The final four included:

§ Big Blue Bubble of London, ON for its Nintendo Wii game Hobby Shop
§ Cerebral Vortex Games of St. Catharines, ON, for its PC/Mobile/Xbox Live
Arcade game Ambush! Trivia
§ MindHabits Inc. of Montreal, QC for its handheld game MindHabits Trainer
§ Hothead Games Inc. of Vancouver, BC for its PC game SWARM!

The winning projects were evaluated by a proven industry jury that comprised Rory Armes, Senior Vice President and Group General Manager, Electronic Arts Black Box and Electronic Arts Montreal; Yannis Mallat, CEO, Ubisoft Montreal; Ron Moravek, Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, Electronic Arts Canada; and Kelly Zmak, President, Radical Entertainment (Vivendi Universal Games Canada).

Also announced today was the People’s Choice Award winner, SWARM! by Hothead Games Inc., as selected by video game fans from across the country, who voted for their favourite finalist on Arcadia Festival’s website, www.playarcadia.com. The People’s Choice Awards ran parallel to The Great Canadian Video Competition, but the results had no bearing on the selection of the Competition’s formal winner.

Arcadia president François Décarie added: “An overwhelming amount of Canadian gaming enthusiasts voted for our People’s Choice Award winner. Video games are the most important cultural form for our youth, and we’re proud to showcase and celebrate Canadian talent producing their own stories.”

This got me thinking about how to use events like this in a story that is meant to be influenced by the world around it. Why shouldn’t newsworthy events be included in a story that is designed to take into account interaction. The world itself should interact with a “real-world” game. Doing so would allow for a more relevant game experience to those involved.

With that being said, it should be noted that it is necessary to this in a tasteful manner. Using the example of the Peru earthquake, it would be inappropriate to trivialize the loss of life and oversimplify the disaster itself into a headline like “ancient artifacts unearthed due to tectonic shift.”

Even simplistic sports games will be taping the weather network to let the videogamer play football in weather that is happening in realtime. For awhile now team roster changes have been reflected in games.

As we develop more and more world-based interactivity into a gaming experience the players will be more and more immersed into the game itself. As a game developer though, one must be careful to know when to stop the immersion of realism into the game. Too much like reality and the game can just become as dull as the reality gamers are trying to escape. Imagine Grand Theft Auto as a game that included more realism – no one would play it because you’d spend all your time walking around looking for a job.