CEO Andy Schatz was interviewed on the Fox 6 morning show about Venture Arctic, environmentalism, and video games. See the clip here.

Venture Arctic, the ecosystem simulator from Pocketwatch Games, is on sale. Wolves, whales, and more roam the land and seas in this realistic animal game. Players use the powers of the sun and snow to contend with harsh seasons, global warming, and other challenges as they travel through the icy Arctic. Buy it today!

Pocketwatch Games, LLC announced today that it has donated 4% of the income generated in 2006 by the video game 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.

A prerelease version of Venture Arctic is currently showing in the Chelsea Art Museum in New York City. If you are in the area, go check it out! Venture Arctic is an "interactive nature documentary" in which you must use the forces of nature to bring stability to populations of orcas, polar bears, and more, despite the challenges of global climate change and the harsh Arctic environment. Show Info: http://cdt.parsons.edu/dt10/ 10 Years Running DESIGN + TECHNOLOGY'S 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION April 5-14, 2007 Opening Reception: Thurs., April 5th, 6-8PM Chelsea Art Museum 556 West 22nd St., NYC

Culminating in last week's Independent Games Festival Awards ceremony, where Pocketwatch Founder, Andy Schatz was the host, the first chapter of Pocketwatch Games history has been an amazing ride. Read about it on Andy's blog by clicking on this link.

Andy Schatz, CEO and Founder of Pocketwatch Games, will be the host of the 2007 Independent Games Festival Awards show in San Francisco on March 7th, 2007. The IGF celebrates the best independently developed games of the year, and in conjunction with the Player's Choice Awards constitutes the "Oscars" of video games.
Video of last year's awards ceremony can be seen here on the IGF website.

GameTunnel has posted a glowing preview of Venture Arctic! Check it out!

GameTunnel is the premier website for indie game news, reviews, and previews. We're honored that they think so highly of Venture Arctic.

From the preview: "With the full version of the game poised to support more tutorials, in-game tools, and animals, it’s no guess that Venture Arctic is going to undoubtedly receive high review scores, promising praise and easy consumer satisfaction. Pocketwatch’s unique approach and appealing qualities for the game has already set it apart from a lot of the competition, including mainstream titles. Casual or indie gamers will definitely want to keep their eye on Venture Arctic as it nears its scheduled March 2007 release."

The illustrious Hyena has created a fan site for Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa. She's got pictures, animal facts, strategies and more. Head on over and sign her guestbook!

Gamasutra, the leading game development web publication, just interviewed Andy Schatz, founder and CEO of Pocketwatch Games, about Venture Arctic, Venture Africa, and more! Click on the link to read the interview.

We've updated the look and feel of our company and product pages to get them all under the same roof, design-wise. We've also released a teaser trailer for Venture Arctic today. Check out the MAIN PAGE for the Venture Arctic teaser trailer and more!

John Seguin, the composer and sound designer for the Venture series, has written a post-mortem of the music in Venture Arctic. The music was inspired by instruments from the Arctic region and by Vivaldi's Four Seasons violin concerto. Hear snippets of the four seasons of the arctic here.

The first ever screenshots of Venture Arctic have been released on the forums. Check em out here!

We're having ourselves a little contest with our animal fans here at Pocketwatch Games. If are the first to guess the three unannounced animals in Venture Arctic, we'll give you a free copy of the game when it comes out! Rules and entry instructions on the forums: Click!

Update! The contest is over now. The final three animals are:

• Snowy Owl
• Bowhead Whale
• Arctic Char

Venture Arctic has been entered in the 2007 Independent Games Festival. The game still has quite a bit of work left on it, but we're crossing our fingers that we can make a repeat appearance as finalists this year.

Here I'll be periodically announcing the official animal list for Venture Arctic. Obviously, the game isn't done yet, so this list is subject to change, but this is the list of animals that will be in the game.

The list so far:

• Orca
• Caribou
• Wolverine
• Plankton
• Arctic Wolf
• Musk Ox
• Walrus
• Puffin
• Jellyfish
• Polar Bear
• Greenland Shark
• Arctic Cod
• Raven

Venture Africa is currently being featured at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in an exhibition entitled "Best of the IGF". I'll refrain from using Australian vernacular here.

Version 1.05 is a major update to the game for the downloadable version. If you bought an earlier version, simple download the free trial and install on top of your old version. The new version contains cheats, bug fixes, and removes the flower cost for shuffling in story mode. More details on the changes and instructions can be found on the forums.

If you bought the game in a box or through GarageGames, an update that will work for you is coming soon.

Andy was interviewed by Spike TV before the IGF ceremony on Wednesday. The piece will air on April 8th at 12:30PM Pacific/Eastern time. It will also include other IGF Grand Prize finalists, including the eventual winner, Introversion, the team that made Darwinia. The game was also mentioned in the Wall Street Journal, along with the other finalists. Holy cow!

Yes, it's true! You can buy it in stores now, anywhere in the US and Canada. Most stores that carry PC or Mac games will have it, though you should call beforehand to make sure they have copies in stock. The box version has extra music and sound effects, and there's nothing like holding the actual box in your paws.

CEO, Designer, and Lead Programmer Andy Schatz has had a fair amount of press coverage lately, with two articles (subjects: development of Venture Africa, profile as an artist) on the game development site, Gamasutra. UPDATE: a third interview just went up on gamedev.net!

The 2006 IGF panel of judges selected Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa as one of 5 finalists for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Winners will be announced at the Game Developer's Conference in San Jose in March. This award is the highest honor an indie game can receive and we are stunned, shocked, and amazed that we've received this recognition.

See the full list of finalists at at the IGF website.

The Slamdance Film Festival (a concurrent festival with Sundance, both in Park City, UT) selected Venture Africa as one of 12 finalists in their Video Game category. We're honored and excited to be chosen and we can't wait to show off our FREAKIN' COOL game to all the attendees!

We just released version 1.04. If you have already bought the game, check your readme.txt to see the version number. If it's less than v1.04, please update your game by downloading the trial and installing ON TOP of the old install. Don't worry, you won't lose your progress. For detailed notes on what has been changed/fixed, please visit the support forums.

GamersInfo.net reviewed a pre-release version of the game with great acclaim. The reviewer found that it was challenging and fun for her and a great change of pace for her kids. It's one of her kids' favorite games now; it can be yours too! Read the review here...

BusinessWeek just ran an IGC wrapup that focuses on Andy Schatz, Pocketwatch Games, and Venture Africa. It's maybe a bit overly glowing about Andy's financial situation, but it's still pretty cool! READ IT HERE!

Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa took 2nd place in the "Most Innovative" category and the "Best Overall" category of the Player's Choice Awards this week. Considering that there was very little PR done for the game, it seems as if almost everyone who saw the game voted for it. Facade took home first place in the "Most Innovative" category and TubeTwist was awarded "Best Overall". Congrats to those games and all the other participants.

From the press release:

MumboJumbo LLC is a leading developer of games for online distribution and the preferred publisher of premium casual games for the retail channel. The company maintains strong relationships with leading retailers, including Best Buy, CompUSA, GameStop, OfficeMax, Sam's Club, Target, and Wal-Mart as well as publishing relationships with Activision, Funkitron, GameHouse, iWin, Jamdat, PopCap, Reflexive Entertainment and many others. MumboJumbo's other retail publishing rights include Bejeweled 2, Insaniquarium, Lemonade Tycoon 2, Luxor, Super Collapse!, and Zuma Deluxe.

That's right! What began as a project for Andy to do while he was waiting to get in to business school has turned into something a bit bigger than expected! Good thing he didn't get in to any of the schools he applied to...

The retail version (meaning the version you can buy in a box at stores) will be available in February or so.

MacAddict, one of the top print magazines dedicated to the Macintosh platform, featured Venture Africa in their October issue. It was featured on page 13 with other no-name games like Doom III, World of Warcraft, Fable, and Myst, and included a screenshot (albiet an old one). The blurb stated:

Good Times In the Jungle Vines
Unlike other Tycoon-esque games, you don't build a park or railroad to rake in the dough in Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa; instead, you try to build a thriving ecosystem in the Serengeti. Dr. William Willoughby and Miss Julia Carrilou guide you (in rhymed verse) through the game from their hot-air balloon. When you complete challenges, you earn Combo Jewels that you can use to create rain or quicken plant growth. And when your ecosystem needs a little divine intervention, you can take direct control of your animals -- just jump into the body of a roaming wildebeest, for example, and wander into a pack of hungry lions for instant population control.

Thanks MacAddict! Couldn't have said it better myself!

The game is officially beta! This means that we've released the game to a small portion of the public to help us finish the game up for launching to the public. It's a good thing too! We're really listening to everyone's thoughts and opinions and trying to get in as much as we can.

Everyone's favorite not-yet-released animal simulation has just gone alpha. That means that all non-aesthetic features are complete, and the game doesn't crashity-crash anymore. Lovely!

GameTunnel's mid-term report on Indie games this year featured Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa under the "What we're looking forward to most" heading in the simulation section of the article. The article was then posted on Slashdot!

Go to page 2 of the article and check out the simulation section here!

For those not in the know, GameTunnel is the premier website dedicated to indie game reviews, previews, and downloads, and Slashdot is one of the most visited websites in the world.

Andy Schatz, founder of Pocketwatch Games, is driving in his beat-up Toyota to E3 right now to promote Pocketwatch Games' first title. Hopefully, he'll be driving back down to San Diego with a console publishing deal in tow. Wish him luck!

Well. Ok. Duh. Still, it's newsworthy. A lot of our ability to make innovative, fun games comes from the support and input of the community, so please head on over to the forums and register! We won't spam you or sell your email address. We are the good guys!