A small Winnipeg company that specializes in the new "serious gaming" field of computer games has been awarded a significant contract by the Canada Space Agency.
Project Whitecard, a four-person shop being nurtured at the business incubator at the University of Manitoba's Smartpark, will be the lead supplier in a $250,000 contract to produce a game that will be designed to teach mathematics in more than 60,000 middle- and high-school classrooms across the country.
The interactive, 3-D graphics game will take place within an International Space Station environment.
"We are really excited about this," said Project Whitecard founder and CEO Khal Shariff.
The Winnipeg company will lead a team that will also include software and games companies in North Carolina and Montreal.
Shariff said it will likely require the company to either hire three more people or contract out work to other Winnipeg companies and maybe even import talent into the city.
Shariff figures Project Whitecard likely got the inside track on the job at least partly because of an ongoing relationship he has had with the U.S. space agency NASA. He has developed an online game and simulation called Project Moonwalk that allows players to walk in the footsteps of the Apollo Missions and beyond.
The challenge of the Canadian Space Agency project will be to create a fun, engaging game featuring a cutting-edge environment, super high-fidelity 3-D graphics and an unprecedented level of interactivity.
Shariff said the idea is that players will be rookie astronauts communicating with the Canadian astronaut and mission specialist Julie Payette just prior to her scheduled April 2009 Space Shuttle Endeavour mission to the International Space Station.
The contract could be a breakthrough for Project Whitecard. Shariff said the same team is in the running for a large project with NASA and he said there are other projects in the works that this one might leverage into other work.
Shariff is one of the leading advocates for the development of a "serious gaming" industry in Canada. He has done public speaking on the subject across the country and overseas.
martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
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