Gnosis Games was among the 28 companies that scored funding for various videogames, websites and mobile projects in the latest round of the Canada New Media Fund – which cut a cheque for development of Broken Saints: The Game.

Building on an online graphic novel and on the 12-hour animated saga just released on DVD by Fox Home Entertainment, the adventure game tells the story of four strangers who receive a message about the impending end of the world.

It is the brainchild of creative director Brooke Burgess, who says three ‘prominent’ publishers are interested in picking up the game, primarily on the strength of the Fox deal.

If the prototype passes muster, Burgess hopes one will put up the several million dollars it will cost to produce the game. He expects it to debut on the Nintendo Wii and the handhelds Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. The prototype will be ready by late October.

In Toronto, Metanet Software received funding to extend its 2D freeware adventure/puzzle game N to Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade under the new title N+. The new version will add better graphics and multiplayer modes and should be released in November.

President Mare Sheppard says the new media fund at Telefilm Canada allows indie developers to make titles for mainstream consoles, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive. A development kit for the Xbox 360 runs upwards of $10,000, for instance.

‘As independent, small developers, we can develop pretty easily for PC, Mac, Linux. But getting to the consoles and systems outside of that is much more difficult if you don’t have any funding,’ says Sheppard.

N+ is Metanet’s first commercial game. The company is currently working on another adventure/puzzle game called Robotology.

Other projects that won funding include Piranha Games’ Ares, KLEI Entertainment’s EETs, Cell la vie from Couzin Films and Bluesponge, and Canary Jack Mobile by Koolhaus Games.

Pokaroo going mobile?

TVO and its French-language counterpart TFO have announced a deal with Toronto’s QuickPlay Media to make programming from the TVOKids programming block available on video-capable cell phones.

The educaster has so far identified about 300 episodes of kids shows from its library that are suitable for mobile broadcast, from which it plans to draw 24 new ‘mobisodes’ each month.

The mobisodes are self-contained segments taken from shows aimed at kids aged six to 12, such as the Bod Squad and Reading Rangers, and run for two to four minutes. The teen-aimed TFO series Volt is also going mobile.

QuickPlay is providing the technology to stream the content to subscribers of all the major phone carriers. Customer fees vary depending on the carrier

But do many six-year-olds have cell phones? TVO CEO Lisa de Wilde says no Canadian-specific research was done about kids and access to mobiles (TVO’s website tells parents to handle the downloads), but says it fits the public broadcaster’s strategy to try new things and find new revenue streams.

‘We want to see how this is received either by kids or by parents for their kids. There’ll be some good learnings and undoubtedly we will be bobbing and weaving in response to what we learn and making it better,’ she says.

TVO recently scored $25 million from the Ontario government to digitize its operations and overhaul its programming.

Summit headed to B.C.

Vancouver’s Sheraton Wall Centre is scheduled to play host on Nov. 26-27 to the inaugural Vancouver International Game Summit.

The event is intended to provide a learning and networking forum for developers and producers of games across a range of platforms, including console, PC, mobile and online.

Subjects to be covered include rising development costs, content for next-generation consoles, and worker rights in the industry.

Organizer Reboot Communications says it expects about 750 people to attend, primarily from West Coast and U.S. companies.

The summit is still under development and is accepting presentation proposals until Aug. 31. More info is available at rebootconference.com/games2006.

APTN goes online

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network has put its national newscasts online and now streams its primetime and daytime broadcasts at www.aptn.com/news.

The half-hour newscasts run online at the same time as the conventional broadcasts, and are archived for five days.

‘We know that the rhythm of today’s busy world requires that we find new ways of getting stories out to the people who need to hear them and we are confident this will be an added resource for our viewers who depend on our newscasts,’ said Vera Houle, the cable channel’s director of news and current affairs, in a statement.

A third news show, Contact, will go online in October.

Internet still growing

Usage of Canada’s Internet, broadband and wireless markets – and along with it, revenue – continues to grow, according to the CRTC’s recently released sixth annual Telecom Monitoring Report.

Broadband service is now accessible by 92% of households. Internet revenues have followed suit, growing 8.8% to $4.5 billion in 2005, up from $4.2 billion in 2004. Meanwhile, the fastest growing telecom sector is wireless. Revenues were up 16.2% to $11 billion in 2005, up from $9.5 billion in 2004.