The Canada Media Fund (CMF) has allocated more than $18 million to 31 interactive digital media projects across three Experimental Stream program.

Six projects are receiving more than $7.4 million total under the Innovation and Experimentation program, which is dedicated to “interactive digital media content and software applications that are innovative and leading-edge.”

The selected projects include five games — Stitch Media’s Elsewhere Electric ($1,500,000), Squido Studio’s Room 821 ($1,500,000) Little Buffalo Studios’ Akiiwan: Survival ($995,250), Only by Midnight’s Negot-ai-te ($1,063,121), Coal Car Studio’s Fruit Golf ($1,101,275)  —  and one web-based initiative, Videoversa Production ($1,250,000), from Moreldeas.

Projects were selected by a jury made up of François Dominic Laramée, Paisley Smith, André Lauzon, Osama Dorias, Veronika Kvon, and Dr. Kris Alexander.

Six projects will receive a total of approximately $6.9 million under the Commercial Projects Program, which supports project that show commercial viability.

The projects include five games: Hope in the City ($999,000) from Lofty Sky Entertainment; Mythos ($1,158,191) from Secret Location Immersive; Pentachromatic Games’ Chrono Strike ($1,500,000); La Tour ($1,312,924) from Dodo Tako; and Jeux coureur des bois’ Quack ($1,290,000). The sixth selected project is Avara Media’s app Binnaagami AR ($687,500).

Funding decisions for this program were made by a jury comprising of Jen Goertzen, Marie Mejerwall, Yat-Chi-Lau, Tina Merry, Stefan Grambart, and Sébastien Provencher.

Nineteen projects are receiving a total of about $4.1 million under the Prototyping program, which “allocates funding to projects at the early stages of building a product to demonstrate its intended functionalities and design.”

Of the selected projects, 17 are games and two are software apps.

Eight games are receiving $250,000 each, including Lucid Dream Studios’ Demonwars; Little Guy Games’ Wings of Icaria; Hololabs Studio’s Phantasms; The Many Lives of Eve from 9446-5473 Quebec; Director’s Cut from 3Mind Games; Story City Universal Adventures from Story City; Clairaudio from Only By Midnight; and Caldera Interactive’s Project Rabbit.

The remaining nine games include Red Meat Games’ Mora.i.rty ($239,347); Coal Car Studio’s Build Blob Brawl ($229,545); Secret Location’s Immersive Arcade ($208,406); Prunelle Ardente’s Carmilla ($187,391); Biom’s Courting Glory ($184,958); Dodo Tako’s Impostor Syndrome ($186,640); Small Detour Games’ Troubadours ($186,532); PlayTogether Studio’s Prop: Rogue Invasion ($133,737); and Computechnosoft’s Please Circuit ($102,941).

Hungry Eyes Media’s BLK: Interactive Origin Stories ($250,000) and ZenFri’s Artefacta ($220,000) are the two software projects receiving funding under the program.

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