Beaver and Kayak team up with software company to launch history game

A new Canadian history video game has been launched by Bitcasters, a Toronto company, in strategic partnership with Canada's National History Society (pubishers of The Beaver magazine and Kayak, the history magazine for kids) and the Historica Foundation.

The History Canada Game, according to a story in the Georgia Straight, grew out of a conversation 10 years ago between Nathon Gunn, CEO of Bitcasters and Thomas Axworthy. The Queen's University history professor who was then a director of Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation, responsible for creating the historical Heritage Minutes on CBC Television.

In the game, players take on the role of one of nine civilizations in 1525, in the era of New France, when Europeans began populating what is now Eastern Canada. Gamers can play as one of seven Native cultures–Abenaki, Algonquin, Huron, Mi'kmaq, Mohawk, Montagnais, or Ojibwe–or as English or French settlers.

"I think that universally people enjoy playing as one of the original Canadian civilizations," Gunn said, "because it's exciting to try and turn the tables on the major European powers. In fact, the game is designed to be fairly realistic, so it's not easy to do, but it's within the realm of possibility to ally with the other original civilizations and resist the arrival of the explorers."

For now, the plan is to give away 100,000 copies of the game; it is available free to PC gamers who already have the strategy title Civilization III, developed by Firaxis and published by 2K Games. Gunn has discussed distribution with major financial institutions and media companies.