Motive Games - Motive Games Press Release page

"Motive Games" and Narrator App Raise the E-book Cool-Factor in Time for Teen Literature Day

Games-focused mystery and new iPod/iPhone app available for free; includes contest where readers can win game development tools.

Ontario, Canada - April 15, 2009 - Author L.D. Taylor announced that tomorrow, April 16 (Teen Literature Day), the first episode of her YA mystery Motive Games will become available. Motive Games, set in the Montreal, Canada game development community, comes bundled with the Narrator multimedia story delivery app, which will be available free-of charge in the App Store worldwide until April 23rd (one week after Teen Literature day). Episodes of Motive Games will be released once per month from now until October as a free upgrade to Narrator. Audio-only versions of each episode will also be available for free throughout this period at the iTunes store and motivegames.com. For a story synopsis: www.heymacsoftware.com/books. To download the free story/app bundle starting tomorrow: http://www.itunes.com/app/Narrator.

Narrator, made by Hey Mac Software, uses iPhone and iPod Touch technology to put the "cool factor" into teen's (and children's) stories. It offers audio playback synched perfectly with a high-quality, e-reader; and interaction with stories through web links, scripts, and a built-in dictionary - giving readers the ability to immediately dive deeper into the narrative if they so choose. Also, a broad range of layout options are used to enhance the story - characters receive, read and scroll through emails, chat and text messages that look like their real-life counterparts from the device. After April 23rd, the app will be priced at $2.99.

"There's been a lot of talk in the publishing industry lately about the need to engage teens through the technology that they love," says Taylor. "Not only does Motive Games give young adults passionate about gaming a look at the world of game development, and a mystery game they can play, it's delivered via today's coolest technology in a way that enhances the story-reading experience."

License to Mod Contest: Win a Macbook and Game Development Tools Tomorrow also marks the launch of the License to Mod contest. First prize for the contest will be a MacBook, a license of the modo 3D modeling and rendering software (courtesy Luxology LLC) a license of the Houdini Apprentice 3D animation package (courtesy Side Effects Software, Inc.) and a license of the Torque 3D game engine (courtesy Garage Games). The retail value of the prize is $2544 USD. The licensing terms of these products allow indie game developers to create mods and professional games that they can sell. The second and third prizes will be an iPod Touch and apps from Hey Mac software, retail value $410. All entrants who solve the mystery between the first and sixth episode will have their names posted (in the order their correct entry was received) on the Motive Games website.

In order to enter the contest, readers will need to follow the seven-episode Motive Games story on their iPod Touch/iPhone or audiobook player, hunt for additional clues online and tell us who they think did it, how they did it and why. Entrants get one chance to enter per month between April 16th and October 14th at motivegames.com. For each of the three questions they get right, their name is entered once into the final draw. Those who guess correctly after the first and second episodes get a bonus entry per correct answer. For more contest details: motivegames.com/contest.

Other Narrator Books Other free content for Narrator is also available beginning tomorrow courtesy of Librivox audiobooks and Project Gutenburg. Like Motive Games, these stories are synched with their text versions (YA books only): enhancing comprehension in most types of learners. Children's picture books display the author's illustrations (animated) while the audiobook plays. For a list of available stories, see: heymacsoftware.com/books.

All free material (with the exception of Motive Games) comes from the public domain. Hey Mac also plans to make original content, both paid and free, available for the app starting later this spring. They are also signed up to deliver Shortcovers content later this year.

About L.D. Taylor Motive Games was written by freelance journalist and marcom writer L.D. Taylor with the help of the geeks around her. Taylor has worked in the 3D graphics and animation industry as a writer, marcom manager and freelance journalist for over a decade. During this time she has written numerous game-focused articles for such trade publications as CGW, Digital Media Net and CGI, as well as for corporate clients including Microsoft and Autodesk. Drawing on her extensive experience and contacts in the game and graphics industries, her goal is to give young adults interested in gaming and game development an insightful look at that world - this in addition to a suspenseful mystery in which technology, including the iPhone, plays a pivotal role.

About Hey Mac Software: Makers of Narrator Mike Taylor, Hey Mac's president and lead designer, has been a 3D graphics and animation software developer for the past 15 years. A long-time Mac champion, Mike was involved in the port of the Maya and Houdini 3D software packages to the Mac. More recently Mike has been developing Briefcase and Narrator for iPhone as well as contributing to the writing of Motive Games.

For an advance review copy of Narrator and Motive Games: pr@motivegames.com