“It was reassuring to see a commitment of public funding like this from Northwest Vision & Media and it’s clearly helped the teams involved strengthen their skills in many areas. I’m confident we’ll be taking some of the ideas generated through this initiative to market.” – Phil Gaskell, Senior Producer at Sony X-Dev Studio Europe

The five companies that received the funding in the 2008-2009 round of the project are listed below. They blogged about their experiences and the development process through the three months. You can read the archived posts here.

Catalyst is a one-stop Game Development Services Company offering the highest quality managed production solutions for all aspects of videogame development.

Citrus Suite is a video game production company. We offer bespoke solutions to game publishers and developers. From concept to realisation Citrus Suite is driven to deliver the highest quality results. From the development of full games to the management of outsourced services Citrus Suite leads the field in the production management of major game projects.

With associate development teams working on PS3, Xbox360, Wii, DS, PSP, PS2, iPhone and PC the company seeks to build relationships to create great gaming experiences. It is our desire to bring dynamic new game IP to the table and to fulfill work-for-hire projects with the utmost dedication to our clients.

For nearly a decade The Game Creators have developed and published award winning game creation tools for indie developers and home users. Flagship titles include Dark Basic Professional, FPS Creator and The 3D Gamemaker. The company’s website also offers add-on modules that cover physics, AI, terrain construction, media generation and much more besides.

The game making products are used worldwide and are taught by colleges and universities. Recent corporate partnerships with Microsoft and NVIDIA have helped the company succeed and grow.

The team have also developed learning to drive software for the UK’s number 1 publisher Focus Multimedia. Their latest product Driving Test Success Practical Simulator was released in 2008.

Onteca is an interactive media company that works with some of the most difficult emerging technologies in both the creative and digital sector. Onteca was established in 2001, since that time we have produced interactive content for a wide range of clients including the BBC, AMD and John Moores University. Our success is due to our work with innovative technologies and content development, and more importantly our staff whom have unparalleled experience and expertise. One of our main aims here at Onteca is to work with a diverse range of communities in order to ensure that access to the fast paced world of digital media can be made available to all. As a result of this we are particularity interested in the use of novel technologies to support learning across schools, communities and higher education institutions. Thus we actively experiment with new ways of training people in the most up-to-date technologies.

Onteca has continued to be passionate about Game Production and Design. This year we produced an online game portal for the BBC for the launch of the BBC2 programme Brainbox Challenge. This was a complex series of brain training games with interesting online features. Over 1 million individual games were played in the first 4 weeks of the site being live.

Onteca has just completed a major project for Mediabox. We have worked with 50 young people to create an online game called ‘Liberatis’. This is a massively multiplayer role playing game produced on a tight budget and to schedule. The young people designed the game and came up with the storyline and built the levels with the help of Onteca staff.

Ucan.tv is a company that exploits the potential of new technologies to provide imaginative software and hardware solutions that integrate with, and extend, current educational practices in innovative ways. We produce websites, educational software, video and interactive media for schools, colleges and universities that help students and teachers learn, communicate and share ideas.