NSW Government announces funding for 20 Digital Media Initiative projects

20 recipients selected to receive funding from the NSW Digital Media Iniative have been announced. The initiative itself was announced in December, last year, with the NSW Government pledging $1.5 million every year for three years (a total of $4.5 million) to support commercial digital content projects with the aim of distribution via internet, wireless, mobile, or any other emerging platforms or devices.

The list of projects given the green light is a healthy mix of digital titles, ranging from serious educational and medical applications, to social, interactive and mult-media apps, as well as a wide variety of game apps. These include Web games, augmented reality games, and even an MMORPG(!). A handful of the announced game titles are from developers perhaps more well-known to the local games industry, so we've listed them below. Congratulations to all recipients, and we're hoping to see some great stuff!

Mobile Game apps - Dinoroar Interactive will develop a series of mobile games applications for platforms including Apple and Android smartphone and tablets, with possible expansion to Symbian and others.

DigiZen – A 3D action-puzzler PC game by VagabondArmy where the player, a DigiZen hacker, is infected with a digital parasite which they must cure in a race against the clock.

Frozen Hearth - The first chapter of a trilogy of real time strategy games by Epiphany Games to be released onto a multiplayer digital download site in 2012.

Terminus (Uppercut Games) - the first in a series of AAA quality action games for mobile devices and later Xbox 360, to be produced by Queanbeyan start-up company Uppercut Games.

Plunder (Uppercut Games) - AAA quality single player real-time strategy game allowing the player to order an array of iconic characters to navigate ancient ruins, gather gold and fight off a rival team of adventurers.

Uppercut Games consist of ex-Irrational Games Canberra developers, Ed Orman and Andrew James. The titles they've been involved with include Freedom Force, Tribes: Vengeance, Bioshock, Bioshock 2 and XCOM.