Glenda Adams of Aspyr Media recently made an interesting post to the Apple game developer mailing list, requesting applications for a number of developer positions at the company. While it's unclear exactly what's driving this, it seems likely the recent acquisition of Beenox by Activision could have played a part in Aspyr enlarging their internal development staff.

The two types of jobs called out in the post were for "Macintosh Software Engineers" at the Senior Engineer and Software Engineer II level, as well as a Senior Graphics Programmer with an intense knowledge of DirectX and OpenGL.

For more information on the positions, check out Aspyr's job page.

Aspyr Media Job Listings

Activision Acquires Beenox, Mac Impact?

Aspyr Media

Macgamestore.com has five new hot deals plus a special 5 percent off coupon for this Memorial Day Weekened. To use the coupon, enter "mem5off" to your shopping cart. Please keep in mind that only one coupon can be used at a time and cannot be combined with other coupons.

Here are the five new hot deals for this week:

• Chessmaster 9000 - $34.95 (was $39.95)
• Unreal Tournament 2004 - $34.95 (was $39.95)
• Halo - $39.95 (was $44.95)
• Lemonade Tycoon - $14.95 (was $19.95)
• Star Trek: Elite Force II - $14.95 (was $19.95)

Macgamestore.com

IMG has posted a review of Sveerz, a musical matching game, from developer Skunk Studios. To check out the entire review, please follow the link below.

IMG Review: Sveerz

BridgeBuilder-Game.com is once again holding another bridge-building contest. Using the Bridge Construction Set title by ChronicLogic, this contest challenges players to build a clean bridge for an entire map pack, which consists of 12 levels.

Clean bridges are defined by several rules, including the following:

1. The bridge must work without breaking any links with zero time delay (pause/reset/run test/pause). Don’t worry if something happens AFTER the ‘test passed message’ appears
2. Ground vehicles MAY touch the bridge.
3. The ships may NOT visually touch the bridge (every pixel counts).
4. Editing the level is strictly prohibited, apart from the allowed budget. You can increase this one, if that proves convenient.
5. Bridge parts may touch the terrain at the anchor points and deck extremities, wherever they are, but only if they are used by ground vehicles. This is necessary when there are no anchor points where the deck should be, but may prove useful in other cases as well.

Prizes include free games from ChronicLogic and points that go towards BBG's Hall of Fame. Full information on the contest can be found at BBG's site.

BridgeBuilder-Game.com - BCS Contest 26

ChronicLogic - Bridge Construction Set

OrderedBytes has released a new version of their game controller utility, ControllerMate. Using a unique graphical interface, ControllerMate allows the user to configure any HID-compliant controller to function with the keyboard inputs of any game by linking together control blocks. Advanced control configurations are possible with this system.

Improvements and fixes in version 2.1.1 include:

• Full-keyboard keystrokes palette. Helpful for configuring Keystrokes building blocks for users who do not use physical keyboards. Also helpful for users of new PowerBooks that do not correctly record function key combinations.

• ControllerMate now detects and responds to changes in the current keyboard layout selection.

• Unusable devices are now dimmed in the Palette window. Often, devices are unusable by ControllerMate when other software has exclusive access to them.

• Fixed a potential circular reference between modifiers and button, axis, and hatswitch building blocks.

• Fixed a bug with unichar keyboard layouts. Unichar layouts are not supported, but no longer cause a crash.

OrderedBytes: ControllerMate

MGF: Shareware - Utility - ControllerMate

Aspyr today took the wraps off their new corporate logo to coincide with the company's expanding business in the gaming market and other entertainment platforms. The new logo retains the familiar "star" design from the previous version, but has been updated with a more modern look.

Here's more from the press release:

The new Aspyr logo will make it’s first product appearance with The Sims™ 2 for Mac. The Sims 2, one of the year’s most anticipated Mac titles, is scheduled for release in mid-June.

Aspyr is continuing to stretch out among different entertainment platforms. With the upcoming release of Stubbs the Zombie™: Rebel Without a Pulse this fall, Aspyr will be publishing its first original title for Mac, PC and Xbox. In addition, Stubbs’ accompanying soundtrack, also being released later this year, is the first record produced by Aspyr. The new logo is avisual interpretation of Aspyr’s growth.

The logo was created in-house by Aspyr’s design team. Consumers should expect to see the new Aspyr logo as it is rolled out over the next few months through all aspects of Aspyr relations, from advertising to product packaging.

Here's more on the contest:

Send us your "Aspyrations", and register to win one of many prizes: iPod, iPod shuffle, Aspyr t-shirts, as well as our first game sporting the brand new logo-The Sims 2. Winners will be drawn randomly and announced in our June newsletter, the week of June 20th. If you aren’t registered for Aspyr’s monthly newsletter, you can sign up here - http://www.aspyr.com/page.php/newsletter/.

To enter the contest, simply fill out the form at
http://www.aspyrpromotions.com/. The deadline for all entries is Friday,
June 10th.

Aspyr Media

Click to enlarge

Blizzard has released another screenshot contest for World of Warcraft. The competitors must make a "vintage poster" that advertises an in-game item of their chosing.

The Royal Photographic Society of Azeroth is happy to announce the World of Warcraft Vintage Poster Competition, sponsored by Zboard!. This contest challenges the adventurers of Azeroth to embrace their inner salesman / saleswomen by creating vintage-style advertisements for their favorite in-game items!

Vintage Poster Contest

Blizzard Entertainment

World of Warcraft

Buy World of Warcraft

Click to enlarge

Blizzard has released the results of the 2005 Warcraft III tournament and has released multiple pictures of the Blizzard E3 booth.

The tournament results are as follows:

On Thursday, May 19, the US Finals of ACON5 took place at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. The four players who had previously qualified at local preliminaries across the U.S. were flown out to E3 to compete for a trip to the Grand Finals in Xian, China.

The finals got underway. In the end, night elf player mTw-Wizard won 2-0 over the local Irvine, CA finalist rS.Etched. Unfortunately, Wizard had previous commitments to the WEG event and will be unable to attend the finals in China. Runner-up rS`Etched will take his place and represent the U.S. at the Grand Finals.

Blizzard E3 Pictures

Ladder & Tournament News

Blizzard Entertainment

WarCraft III

Buy WarCraft III

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