Cover Girl is being created as part of Channel 4 Education’s strategy to connect with its audience through their favourite digital mediums.

Cover Girl allows players to take on the role of a desk artist in a publishing house. Via challenging tasks and tests of skill, players will “enhance” the photographs that will adorn the publishing house’s fashion magazines. As the game progresses, the player will begin to understand the methods that magazines employ to sell units and the methods that advertisers employ to sell beauty products.

Andrew Crawshaw, Creative Director at Tuna, says:

“There is a wealth of opportunities out there for independent game developers to flex their creative muscles without working for traditional publishers. Working with Channel 4 gives us an excellent opportunity to innovate and create something daring like Cover Girl”.

Alice Taylor, Commissioning Editor for Channel 4, says:

“Beauty is a terrible thing: an enormous industry, a fleeting thing to have (if we have it at all) and nowadays, mostly an unnatural product of digital manipulation. The daily visual barrage of sculpted abs, cow-length eyelashes, unnaturally long thighbones, skin without follicles: what is it doing to the nation’s self image, we ask ourselves?

COVER GIRL (working title) aims to help our teenagers understand that media and images are manipulated, designed, and very carefully. Armed with this knowledge, the next photograph of a wrinkle-free 44 year old might not seem quite so normal after all.

Channel 4 Education is very pleased to be working with Tuna Technologies, who have a reputation for both hard work and exciting creative techniques.”

Download full press release here.

On Bonfire night, Andrew Crawshaw, Nick Wardle and Sarah Quick premiered Tuna’s first location based game - The Sky’s the Limit. Despite the terrible weather there was a great turn out of people willing to dive into our part-challenge-part-treasure hunt game featuring illuminated, helium-filled balloons, on the main concourse outside Sheffield train station. The event was held as part of Hide and Seek’s first Sandpit Tour of the UK, and Tuna was delighted to fill the ‘local talent’ slot.

Meanwhile, Creative Director Andrew Crawshaw was interviewed on BBC Radio Sheffield’s Breakfast Show, covering topics from Eurogamer to the latest game releases.

Cletus Clay was shown to the general public for the first time at the Eurogamer Expo this year and received extremely positive feedback from attendees. It was described as one of the most beautiful games featured in the show and warranted a feature on the BBC News: Look North segment of the programme.

Also at the Expo, Tuna CEO Alex Amsel and Creative Director Andrew Crawshaw hosted seminars on behalf of BAFTA to students wanting to enter the games industry.

Claymation Artist Sarah Quick ran a workshop at this years Bradford Animation Festival, teaching the basic skills used in the creation of Cletus Clay. Participants were taught the basic techniques for creating scenery models and non animated characters.

Sheffield-based independent games developer Tuna is the latest Game Republic member to benefit from Screen Yorkshire’s Business Investment Fund, as they announced an investment of £30,000 towards the creation of their new award-nominated title, Cletus Clay(tm).

Cletus Clay(tm) is a videogame made entirely out of clay, using traditional stop frame animation, just like Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit (but with added shotguns and aliens). Tuna has set up a development blog at www.cletusclay.com to document how the game is being made. Following its nomination for the Excellence in Visual Arts award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival in San Francisco, Cletus Clay(tm) will also be featured at the Eurogamer Expo IndieCade 2009 this autumn.

Alex Amsel, Managing Director of Tuna, says:

”As a Sheffield-based company, it’s great that we can be supported locally by organisations such as Screen Yorkshire and Game Republic. With their help Yorkshire has become a fantastic region for the games industry to grow and evolve.  We’re really looking forward to showing off Cletus Clay(tm) at the Eurogamer Expo in Leeds.”

Jamie Sefton, Game Republic Sector Manager at Screen Yorkshire, says:

“As well as being an industry-led games network for the region, the backing of Screen Yorkshire enables Game Republic members to access their business investment funds, giving us an opportunity to really make a difference here. We feel that Tuna’s amazing Cletus Clay(tm) has the potential to be one of the indie scene’s strongest titles.”

Screen Yorkshire and Game Republic are also bringing the Eurogamer Expo to Leeds in October to ensure thousands of Yorkshire’s video game enthusiasts get their hands on new titles from developers such as EA, Sega, Konami and of course Tuna, before their release.

The Eurogamer Expo runs from October 27th to the 28th in Leeds and from October 30th to the 31st in London. For more information on the Eurogamer Expo 2009 or to buy tickets, go to http://expo.eurogamer.net/.

Tuna

Award nominated Tuna are an independent game production company who have worked on over 70 released titles. Tuna’s focus is on developing interesting concepts and collaborating with talented partners to create unique projects. With over 13 years experience working on a wide range of platforms including home console, mobile, and the web, Tuna are specialists in nurturing novel ideas suited to cross platform development.

Game Republic and Screen Yorkshire

Game Republic, the trade association for the games sector in Yorkshire and Humber, promotes and provides support to the industry through a range of initiatives, investing in games projects, creating better links with academia, developing relationships with international publishers and championing collaboration through hosting regular networking events. In 2007 Game Republic was fully integrated into Screen Yorkshire enabling the games sector in the region to access its strategic investment funds. www.gamerepublic.org

Screen Yorkshire is the regional screen agency, responsible for inspiring, promoting and supporting a successful and sustainable film, broadcast, games and interactive media sector in Yorkshire and Humber. In May 2006 Screen Yorkshire was awarded £10.2m by Regional Development Agency Yorkshire Forward to deliver its Digital Media Content Programme. This ambitious and progressive four-year programme is aimed at creating nearly a thousand jobs, attracting over £50 million of inward investment and helping businesses to compete in a fast-changing global marketplace.
www.screenyorkshire.co.uk