Lead The Meerkats
Mammalian RTS from Lapland coming to European WiiWare at the month's end.
Lapland Studio Ltd Announces Lead The Meerkats™ for WiiWare™, Nintendo´s new downloadable game service for the Wii console that offers fresh game play experiences and new opportunities for creators.
Lead The Meerkats™ will be released:
Europe: May 28th
North America: TBA
Lapland Studio Ltd a dedication to compelling casual cross-platform games for all ages and demographics. This New RTS title offers a fun and unique gameplay experience for animal lovers of all ages.
Rovaniemi, Finland, February 04th of May, 2010 The publisher of the upcoming WiiWare title “Lead The Meerkats™”, Lapland Studios reached an agreement with the FKMP (Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project) to make a donation per copy of the game sold from first day sales.
Ilkka Immonen, CEO of Lapland Studios commented, “We have naturally been working very hard to find the balance between the realistic depiction of Meerkats and key engaging gameplay elements as possible, so that it looks and feels like a game, and has that something interesting yet exciting to offer the player! When you consider the traction Meerkats have gotten as a result of very popular TV documentaries and the hard work of both the KMP and FKMP (Kalahari Meerkats Project and Friends thereof) it was obvious to us that we needed to show our appreciation to such groups, for making the subject matter what it is today”. “We felt that we wanted to give something back to a group that is truly on the ground when it comes to their efforts with supporting the conservation of these creatures and that really does a lot in terms of the grass roots research that helps us as people understand them better, so we contacted the KMP and FKMP to put this together”.
Prof. Tim Clutton-Brock, Professor of Animal Ecology of the University of Cambridge and the Author of Meerkat Manor - The Story of Flower of the Kalahari (2007, Weidenfeld & Nicolson; ISBN 0297844849), commented that, "I am excited to see the development of a game that will help people to understand the decisions that individual animals have to make in the course of their daily lives. Purchase of each game includes a donation to the Kalahari Meerkat Project so sales of the game will also help to support our research and safeguard the meerkats".
Evi Bauer, President of FKMP commented, “We've been waiting for this for ages: a meerkat game that is fun to play, lovely to look at, and realistic in what it is about: meerkats”! “And the best of it is that for every copy of the game bought a donation is made to the FKMP to support KMP meerkat research”!
About Lead the Meerkats™
“Lead The Meerkats™”, is the first game to simulate the trials and tribulation of the life of meerkats. By taking advantage of Wii ™ and its unique and intuitive Wii Remote™, the player is trust into the lively and endearing world of meerkats. As a pack leader the player enjoys the company of these curiously interesting creatures and all their trials and tribulations. The game offers extremely fun and engaging gameplay experiences for Wii players of all ages.
In Lead the Meerkats™ you are a young meerkat and you have a lot to accomplish. You have been separated from your pack and the time has come for you to form your own meerkat pack. Name your pack and meerkats. Dig a network of burrows and enlarge your territory. Forage for food and grow your pack size. Stand guard and be ready to make quick decisions on the run. Run to the safety of your burrows or stand and fi¬ght your enemies. Go head to head with a rival meerkat pack. Lead your pack to victory and rule the savanna. Are you ready for the challenge?
The game has been rated by the rating bodies, PEGI, ESRB, and USK. The games official website is:
www.leadthemeerkats.com
About Lapland Studios
Lapland Studio® Ltd is a graphics creation, post- production and game company located in Finland. It was established in 2004 and is privately funded company. They have global customers in game, TV and film production industries, plus increasing amount of customers in mobile, embedded and PC graphics industries.
About Inaria Interactive®
Inaria Interactive®, a wholly owned by Lapland Studio® Ltd., formed 2009 to create compelling casual original IP game titles that are fun and addictive and that embrace the mass market. Over the past few years Lapland Studio has been involved in several high quality game projects for a variety of game developers to demonstrate the capabilities to amaze visually. This expertise gives an essential startup for Inaria Interactive to create entertaining casual games for all ages.
About the Kalahari Meerkat Project (KMP)
The KMP is a not for profit group. The project was founded in the Kgalagadi National Park (formerly the Gemsbok National Park) in north-west South Africa, but was relocated in 1993 to what became the Kuruman River Reserve (KRR). The KRR is jointly owned by the Kalahari Research Trust and the University of Cambridge. The project founder, Prof. Tim Clutton-Brock, is Professor of Animal Ecology of the University of Cambridge and is project director. The project is a longterm research project, contributing to our understanding of the evolution of cooperative behaviour of meerkats.
www.kalahari-meerkats.com
About Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project (FKMP)
The Friends of the Kalahari Meerkat Project society (FKMP) was founded in November 2007 and is based in Switzerland. The FKMP is in general legally independent from the Kalahari Meerkat Project (KMP), though the two organisations are functionally linked.
FKMP is a sponsoring venture, in which people interested in meerkat research and in the meerkats of the Kalahari Meerkat Project will receive information about the project and the meerkats, in exchange for funds contributing to the research.
www.friends.kalahari-meerkats.com
Inaria Interactive®, Lapland Studio Further information:
http://www.inariainteractive.com
http://www.laplandstudio.com
Company Contact: Press Contact:
Ilkka Immonen Ilkka Immonen
CEO, Lapland Studio CEO, Lapland Studio
email: ilkka@laplandstudio.com email: ilkka@laplandstudio.com
© 2009 Lapland Studio®. Lead The Meerkats™ and Inaria Interactive® trademarks and logos are the exclusive property of Lapland Studio Ltd.