Where in the world has Ben been?

It’s been a while since my last blog post.  That fact is due, in no small part, to the significant amount of time that I spent in the frozen tundra of northern Alberta in the last few months (3 trips and a total of about 3 weeks in the last 3 months).  In specific, I was in a town called Grande Prairie: population approximately 50,000. 

In case your Canadian geography is a little rusty, this is where Grande Prairie is located:

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(The states just off the bottom of the map would be Washington, the Northern tip of Idaho,  and Montana).  Here are a few interesting factoids about Grande Prairie:

• Upon my first arrival to Grande Prairie, my host described the city as “the Northernmost edge of civilization.”
• With a little luck, you can see the Northern Lights when standing outdoors at night. (I was not lucky).
• Grande Prairie can be quite pretty:



The building in this photo is the most prominent landmark in the area.  At 14 stories it towers above everything else in the city and is, as I’m told, the tallest building in Alberta north of Edmonton.

• Grande Prairie also has some extremely nice, albeit somewhat quirky, people:

(In defense of Grande Prairie, the chap on the right is from Newfoundland, I believe).

• Due to Grande Prairie’s latitude, the days are very short at this time of year.  This image was taken at about 10:30am, on my way into the office:

• At this point you’re probably asking, “so, why does one go to Grande Prairie?”

Well, the most common answer to that question is: “for money.”  Apparently, Northern Alberta is swimming in crude oil and Grande Prairie represents the staging-point for a tremendous amount of oil drilling activity in the area.  The province is booming, with a multi-billion dollar budget surplus and a staggering manpower shortage. Eighteen year-old high school graduates moving to the area regularly earn more than $100,000 a year working in the oil fields.  Workers are so hard to come by that service industry companies also pay astronomical wages (as much as $17/hour for a job at Starbucks, I’m told).  The unfortunate byproduct of this wealth in an otherwise inhospitable land is are depressingly high rates of methamphetamine addiction, prostitution, and gambling.

I, however, did not venture to Grande Prairie to seek my fortune as a leatherneck and while-away the cold nights with drugs and loose women.  I was drawn to this desolate land by the potent combination of classic 70’s disco music and modern technology, in the form of an iPhone game called:

Saturday Night Fever: Dance was developed by a small team based in Grande Prairie by the name of Evolv3r Inc. and published under my direction by Paramount Digital Entertainment.  I am very excited to announce that, as of today, this game is now available for download from the iTunes App store (for the bargain price of $4.99).  I’m very proud of this project.  While the core gameplay mechanic is pretty heavily “inspired” by Elite Beat Agents for the Nintendo DS, I think that we made some subtle but significant improvements and produced an extremely polished and full-featured iPhone application in a very short amount of time. 

The music lineup is fantastic, including Master recordings of YMCA (Village People), Shake Your Groove Thing (Peaches & Herb), Carwash (Rose Royce), and Love Machine (The Miracles).  I really didn’t have much of an appreciation for disco music before working on this project, but after seeing the film (which I highly recommend…it’s really not what you expect) and working on this game, I think I’m something of a fan.

So, if you’ve got an iPhone or an iPod Touch, or you know anyone who does, I definitely encourage you to give the game a try.  I have very high hopes for it.  If you enjoy it, please help spread the word.