1.
Her Interactive
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Her Interactive is a video game company based in Bellevue, Washington. The company was founded as a division of American Laser Games and it later bought out its former parent company. The company designs, develops and publishes adventure-mystery games, most of which are based on the Nancy Drew franchise, the company was launched as a division of American Laser Games called Games for Her Interactive in May 1995. Its first title was McKenzie & Co, after finding initial success, the company became independent of American Laser Games and eventually bought out its former parent company. Her Interactive relocated to Bellevue, Washington in the late 1990s, the company employs about 25 people and is known for its Nancy Drew adventure-mystery game series
2.
DreamCatcher Interactive
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DreamCatcher Interactive Inc. was a Canadian computer game publisher of video games founded in 1996 by Richard Wah Kan. In 2006, the became a subsidiary of JoWooD Entertainment. In 2011, the company went into administration along with its parent JoWooD, the DreamCatcher Interactive brand is currently being used as a publishing label for Nordic Games, a wholly owned subsidiary of THQ Nordic. DreamCatcher Interactive was founded in 1996 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the company’s first title was the adventure game Soldier Boyz, closely followed by Jewels of the Oracle, which achieved enough success to grow the retail business. Dreamcatcher would later release The Crystal Key which sold over a million units in North America. Continuing the companys growth, in November 2000, DreamCatcher signed with Her Interactive to publish the Nancy Drew franchise, after the acquisition of Cryo Interactive, Dreamcatcher created a publishing division called The Adventure Company in early 2003. The company also partnered with both Wanadoo Edition and Microïds, as well as studios in the development and distribution of games including Syberia, Still Life. In 2005, the main Microïds studio was acquired by Ubisoft with Dreamcatcher retaining publishing rights to the games being created, the Adventure Company brand label under DreamCatcher has released many adventure game series including series based on Agatha Christie novels. They also recently signed to release a series of titles based on The Hardy Boys, outside of adventure gaming, DreamCatcher is best known for publishing the first-person shooter Painkiller developed with People Can Fly. Painkiller became a success and was signed with the CPL World Tour 2005. Dreamcatcher would also create another label, Silverline Software, around 2004 for the distribution of some non-core games, Silverline Software would release the Time to Ride series of girl’s horse games starting in 2004, which would later be acquired by Ubisoft. Since the acquisition, DreamCatcher Games has continued to launch titles both under The Adventure Company and DreamCatcher labels including new games created by JoWooD like the SpellForce series, in 2011, JoWooD went into administration causing DreamCatcher to file for bankruptcy. In November 2011, Nordic Games Holding announced that they had acquired all DreamCatcher assets, Nordic Games Holding had previously acquired JoWooD and The Adventure Company in August also turning both brands into publishing labels of Nordic Games. All business operations of acquired assets are conducted out of Nordic Games in Vienna, Nordic Games DreamCatcher profile on MobyGames
3.
Computing platform
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Computing platform means in general sense, where any piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the system, even a web browser or other application. The term computing platform can refer to different abstraction levels, including a hardware architecture, an operating system. In total it can be said to be the stage on which programs can run. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware, platforms may also include, Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS, this is referred to as running on bare metal, a browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser. An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in a scripting language. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform, software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality. Cloud computing and Platform as a Service, the social networking sites Twitter and facebook are also considered development platforms. A virtual machine such as the Java virtual machine, applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM. A virtualized version of a system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac, some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform to the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it, however, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS
4.
Microsoft Windows
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Microsoft Windows is a metafamily of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. It consists of families of operating systems, each of which cater to a certain sector of the computing industry with the OS typically associated with IBM PC compatible architecture. Active Windows families include Windows NT, Windows Embedded and Windows Phone, defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows 10 Mobile is an active product, unrelated to the defunct family Windows Mobile. Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20,1985, Microsoft Windows came to dominate the worlds personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984. Apple came to see Windows as an encroachment on their innovation in GUI development as implemented on products such as the Lisa. On PCs, Windows is still the most popular operating system, however, in 2014, Microsoft admitted losing the majority of the overall operating system market to Android, because of the massive growth in sales of Android smartphones. In 2014, the number of Windows devices sold was less than 25% that of Android devices sold and this comparison however may not be fully relevant, as the two operating systems traditionally target different platforms. As of September 2016, the most recent version of Windows for PCs, tablets, smartphones, the most recent versions for server computers is Windows Server 2016. A specialized version of Windows runs on the Xbox One game console, Microsoft, the developer of Windows, has registered several trademarks each of which denote a family of Windows operating systems that target a specific sector of the computing industry. It now consists of three operating system subfamilies that are released almost at the time and share the same kernel. Windows, The operating system for personal computers, tablets. The latest version is Windows 10, the main competitor of this family is macOS by Apple Inc. for personal computers and Android for mobile devices. Windows Server, The operating system for server computers, the latest version is Windows Server 2016. Unlike its clients sibling, it has adopted a strong naming scheme, the main competitor of this family is Linux. Windows PE, A lightweight version of its Windows sibling meant to operate as an operating system, used for installing Windows on bare-metal computers. The latest version is Windows PE10.0.10586.0, Windows Embedded, Initially, Microsoft developed Windows CE as a general-purpose operating system for every device that was too resource-limited to be called a full-fledged computer. The following Windows families are no longer being developed, Windows 9x, Microsoft now caters to the consumers market with Windows NT. Windows Mobile, The predecessor to Windows Phone, it was a mobile operating system
5.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
6.
Adventure game
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An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving. The genres focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, many adventure games are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multi-player design difficult. Initial adventure games developed in the 1970s and early 1980s were text-based, within the Asian markets, adventure games continue to be popular in the form of visual novels, which make up nearly 70% of PC games released in Japan. The Asian markets have found markets for adventure games for portable and mobile gaming devices. The video game genre is defined by its gameplay, unlike the literary genre, which is defined by the subject it addresses. Essential elements of the genre include storytelling, exploration, and puzzle solving, Adventure games have been described as puzzles embedded in a narrative framework, where games involve narrative content that a player unlocks piece by piece over time. While the puzzles that players encounter through the story can be arbitrary, combat and action challenges are limited or absent in adventure games, thus distinguishing them from action games. In the book Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design, only that combat is not the primary activity. Some adventure games include a minigame from another video game genre. Hybrid action-adventure games blend action and adventure games throughout the experience, incorporating more physical challenges than pure adventure games. This definition is hard to apply, however, with debate among designers about which games are action games. Adventure games are distinct from role-playing video games that involve action, team-building. Adventure games lack the numeric rules or relationships seen in role-playing games and these games lack any skill system, combat, or an opponent to be defeated through strategy and tactics. However, some hybrid games exist here, where role-playing games with strong narrative, finally, adventure games are classified separately from puzzle video games. Although an adventure game may involve puzzle-solving, they involve a player-controlled avatar in an interactive story. Adventure games contain a variety of puzzles, decoding messages, finding and using items, opening locked doors, solving a puzzle will unlock access to new areas in the game world, and reveal more of the game story. Logic puzzles, where mechanical devices are designed with interfaces to test a players deductive reasoning skills, are common. Others have been criticized for requiring players to guess, either by clicking on the right pixel
