Round Up: New Game From Tetris Creator, HDR Video Contest, First HD-DVD Players

Today's round-up includes news of a new action puzzle game created by Alexey Pajitnov, the man behind Tetris, a new High Dynamic Range Video contest by BrightSide Technologies, and the release of the first HD DVD player in Japan, as well as the latest posts from GameSetWatch, product news and Gamasutra job postings. - WildSnake Software announced that they have teamed up with that Tetris originator Alexey Pajitnov to produce a new action puzzle game for the PC. Alexey's Dwice is first game to be part of WildSnake Software's new line of PC puzzle games, and has players racing against the clock to save a village from an impending avalanche by matching up blocks or isolating them to eliminate them from the board. "It is a great honor to work alongside someone as well respected as Alexey," said Andy Nick, owner of Wildsnake Software, "We look forward to producing more titles along the same lines and quality levels as Alexey's Dwice in the near future." - HDR imaging firm BrightSide Technologies announced a new video High Dynamic Range Video Contest looking for creative ideas for videos using HDR Technology. The contest winner will be given an all-expenses paid trip to SIGGRAPH 2006 in Boston, where their work will be featured at the show. More information is available on Brightside's competition page. - Toshiba has announced that they have begin shipping the HD DVD HD-XA1 player, the first player to support the HD DVD format approved by the DVD Forum, into the Japanese market. The player will sell for approximately ¥ 110,000 ($936) in Japan. Two separate versions of the HD-XA1 priced less than $800 are expected to ship into the U.S. by mid April. Similar to rival Blu-ray, which is being used in Sony's PlayStation 3, Toshiba's DVD standard format holds more data to enable better sound and picture quality than conventional discs. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include a bit on a number of things Wired's Lore Sjoberg thinks the video game industry needs to address, audio-only games for the blind, a look at a PC game called The War On Terror, and a look back at a 'classic' FMV-saturated PlayStation title called Fox Hunt. - Also updated today: product news, featuring Eyetronics' game motion capture work, as well as the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Cryptic Studios, Factor 5, Gameloft, and High Impact Games.