Nine-year-old Olivia Kean of Mount Pearl plays 'Puffins: Island Adventure' on Nintendo DS. — Photo by Tara Mullowney/The Telegram

Too early in the season to go diving, fishing or run a road race? Not if you're a puffin.

Developed by Canadian company Other Ocean, Majesco Entertainment Company will launch the Nintendo DS game "Puffins: Island Adventure" next month.

As a member of a puffin flock, players learn to fly, dive, swim and start a family through a series of mini-games that mimic the real-life behaviour of our provincial bird, in a setting that's modelled after the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve.

"My brother Andrew and I grew up in Newfoundland and our family always made a point of making sure we explored the island and all the wonderful things about it, and one of the things that we often did was go to Witless Bay and have someone take us out to the ecological reserve," explained Deirdre Ayre, Other Ocean's studio head in St. John's and Charlottetown, P.E.I., where the game was developed. Other Ocean's head office is in California.

"We always thought the creatures were very endearing, and now that we have children ... we really started to appreciate how attractive that bird is to little kids. On top of that, being in the entertainment industry and watching as the penguin became extremely popular with "Happy Feet" and other DS games where little creatures were being used, we thought, 'You know what? The puffin could totally compete with these creatures.' We just felt it was a good creature to model a game after."

Other Ocean invested its own money into the project, and received funding from Telefilm Canada through its Canadian New Media Fund. Once the game was developed, Other Ocean began the process about a year and a half ago of shopping it around to video game publishers. To Ayre's surprise, the first company they approached - Majesco, based in New York - immediately fell in love with the game.

"Some of the senior executives happened to be real nature and bird lovers and were familiar with the puffin, and it just kind of took off from there," Ayre said.

Game designers started out by using topographical maps of the Witless Bay reserve - home to more than 260,000 pairs of Atlantic puffins during the late spring and summer - as a base for the game's setting, changing small details according to what kids told them in focus groups. The music for the game is typical Newfoundland-Irish style, featuring the tin whistle, fiddle and bodhran, composed by Great Big Sea frontman Alan Doyle.

"I really wanted to capture the feeling of the whole experience when you go to Witless Bay and you see the birds. To me, it was just so obvious that I didn't want this game built with electronic-type music," Ayre said. "When you make that decision, you go for the best, and the best was Alan. He was on board immediately and he was really excited."

In addition to the graphics, players can unlock real photographs and videos of puffins at the southern shore reserve, along with facts about the birds, provided by Memorial University biology and ocean sciences professor Bill Montevecchi.

Through games like the Puffin 500 race, Puffin Plummet, Egg Roll and Tide Pool Fishing, players mimic puffins' actual activities, and can build their own burrow and hatch their own baby puffins.

The game also features four-player local and two-player Nintendo Wi-Fi connection multiplayer modes.

Olivia Kean, 9, of Mount Pearl, tested "Puffins: Island Adventure" for The Telegram, designing her own pony-tailed puffin called Petunia. Her favourite mini-game, she said, was Dive Fishing, where her puffin swam and dove into underwater caves in search of food.

"You swim around and try to get the little green fish, but not the red ones - they blend in - or go near the sharks or jellyfish, because it takes away points," she explained, demonstrating on her red Nintendo DS. Until now, her favourite DS games were the Mario series, she said.

"The game is nice. It's different - not like other games, and the music sounds like Great Big Sea.

"I think it could be for all ages, because it's easy to figure out, and it could be for boys or girls. It would be good for people who know a little bit about puffins, or people who want to learn about them. We learned about puffins in Grade 3, but now I'm even more interested in them, and I want to go visit some this summer."

Ayre said Other Ocean is exploring expanding "Puffins: Island Adventure" for Nintendo Wii and iPhone. The company is also in the process of developing four iPhone games and three children's games at its studio in Charlottetown, as well as another DS game in St. John's.

"Puffins: Island Adventure" is expected to be released mid-May, and will be available at all stores that sell Nintendo DS games, as well as online at www.puffinsislandadventure.com.

tbm@thetelegram