Carpentry sim turns Wii gaming into work

via joystiq

The Great Canadian Video Game Competition has inspired developer Big Blue Bubble to turn playing video games into hard work. The developer is creating a carpentry sim for the Wii, Hobby Shop, that uses both controllers to let players build bird houses, catapults, soap box racers, and more. The team wants the game to be "family friendly" so parents will want to play it with their children. Guess that means no driving nails through your hand or sawing off limbs.

Hobby Shop has passed the first two stages of the competition -- innovation and project development -- and scored the dev team over $200,000 for their work. The winner of the final stage of the competition (to be announced in September) will receive another grant to help in the commercialization of their product. In other words, Hobby Shop could be on store shelves sometime next year. It just might be quirky enough to work.