Vancouver's Pug Pharm partners with Project Whitecard to power official NASA MMO game

Vancouver-based Pug Pharm Productions, a company specializing in gamification and online social engagement, has announced that its gameplay platform will power the official NASA game, Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond.

Pug Pharm, founded in 2008, has entered a strategic partnership with Project Whitecard, which is one of three companies that won a contest sponsored by NASA to work on its Massively Multiplayer Online game.

"We are excited about working with Project Whitecard and thrilled that Pug Pharm was selected to provide the next-generation gamification and social networking engine for NASA's MMO website and game," said Steve Bocska, CEO of Pug Pharm.

"We're very pleased to be working with Pug Pharm. We have already generated some major excitement from 'mission control' with this first specialized website launch, and I expect our relationship to grow right into the full NASA MMO offering. This is the real Astronaut Academy of the future in many ways. It starts now, in 2011, with this important project," said Khal Shariff, CEO of Project Whitecard.

Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond is a massively multiplayer world in development to deliver "exciting adventures with accurate science, technology, engineering and mathematics content while players vie to be the best and brightest Astronauts in the year 2035!"