HES Arcade at Scott Pilgrim Vol 6 Launch Party!

The Hand Eye Society Arcade will be at The Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6 Midnight Release Party! Monday July 19th, 8pm-1am.  Markham Street right next to Honest Eds.

The Beguiling Comic shop is holding a huge street sized party for the launch of the final volume of Scott Pilgrim. Author Bryan Lee O’Malley will be signing at the Beguiling (601 Markham) but there’s SP related stuff happening up and down the street. More details on the Beguiling webpage.

The HES Arcade will be at Butler’s Pantry, 591 Markham from 8pm-Midnight and we’ll have a number of local indie games setup for people to play (sadly the mighty Torontron will not be in attendance this time). The arcade will include games by:

][ Games, Big Pants, Forest Games, GetSetGames, Golden Gear,  Spooky Squid Games and Spyeart

If you’re not familiar with Scott Pilgrim it’s a Comic set in Toronto that stars Scott Pilgrim a 23 year old slacker in an indie band called Sex-Bob-omb. It has crazy kung-fu fights, vegans with psychic powers and a world built on videogame logic.  You can read some previews on the official website.

Now that the comic is finishing up it’s about to be turned into a movie and a videogame!

SP vs. HES Fun Facts: The official Scott Pilgrim website was designed by HES member Nadine Lessio who also designed the Torontron logo.  The fourth volume of  Scott Pilgrim has pixel art on the back by HES member Miguel Sternberg (Spooky Squid Games).

Are you a HES member with a game you think would be a good fit for a future HES Arcade? Shoot me an email at neko@silencegreys.com with “HES Arcade get!” in the title and tell me about your game (or better yet send a link to it). No promises that it’ll be in the next Arcade but we do want to get a range of quality local games shown now that it looks like we’re doing these more regularly throughout the year. Generally speaking  polished games that are pick up and play will be given preference.

The Arcadian Renaissance

The Indie Arcade Cabinet, the Torontron, is currently one of a kind and consequently much in demand. It popped by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival at the Toronto Reference Library and before that was at the Flash in the Can Festival at the Hilton. After having been at the fine Function 13 gallery for the last month, it’s moved to InterAccess for June and July.

The Torontron spews delight, causing exclamations of “awesome!” and inspiring high-fives where ever it goes. A classic arcade cabinet retrofitted to play modern local indie games, what could be better?

How about SIX of them?

Nuit Blanche, the all night art thing that attracted close to a million people last year, has accepted the Hand Eye Society as a partner in its 2010 event on Oct. 2. We’re planning to present not just the Torontron, but a full arcade of indie goodness for the event in something we’re calling The Arcadian Renaissance. The venue? The atrium of the new TIFF Bell Lightbox at King and John.

As well as the Toronto International Film Festival support, we’ve gotten sponsorship from Metanet, Spyeart, and ][ so far.

Email us if you can help with any of the following:

• Sponsor a cabinet for $1000. Show your indie support and get your name/logo in front of a massive audience. What happens to the cabinet after Nuit Blanche? Well, either your machine is made available to the public with your logo on it, or you can have it for your home or office (provided the Society can borrow it when needed). Also, going halfsies on it with someone else ($500/$500) is fine too.
• Donate some hardware to the project. We need 20″ or bigger displays (TV/CRT/LCD), PCs (boxes/laptops), arcade cabinets — send us the specs and we’ll tell you if we can use it. The less we have to buy the more money we have to do more projects.
• Volunteer your time. If getting local indie games in front of a million people sounds like something you can get behind, let us know if you’d be into helping out with logistics, documentation, promotion, design, or construction. The only way this thing has gotten rolling is thanks to the involvement of members like Peter Marshall and Nick Pagee.

It’s gonna be sweet!

The Third Social of 2010: Thursday, May 27th.

To the distinguished ladies & gentlemen of the Hand Eye Society, it has been ordained:

We shall meet again on Thursday May 27th 2010 at Unit Bar, 1198 Queen West. It is sure to be an auspicious event, occurring as it will at almost the precise moment of the full moon (no, seriously).

OH AND ALSO DID WE MENTION: Mr. Brandon Boyer, he of Offworld & the internet website Boing Boing, newly minted IGF Chairman (!!!), a hero of the people, friend to videogame creators, a curator & broadcaster par excellence, will be in our lovely city of quiet industry for the very first time to deliver some form of immensely significant communication to the assembled videogame creators, enthusiasts, organizers & slack-jawed onlookers.

Doors will open at 19:00 EST & a curated selection of videogames may be available. Suggested arrival time is 19:30 EST. The half-hour presentation will begin at around 20:00 EST. Please note: space is finite, so arrive early and, if possible, be small. Following the presentation one might reasonably expect a mix of friendly conversation & moderate beverage consumption, with the outside chance of some late night poutine, as is occasionally the custom of our tribe.

So mark the date on your (lunar) calendar, alert the press & let’s get cozy!

Hand Eye Society at TCAF!

WHAT’S A TCAF?!
TCAF is a massive comic festival (around 10,000 people attended last year) that takes place over two floors of the Toronto Reference Library.  It is not a typical comic event, it pulls a more diverse audience, emphasizes small press and independent creators (not super hero stuff!), and doesn’t have vendors or any big press attending (that means no Marvel or DC).  Also ADMISSION IS TOTALLY FREE!

The folks behind the fantastic Life Meter video game inspired comic anthologies will be there (and many of the contributors will be too!). Hopefully they’ll bring a truckload of ‘em, they tend to sell out fast.

There are also some notable game/comics crossovers including:

Jamie McKelvie artist for indie life sim Kudos2

Scott c. art director and concept artist for Double Fine (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend)

The Hand Eye Societies own Benjamin Rivers (Drunken Rampage, Snow) and Jim Munroe (Everybody Dies, Roofed) will be selling their comics as well.

*UPDATE* Frequent TOjam participant and character designer for ‘Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution‘ Eric Kim will also have comics at the show.

You may also wish to catch this panel on the intersection of indie comics and indie games:

The Spirit of Indie: Where Comics Meet Video Games
Saturday, May 8th, 2:00 – 2:45pm, The Pilot
There’s more to the game industry than blockbuster, multi-system titles just as there’s more to comics than Batman. This panel seeks to explore the ways in which independent comic artists and game developers have influenced each other and spurred each other on to explore the possibilities of their medium. Cartoonists/game contributors and creators Scott Campbell, Jamie McKelvie, Jim Munroe, and Miguel Sternberg will be interviewed by games journalist Matthew Kumar.

TCAF
May 8th and 9th 2010
@ Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St., Toronto, Canada

Admission to TCAF is Free.

More Info on the Toronto Comic Arts Festival including a truly massive list of guests at:
http://www.torontocomics.com/

If you’re a Hand Eye Society member or indie game maker doing something at TCAF feel free to post about it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list!

Dance/Drink/Fight/Party at the Hand Eye Society April 15 Social

Life getting you down? Spring missing its sprung? Then come out the next Hand Eye Social social on Thursday, April 15, at the ever-gracious Unit Bar.

Jim McGinley will be premiering a new type of game designed exclusively for a club environment. Everyone at Unit will play the game together, and Jim will deejay. Come join the experiment. And be ready  to push buttons… really quickly.

This might just be the future of games.

If you ain’t too tuckered out from rocking and socking, get it up for another unique social gaming experience – the very first live demonstration of Drunken Rampage, a new interactive drinking game from Benjamin Rivers.

So come out, and bring beer money – you’re going to need it!

Hand Eye Society April 15 Social
Unit Bar
1198 Queen West
Doors open at 7pm
Presentations begin at 8pm