Comics vs. Games 2 Showcase at TCAF

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is fast approaching and with it our expanded Comics vs. Games 2 programming brought to you with the support of Bento Miso, who are sponsoring this year’s events! Bento Miso have already announced their line-up of talented local game makers for Bit Bazaar and  Attract Mode are curating another Comics vs. Games Gallery full of amazing work by amazing illustrators. Rounding up this year’s events the Hand Eye Society is now happy to announce: 
 

The Comics vs. Games Showcase!

Where: TCAF - Toronto Reference Library – 789 Yonge Street
When: Sat May, 11 9am-5pm – Sun May 12, 11am-5pm
Last year the Hand Eye Society teamed up with TIFFnexus and paired indie comic and game makers to create five original games. This year we’ve curated four existing independent games from around the world that borrow structural elements from comics in their game design and presentation. Each of these games explores space, sequence and narrative in unique ways that show great things can happen when the two forms are combined!  All four Showcase games will be playable at the TCAF main location for the entire weekend.  
 

Framed by Loveshack Entertainment – Australia
Framed is a novel, dramatic, panel-shifting game experience where every panel tugs on the outcome of the story. Presented as a storyboard each panel depicts an important action/event. Players must rearrange the order of the panels to change the delivery and outcome of the narrative. With each action framed by the last, context is everything.
Coming to multiple platforms in 2013 including PC, Mac, tablets and phones.

Where is My Heart by Die Gute Fabrik – Denmark / Germany
Where is My Heart is a 2D puzzle platforming game starring three monsters, each with unique abilities. It uses the Comic Panel Effect in which the screen has been fractured into panels and re-arranged to disorient the player.  With its charming art style, odd creatures and surreal internal logic Where is My Heart is evocative of comics like Ojingogo.
While Where is my Heart has been available for PSPmini for some time, TCAF will be a rare chance play the upcoming PC version!
Available now on the PSPmini (PSP, PS3 and PS Vita) coming soon to PC and Mac.

Storyteller by Daniel Benmergui – Argentina
Storyteller is a puzzle game where you build your own visual stories. Each level has a goal like “make a murder of jealousy” or “a tragedy of love”. It’s played by placing characters and props into a strip of frames like a comic, where actors react to each other. Many classic soap opera complications like amnesia, dark secrets and returns from death are part of the toolbox.
The IGF award winning Storyteller makes its second appearance at TCAF Comics vs Games. As a game still in development players will get a chance to play the newest build and see what’s changed in a year!
Available late 2013 on PC, Mac and iOS.

Gorogoa by Jason Roberts – United States
Gorogoa is a lovingly hand-illustrated world suspended inside of a unique puzzle. To solve the puzzle, the player rearranges a few panels on a simple grid, placing them next to or on top of one another. But each panel is also a window into a different part of the game world–or perhaps into a different world–and each window plays like its own little game. Even so, the key to progressing never lies within one panel, but in the connections between panels.
Coming out late 2013/early 2014 for PC, Mac and subsequently on mobile platforms.

More info on TCAF Comics vs Games 2 programming coming soon!

Comics vs Games 2 is a Toronto Comics Arts Festival event sponsored by Bento Miso and co-organized with The Hand Eye Society and Attract Mode.

Comics Vs Games on Gamasutra / TCAF Panel

Remember the Comics vs Games project last spring where we teamed up indie comic artists and game makers to create a bunch of small games?  Well Gamasutra has written a great in-depth article on the project including interviews with the participants:

“Steve Manale admits he is not much of a “game guy.” He owns a Wii, and somewhere he might still have an old Gamecube he managed to spill paint on. He works with lines all day, but they’re filled with colors, not code.

The Toronto-based artist might still be surprised as anyone that he can now claim co-creatorship of a video game among the accomplishments of his career.” - Comics vs. Games: Thinking Outside the Panel

The folks at TIFFnexus have also posted a full video of the Comics vs Games panel at The Toronto Comics Arts Festival for those who missed it.

Applications open for Dames Making Games “Jeuxly”

Dames Making Games is delighted to announce that applications are now open for Jeuxly (the name comes for the french word for “games”), a six-week game-making incubator for women inspired by last year’s Difference Engine Initiative. During July (and some of August), a small group of women will meet weekly to work through the steps of making their first games. At the end of the process, each of them will have finished a small game on their own to show off at a final reception. The incubator will run in conjunction with “The New Game Makers,” a speaker and workshop series at Bento Miso featuring female game professionals.

If you’re interested in applying, volunteering, or mentoring the participants, go here to read more details and find out how to get involved: http://www.damesmakinggames.com/?p=226

*”women” includes all those who identify as women.

Steam coming to Toronto May 25th!

News tip from HES member Nathan Vella:

Attention Hand Eye Pals,

On May 25th, from 4pm on, representatives from Valve will be in Toronto to talk about submitting, marketing & powering your games with Steam.

Join the Steam reps at the Gladstone Hotel Ballroom (where our Hand Eye socials have been lately) for the session, and then let Valve buy you a couple round of beers!

Space is **very** limited so please RSVP to nathan.v@capybaragames.com with STEAM RSVP in the subject soon if you’re interested. In your RSVP please provide your name & what studio you’re from (if any). Please note that due to limited space we’re asking that you only RSVP for one person per studio. If there’s space left over (there won’t be) then we’ll open it up to more per studio.

This is a great opportunity to learn about, and interact with, one of the best distribution channels available for independent developers… so get RSVP’ing!

And of course, a huge thanks to Valve for setting this up!

Take a peak at the flyer for all the details.

 

Torontron High Roller debuts at TCAF!

We’re happy to announce the Torontron High Roller! A companion cabinet to the original Torontron and what may be the first multi-game indie arcade box with a trackball! It’s making its debut at TCAF, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 7th-8th.

More on other great game content at TCAF after, but first the High Roller details!

Still showing some of its original roots as a Gimmie a Break pool game cabinet we've modified it with more buttons for left and right handers.

The cabinet features five local games as well as a sixth international guest slot for notable games by developers outside Toronto. The inaugural launch games are:

• Shlongg by notsoft is a really great evolution of the old Arkanoid/Breakout paddle games. Only with alien bosses, crazier power-ups and tunnel racing between levels. It’s a real joy to play with a trackball.
• Gesundheit! by Matt Hammill is a puzzle/stealth game with beautiful hand-drawn artwork, pigs, snot and an utterly charming sound track. It was a finalist in the 2008 IGF Student Showcase.
• Airshot Scott by Entelechynt is a game where you disarm bombs by juggling them with bullets. It was created at last year’s Toronto Indie Game Jam.
• Strategic Oil Reserve by iteration GAMES is a classic style arcade game that uses its old school difficulty to comment on the inevitable results of peak oil. Much in the same way its inspiration, Missile Command, reflected on nuclear war and M.A.D.
• Star Fall High Roller by Golden Gear is an insanely fast racing game where you keep a falling star aloft for as long as possible by collecting dreams. Originally designed for the Experimental Gameplay Competition’s “high velocity” theme, this is a new and improved version built just for the High Roller.

Our first International Guest Game is Calamity Annie by Auntie Pixelante (aka Anna Anthropy). It’s a wild west quick draw shooting game with a romantic subplot and great big blocky pixels. A novel addition to this version is the high score reward which lets the top player make their mark by drawing a picture in bullets.

There are also rumors of a secret seventh game, however we can neither confirm nor deny that it exists.

More Torontron cabinets are on their way as we refit the cabinets from the Nuit Blanche Arcadian Renaissance event for multiple games. Big thanks to Jph of iteration GAMES (for the skills) and Site 3 (for the tools) needed to modify the cabinet buttons and to Jph again for putting together the cabinet in the first place.

Other HES Games at TCAF

Along with the cabinets we’ll have three demo stations set up with games by Golden Gear, Big Pants and Spooky Squid including a few making their first playable appearance at the show. It’s a great chance to get a sneak peak of upcoming games by local developers, play some of their back catalog and chat with the creators. Writer of many fine words about games Mathew Kumar will also have his excellent exp. zine for sale at our table.

Less local, but sure to be of interest to many Hand Eye members the indie game culture shop Attract Mode will also be at the show!

They’ll be selling a selection of their usual assortment of game culture goodness, zines, comics, chiptune CDs, shirts and prints (or whatever subset of these they manage to get across the border). Debuting at the show are new Giant Robot prints by Farel Dalrymple, Hilary Florido and a Game Boy zine by Nick Maynard. The TCAF booklet will also feature an exclusive Attract Mode illustration by Maré Odomo, probably best known for his deeply melancholic ”Letters to an Absent Father” Pokemon comics.

They’ll also have the last few remaining issues of the current printing of Life Meter Comics which I pimped last year. They’re full of amazing fan comics by comic artists, animators and illustrators. (Full disclosure: I have a Lovecraft-meets-Jet Grind Radio piece in issue 2, however the comics really are great… and my section can be removed to increase the street value.)

The Attract Mode table is manned by Matthew Hawkins of Fort90 so look for the table listed under his name to find it. He’ll also have all four issues of his Fort90 zine for sale. Number four FORT90ZINE4ANSWER is debuting. Issue three describes his experience as a game designer at a major game company. The second and most popular is all about the game scene in NYC and the first issue is being discontinued so grab it while you can!

Other tables at TCAF likely to be of interest to HES folks:

• HES member Benjamin Rivers
• Spooky Squid collaborator and TOjammer Eric Kim
• Tasha Harris and Scott C. of Double Fine.
• Gamercamp lvl2 speaker and too many things to list Jim Zub

There are probably a ton of others, go check out TCAF’s full listing for all of them.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival

Saturday May 7th, 9am-5pm
Sunday May 8th, 11am-5pm

@ Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St., Toronto, Canada
416-533-9168
Admission to TCAF is Free.

Hate Comics But Like Making Things?

Our friends at Site3 are involved with the Mini Maker Faire the same weekend as TCAF and Shawn McGrath will have his game Dyad playable on The Machine — a hand-built motorized arcade machine that really has to be seen to be believed.

Dyad – THE MACHINE from Shawn McGrath on Vimeo.

There’s also a chance the orginal Torontron Classic will be making an appearance at the Faire. Attend both, collect them all!

Toronto Mini Maker Faire – May 7th-8th – Evergreen Brickworks