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.

 

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

The fine folks at the Site3 coLaboratory are hosting a public Portal 2 launch party with a decidedly maker twist. Along with the game running on projectors they’ll have laser carved wooden companion cubes (yes they have a laser!) and other portal related electronics/crafts.   It’s a great chance to check out their crazy mad scientist lab and play Portal 2!

Thursday April 21, 7pm.
718R Ossington Ave (look it up, it’s more hidden then the unit bar!)

More info on the Site3 Blog

I found out last week that Toronto now has a podcast devoted to local indie games! It’s put together by two George Brown gaming students Arthur Marris and Max Brown and covers the Toronto indie game scene in quite a bit of detail.

Here’s the full episode list, however you might want to start with the latest and most polished episode 5 which covers both the IGDA Game.Set.Match event and the last Hand Eye Social.

If you’re secretly doing something awesome related to indie games or gaming arts and culture in Toronto, let us know!   We will hunt you down eventually, but it’s way easier if you let us know.

At the Unit Bar, 1198 Queen St W. (map)
On February 17th, 2011, 7PM

“Pancakes vs. Prototypes”
- Jason Kaplan (Game Prototype Challenge) and Damian Sommer (Griddle Jam)
Ever make a game in a week? What about in four hours? Through two very different game jams, Jason and Damian explore the concept of rapid prototyping, the benefits and difficulties of extremely short-term deadlines, the output of their jams, and the spawning of collaboration.

“Making A One Button, Skill Based Party Game That Doesn’t Suck”
- Miguel Sternberg and Andrew Pilkiw (Spooky Squid Games)
What makes a good skill based party game?  How do they differ from hardcore competitive games? Can you make one with only one button? Miguel and Andrew discuss the creative process behind The Night Balloonists, showing sketches, early versions and tests including their secret level making tool: Photoshop and a 2D wind tunnel!

Freeplay: The Night Balloonists!
After the talks play the Night Balloonists on the projector using a custom controller with four big oversized buttons built by Jonathan Seguin and Tino Kapetaneas specifically for the game!

COME OUT AND BRING FRIENDS! Like all our socials, this event is free and open to the public. Just show up!

So now they want to do the same again just bigger and better! Game Prototype Challenge v2 will announce its theme Dec 13th.  It’ll be open to everyone not just Toronto folks so spread the word to game makers you know outside the city!

You can follow and submit games through their Twitter @GamePrototypeCh. If you don’t have twitter you can still take part through their webpage gameprototypechallenge.com

If you’re interested in learning more about how the challenge started, Village Gamer has a great little interview on it.

If the merging of live Machinema performance, Halo and modern dance sounds interesting, you’ll want to check out the Halo™ Ballet world premier this Sunday!

From the organizers description:

Halo™ Ballet: Inspired by machinima — the repurposing of 3D graphics engines from video games like Quake to create video animation — X Avant takes things one step further by presenting Halo™ Ballet, a realtime live dance, choreographed by Julia Aplin and set to live music commissioned from Aaron Gervais. Toca Loca’s “Halorinas” will dance within a networked Halo™ game. Is Halo™ Ballet dance, multimedia, or just a really boring game where  no one gets killed?  Featuring Rick Sacks, Erik Ross, David Schotzko, Callan Burgess, Gregory Oh, Sanya Eng, Greg Samek and Stephanie Chua.

“Halorinas” may just be the best word ever.

Info and Tickets available here.

BONUS! Some footage of the “Halorinas” rehearsing!

Thanks to Callan for the tip!

FAN EXPO
Fri 4-9 | Sat 10am-7pm | Sun 11am-6pm
Meto Convention Center (or just head to Union station and follow that dude who’s dressed like Naruto)

The Hand Eye Society Indie Arcade is making another appearance, this time at Fan Expo.  We’re hidden away in room 201 on the ground floor and this time we’re packing the mighty Torontron Arcade cabinet!  Also on display will be some fantastic games by HES members:

• ][
• Bigpants
• GetSetGames
• Golden Gear Games
• Spooky Squid
• Spyeart

FAN EXPO GAMING PARTY
Saturday 9:00pm - 2:00am
Charlotte Room - 19 Charlotte

Saturday night Spooky Squid Games and ][ will be providing multiplayer games for the "Gamin' with the Girls - Fan Expo Gaming Party".  Stay late for musical sets by local chiptune artists and DJ's including HES member DJ Finish Him (aka Shaun Hatton).  It's worth staying late for a rare chance to play ]['s 'dancing sumo' game I Have Big Balls the way it was meant to be played… with live music creating a dynamically changing landscape to fight on!


OTHER EXIBITORS / EVENTS OF INTEREST:
HES member Benjamin Rivers will be selling comics at a yet to be disclosed location.

Veteran TOJammer Eric Kim will be selling comics at P43A.

TOJam 2010 newbie Heather Chan will be selling crafty things at A55.

HES member Ryan Creighton of Untold Entertainment will be on a panel on The State of the Local Video Game Industry at Sunday 12:30 pm room #205A.

HES member Shaun Hatton will be answering questions with the rest of the Electric Playground crew Sunday 5pm room #206C.

You might also want to check out the awesome folks from Decoder Ring Theatre at booth A132 they put on a mighty fine pulp radio drama podcast and you may recognize some voices from Spooky Squid Games’ Night of the Cephalopods and Guerrilla Gardening.

If you’re a HES member exhibiting or talking at Fan Expo we didn’t mean to omit you! Please comment and I’ll add you to this list!

If you haven’t made it out to one of our socials yet, this gives pretty good taste of what you’re missing.

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.