Difference Engine Games Now Available

The games made during the second incubator of the Difference Engine Initiative are here, along with screenshots and descriptions. Play a raging cyclist, an immoral prisoner, a space explorer, a Newfie adventurer, a memetic cat and a doughnut slaying questor.

The games of the DEI were showcased at the TIFF Bell Lightbox last month as a part of the Women in Film, Games and New Media Conference. If you missed it, you can watch the keynote and other videos here.

JAMuary is coming!

You’ll have to wait til the new year for the release roundup of the second Difference Engine Initiative incubator games, but in the meanwhile you can check out some game clips and interviews with the creators in this video.

Inspired? Check out this game jam being run by Dames Making Games:

JAMuary will aim to get first-time female game-makers to make their own first games during the month of January. We’ll be providing them with weekly group work sessions and peer mentoring at Site3, an online support and resource package, and an opportunity to present their games in public at a reception held on January 31st.

The deadline to apply is in 5 days, so check it out soon!

If making a game in a month seems impossible, check out the 29 games people made in a week for Game Prototype Challenge v10.

Toronto Indie Guys EP 16 – Game Journalism

EPISODE 16 is finally here; the Toronto Indie Guys’ summer blockbuster! In this EP, both Max & I talk with 3 awesome game journalists in Toronto:

• Jaime Woo, writer for the Torontoist and co-founder of Gamer Camp.
• Mathew Kumar, writer/publisher of exp. magazine.
• David Gallant, freelance writer & newly established indie game developer ( Silver Maple Studios).

The Ballad of the Space Babies

If, like me, you are super-excited to play the Sword and Sworcery game (demoed at a Hand Eye Social last year) but have no compatible devices, you will want to check out Jim Guthrie’s LP where you can hear the amazing soundrack, streamable from your browser. You can close your eyes and immerse yourself in the music and imagine the pixelated dreamscape…

Or if you’re more of a visual person, you can see Mark Rabo’s amazing teaser for the LP’s release.

Awesome Everywhere!

Awesome here:

Our buddies over at Site 3 have got a Lightning Talk event happening tomorrow night. “Using the 5+5 model from Kwartzlab, we’re inviting 10 speakers — 5 from other groups, 5 from Site 3 — to give 5 minute talks on what they’re doing.” After the talks on everything from procedural animation to magical typewriters you can have a drink with the makers in the Site3 space — which, if you haven’t checked out, is pretty sweet (and has been made more so recently by hosting the Torontron).

Also: there was some thorough coverage of our Arcadian Renaissance night at Indie Game Review and the TIFF people did a funny time-lapse of me and Callum hauling the cabinets in over here (If any sequence deserved a draining energy bar…). Nick also got some cam-footage of the Nidhogg tournament from the middle of the action, and Mike got some nice pics too. UPDATE: Check out the RGBFilter vid for some sweet Nidhogg tourney footage!

Awesome there:

Winnitron! Citing the Torontron as its inspiration, some Winnipeg folks are retrofitting a Total Carnage cabinet to play indie games. Four sticks! Also in Winnipeg was the Gr8 Bits show for their Nuit Blanche, video here! Can chiptune Weakerthans covers be far behind?!

The Fantastic Arcade debuted their amazing indie arcade (beating us by one week and two cabinets) of indie games at the Austin TX Fantastic Film Fest last month. Everyday the Same Dream had customized sidepanels. The Envirobear 2000 cab had a trackball set in bear fur. There was a Left4Dead mod set in the bar it was playing in — a kind of site-specific recursion I’ve never seen before. Super-inspiring.

And apparently there’s a new indie happenin’ going on at Montreal International Game Summit: “A one-evening party happening on November 9 (the second and last day of MIGS.) There’ll be live music! And nerdy dancing! We’ll have four or five projectors running games in the main space. The Babycastles guys from New York are helping organize, and are going to be coming up and bringing… something. Videogames? An air of mystery?” Get in touch with Stephen if you want to know more or participate.