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.

Also at the Thursday, May 27th Social: MESSHOF

Nidhogg by Messhof

Previously it has been announced that Mr. Brandon Boyer, founder of Offworld, contributing editor of Boing Boing & newly appointed IGF Chairman will be presenting at the imminent social in Toronto this Thursday, May 27th 2010 at Unit Bar. Since the initial announcement there have been rumblings that one or more out-of-town creators may attend and/or present some of their works, and at this juncture it seems appropriate to reveal the following:

Mark Essen Hoffman aka MESSHOF, a bona fide indie videogame rockstar & educator, will be rocking Unit Bar this Thursday alongside Mr. Boyer. You may be familiar with Messhof as the creator of the inimitable & mind-altering Flywrench (written up in The New York Times somewhere here) and other made-in-Gamemaker punk videogame marvels such as Randy Balma Municipal Abortionist & The Thrill of Combat, many of which have appeared in museums & galleries including Toronto’s own Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Messhof’s contributions have even earned him a spot in Vice & Intel’s ‘The Creators Project‘ alongside folks like director Spike Jonze & musician Richie Hawtin, Messhof being the only videogame creator to be recognized in this context.

On offer at Thursday’s social will be Messhof’s latest videogame creation. Commissioned by NYU’s Game Center & revealed at the No Quarter event just a few weeks ago, the peculiarly titled but absolutely kickass Nidhogg will be making its Canadian debut. Nidhogg is an action-heavy sword fighting videogame designed specifically for two players to play competitively in a social environment. It’s insanely fun & super stylish, a bit like Jordan Mechner’s original Prince of Persia by way of Body Movin’ era Beastie Boys. So yeah, a real inspiration!

Note: While Messhof’s videogames may seem raw at first glance, a more thorough examination of any his works will reveal a high level of audiovisual precision in the service of an unmistakeable & wholly fresh videogame creation sensibility. Many of the videogames are available for free and they are absolutely worth your time & attention. You may wish to peruse them all here.

Circuit Bending the Game

Sometimes it doesn’t take any knowledge or understanding to make something awesome.  I found this:

http://www.trsp.net/teaching/gamemod/

(here’s a direct link to the video just in case it doesn’t show up: http://vimeo.com/393432)

People take source code to a game and with no programming knowledge or instruction, mod it to create stunning beautiful works of errors.

Maybe this could be something fun to do at the Artsy Games Incubator?

This workshop was run by the same guy who made Eliss for iPhone.  His other works are pretty cool too.  Check them out here:

http://www.trsp.net/

-j