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 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!

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!

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!

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

On the 31st of March, the CSC404: Video Game Design class from the University of Toronto will be having their Video Game Playtesting Day. It’s a chance to come out and see what U of T’s game design students have been up to.

They promise: “Spirit foxes. Colour mazes. Samurai ghosts. Epic Battles. Underwater adventure. Ninjas.  Food, drink and good times provided”

Bahen Centre room 5250
40 St. George Street
University of Toronto

5pm-7:30pm
Wednesday March 31st

For more info contact Steve Engels:
416-946-5454
sengels(at)cs(dot)utoronto(dot)ca

First Social I’ve been to. Awkward times (with me to blame thoroughly) but great people all ’round.

And now the shameless plugging of my Blog: http://www.photographicalism.blogspot.com/

PS: If anyone would like a higher rez version, just let me know via email.

The issue I’ll have with me is the second edition of the issue I sold at Canzine (next to the Torontron, see here) and completely failed to announce at the time, so if you already own a copy, huzzah! and you don’t have to bother picking it up again (unless all the original spelling mistakes and grammatical errors annoy you.)

Anyway, if you see me around and want a copy, just ask (I am the dude next to the magazines in the previously-linked coverage). And if you want one but aren’t coming to the social (for shame!) you can buy online here. Thanks!

Since a bunch of us are going to PAX East in Boston this year, why not all go together and make it an epic roadtrip? Fast food, car farts and interminable boredom await… not to mention car-to-car WiFi gaming battles!

The plan is to stop in Rochester and check out NCHEG, the National Center for the History of Electronic Games (ncheg.org), nerd out, grab dinner and possibly drink too much. The next morning we’ll finish the drive and be at PAX for the weekend before returning Sunday.

If that sounds interesting, fill out the survey below. It’s just to see if people are down, no commitment at this point… if there’s enough people we’ll plan it out. And if you have ideas or questions, post up a comment.

Survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/237061/pax-east-roadtrip-2010

To the distinguished membership of the Hand Eye Society: apologies for this double-post (reason: it’s complicated), please note that the corrected date for this event is Thursday, February 11th 2010. ***

For the fifth Hand Eye Society Social, the first of 2010, we are preparing a brief audiovisual presentation intended to thrill & amuse. Hosted by Mr. Nathan Vella of Toronto’s own Capy, a studio that has recently released a couple of thingamjigs for Sony & Nintendo’s machines, the presentation will include glimpses at two types of blinking lights offered by two dudes with beards:

Firstly, Mr. Kris Piotrowski, born in Poland & raised in Cuban Missile Ssauga, a former Ryerson film student and currently creative director at one of them independent videogame studios located here in Toronto, will be presenting for the first time a (hopefully) crazybananas Wiiware project called ‘Heartbeat’, while attempting to explain some learnings from its roundabout design process.

Secondly, Mr. Craig D. Adams, born on Canada’s west coast & living in Toronto since the turn of this 21st century, will be presenting a three-way collaborative project named ‘Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP’, described as a brave experiment in I/O cinema for Apple’s touchtronic machines featuring 1) the remarkable pixel artwork of Superbrothers, an ambiguously pluralized & irritatingly cryptic art & design organization known for the occasional published pixel illustration & a few DIY videogame efforts at ToJam & with the AGI plus 2) the soulful soundz of Toronto’s Jim Guthrie, the Juno nominated recording artist known for using a PSone as a drum machine & sequencer to make marvelous music 3) the engineering capabilities & videogame design prowess of the fine & noble folks at Capy.

These two projects, still deep in development and up until now all but unseen, will be making what is effectively their world premiere at this free presentation and social event at Unit Bar on Queen West in Toronto on February 11th. Doors will open & beers will be available from 19:00 EST and the half-hour presentation itself will begin at 20:00 EST (otherwise known as eight o’clock in the evening).

Afterwards the entire Heartbeat & S:S&S EP teams, including Mr.Jim Guthrie, will be on-hand for chit-chat, poutine or what-have-you.

*** It has been reported by members of the Hand Eye Society that, due to a rare bug with Safari, Mozilla & all internet browsers other than Netscape Explorer v1.7, the date of the next social was incorrectly displayed in a recently published post & in the promotional images on handeyesociety.com & everywhere else on the internet too.

The correct date for the next social is in fact Thursday February 11th 2010. For real. The 11th. ELEVEN. TEN PLUS ONE. (NOT THE FOURTH). We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this confusion may have caused.