So a while ago my friend Scott (the voice actor from Night of The Cephalopods), and I used to throw regular DS nights in bars, then we all got busy and things got put on the back burner. But we decided to start it up again for 2010.
We’ll be having a DS night tonight (Wednesday the 13th), from 7pm until around 1am at The Central over at 603 Markham Street.
and Shawn McGrath,
from EVERYWHERE, creator of Chain3 for iPhone, as well as ToJam favourites Xiq and A Game About Bouncing
Together they secretly collaborate on an unannounced project, Dyad, making this social the WORLD PREMIERE of their new game. Watch a demonstration of the game and then a break down of design concepts showing an evolution from THIS to THIS. Afterwards, ask Pekko how he choregraped a dance using shoot-em-up game rules, and ask Shawn about how awesome it was to have Tetsuya Mizuguchi (producer of Rez,Lumines, Space Channel 5) play his game.
As coleslaw, or corn-bread, but ultimately depending on blood sugar levels, Jon Mak (Everyday Shooter guy) may present old, abandoned prototypes of games he and Shawhan (I Am Robot and Proud guy) worked on.
Pictures do not really do it justice. When you’re standing in front of the TORONTRON with your hands on the classic joystick and button, you’re wrapped in a cocoon of sound and light that is an experience more than the sum of its parts.
While the crown jewel at the event was undoubtedly the TORONTRON, we had a bunch of things going on in the Artcade. Here’s Craig’s quick vid sweep of the room.
We set up three stations for the game-curious to creatively engage with games. We had a couple hundred people through the room, and they really seemed to dig it. Craig and Karie sat down people in front of Scratch to mess around with a pre-existing game (Jori’s freaky baby at the end of the vid was an example of this), Mark and Rose showed people the wild fun to be had attaching balloons to buses with Gary’s Mod, and Davin invited people to draw their own videogame character which he then animated in front of their eyes.
You can check out all the characters that were created at Canzine including my crappy one — just click on my character and use the right and left arrow. But even more amazingly, if you have a webcam you can actually draw and animate your character from home.
Here’s how:
1. Print out this PDF.
2. Draw your 4 frames (use colour if you want!)
3. Make sure your webcam is plugged in, go to this page and allow Flash to access it.
4. Put your page in front of the cam and line it up (you might want to try lighting it evenly if you have a desk lamp).
5. Click Grab, and then give it a one word character name. It’ll save it to the server (note: there’s no way to delete this at the moment).
6. Now you can go to the character viewer page and find your name in the list.
Kudos to Davin for making this for the Artcade! I think it’d be great for educators or anyone looking to involve visual artists in videogames. And thanks to the volunteers who made this room possible.
There’s a gaming event coming up called Gamercamp that I’m helping organize and I think you might really dig it. Alot of the community is already involved and it would be great to have you there too.
It’s a one day event that happens right here in Toronto on November 21, 2009 and celebrates the creativity, art, and history of video games with top-notch speakers, demos, and an arcade filled with rare and retro games, not to mention Toronto’s own indie game cabinet, the Torontron.
We’re excited to announce the keynotes will be Hand Eye’s own Mare Sheppard and Raigan Burns talking about approaching video game development with the rock band model (instead of the movie production one). Not to mention Michael Todd (also a Hand Eye member) who’ll be talking about Broken Brothers Deluxe and the lessons learned from his game-a-week experiment. As well, Gamercamp will be the first place to hear from Gerald Darcy of the Replay Arcade Museum, Canada’s very first gaming museum located here in Toronto and set to open soon.
Between sessions we’ll be showcasing work from the Toronto indie dev community: game demos, works-in-progress and pixel art (there are still a couple spots open). We’ve also teamed up with Replay for a one-of-a-kind closing party, 1UP, which features 25 rare and classic arcade cabinets for an on-site arcade with unlimited freeplay into the night. There will even be dinner provided to power up for all that gaming madness.
The whole thing goes from 1:00pm to 9:30pm at the Lower Ossington Theatre (100A Ossington Ave). Tickets are only $15 and include admission, dinner, and the unlimited freeplay at the 1UP closing party. They’re available right now at Gamercamp.ca.
If you would like to show one of your games or have any questions at all, feel free to send me an email (mark@gamercamp.ca) or check out the site (www.gamercamp.ca).
We’ll be launching the retrofitted arcade cabinet we’ve filled with homegrown indie games this Sunday, November 1st at the Canzine Artcade at the Gladstone Hotel (1214 Queen St W, east of Dufferin). Come try it out!
We will be in room 212 from 1-7pm. At 5pm, Hand Eye Society member Jph Wacheski, who built the cabinet, will be doing a slide show/Q&A entitled “Build Your Own Arcade Cabinet: Under the Hood of the Torontron”.
All day attractions, run by Hand Eye Society volunteers, include:
Draw your own videogame character!
Circuit bending-style game design!
3D sculptural sketching in a first person shooter!
Canzine is a super-inspiring annual zine and indie culture fair with hundreds of vendors. This is the second year we’re doing an Artcade there, last year’s was really fun. It’s a great way to meet fellow artists in different disciplines, especially illustrators, writers and musicians. Canzine costs $5 at the door.
Please spread the word to the gamers and the game-curious folks you know!
Event | Nadine Lessio | 
January 13, 2010 11:13 am | 
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