Hand Eye Society Ball 2018: Photos and Memories!

Question: What’s one way to getting many like-minded people within the games industry to leave their houses and experience a sense of play and community?

Answer: Another fancy videogame party, of course!

One of my favourite things about the Toronto games community is how tight-knit we are. We find a common ground and come together to celebrate the things we find fun, interesting, and if we find the right game, maybe even learn a thing or two — like how loudly you can yell when yet another accidental bounce-shot in Red Hot Ricochet puts you out of commission for the 5th round in a row.

The night was cool as the moon looked down upon the nerds of Toronto dressing up in clothes they probably haven’t touched in weeks to congregate at 918 Bathurst to, well, play some heckin’ video games and dance the night away!

Pix in the 6ix

The amazing Morgan Hotston was our photographer for the evening and caught us looking our best! Here’s a few snapshots:

The entire photo pool can be found right here!

♥♣ Night of Four Houses ♦♠

It was a night of magic! Everyone wearing bowties aglow (oooo shiny!) but for what, you may ask?

*hacker voice*

☞◉❖ THE META ☞◉❖

This year the Hand Eye Society’s four ancient Houses returned for the opportunity to gain possession of an ancient artifact — The Instrument! Points were won, lost, and traded as over 600 Ball attendees vied for dominance, acquiring coveted playing cards through games of skill and luck. Sidequests were distributed at random throughout the crowd by NPCs wearing white-bow ties, requiring chosen players to perform such impossible feats as “Take a selfie with the giant moon” or “Turn to the person next to you and perform the secret Hand Eye Society handshake”. Also in the shuffle were special cards with one half of a secret code, which bequeathed a far greater number of points to the intrepid players who managed to find its twin.

Every hour, the House Champions performed a ritualistic Duel, illustrating the tale of Hand Eye Society and the Four Houses through an ancient practice known as “improv comedy”. Long story short, although stalwart Lord Vivicus, laid-back King Tudifore, and retro-minded Queen Amiga tried their best to unseat their bubbliest colleague, Lady Moonblossom was the victor. Unfortunately, t’was at the cost of the life of Sonic T. Hedgehog. May his soul finally slow down in the afterlife. The other three Houses put up a valiant and pun-filled fight, but it wasn’t enough. (I’m looking at you, King Vivicus.)

Trending: #HESBall18

Our hashtag lives on — if there are any photos, video, Vines or GIFs from the night you wanna dig up, you can let us know by tagging or tweeting us at @handeyesociety. Here are just a few of our fave Tweets from the night!

https://twitter.com/nawafbahadur/status/1043713362981466112

 

 

https://twitter.com/KishiFishy/status/1043916477961838599

 

 

The Tunes

Bile Sister, aka Julie Reich, took the stage with three other badass women of Canadian electronica: Catherine Debard (YlangYlang), New Chance and Leucrocuta all 

As New Chance‘s music filled the room, many found their dancing shoes and were moving about to the wavy alternative tunes. Tapping feet, nodding heads were seem by many–even those who were playing games! Imagine being so moved by music that you have to multi-task!

YlangYlang‘s way of crafting a story through electronic shoulder bop is what got the crowd going. Expressing life, memories, passion, and tenderness. I actually found myself thinking that I could listen to their music while playing an exploration game, taking everything in and appreciating the beauty of discovery.

If there was anyone who could make my sweat and I mean SWEAT, in that ballroom, it was Leucrocuta. Not only did I have to hydrate, but the psychedelic beats made me think I was back at home exploring the depths of space in No Man’s Sky. If I was a real astronaut, Leucrocuta’s music is what would be on my ‘Milky Way Playlist.’

10 Games I Love About You

Between Champion Duels, you were in the basement playing Centennntable, a 100-button 2 player fighting game in which every button is randomized each round. I can assure you, there was plenty of button-mashing heard throughout the halls. Also lighting up various corners of the former Buddhist church were three RotoRings, causing concentric concentration on the faces of all who played them.

Perhaps you wanted to leave this world and enter a virtual one? Dustin Freeman’s Our Evil Tower had you playing as a Dark Lord up against 4 friends for a uniquely asymmetrical adventure. For something more balanced, we watered some funky flowers in Museum of Symmetry before grabbing a grapefruit cocktail — which we secretly named “Pink Russian (Subway Dog)” — at the secret bar next door, bathed in the multi-CRT glow of Cathode Mark 1.

We clashed glasses with beer-bashing simulator Toast Boast, zig-zigged around giant glowy box ZAGMAX 3000 (or would that be zag-zigged?), and swayed to our partner’s synchronicity with Closer — but perhaps no game drew quite so many groans of defeat and cheers of triumph as the fast-paced Red Hot Ricochet. In the end, the animals won as GTAnimalia turned us all into trash pandas trying to see how long it would take to climb the CN Tower (those players are still there, patiently holding “up” on the thumbstick for eternity).

For summaries and more information about the games and musicians, check out the full lineup here.

Upstairs

ZAGMAX 3000
David Fono & Matthew Phillips

Toast Boast
Michael Arcadi and Jesse Baker / Toronto, ON

Red Hot Ricochet
Wyatt Yeong / New York, NY

Closer
Marie Claire LeBlanc Flanagan / Montréal, QC

Downstairs

Cathode Mark 1
Ryan Mason / Toronto, Canada

Museum of Symmetry
Paloma Dawkins / Montréal, QC / 2018

Centenntable / 1000 Button Project
Amanda Hudgins / Lexington, Kentucky / On-going Project

GTAnimalia
Jason Bond / Toronto, ON / In Development

Our Evil Tower
Dustin Freeman / Toronto, ON

Everywheres

RotoRing
Gregory Kogos / Leipzig, Germany

Eternal Kudos

The fourth Hand Eye Society Ball was made possible by the following fine folks:

Hand Eye Society

Executive Director: Sagan Yee
Director of Operations: Amanda Wong
Director of Technology: Ken Cho
Special Projects: Brendan Lehman
Meta-Game and Logistics: Alenn Predko
Volunteer Coordinators: Kai Winter, Laura Barrett
Social Media: Royel Edwards
Board: Stephanie Fisher, Shaun Hatton, Chris Gehman, Chris De Castro, Adam Axbey, Emma Westecott

#HESBall18 Crew

918 Bathurst: Conor McSweeney
Music Gallery: David Dacks
Poster Art: Victor Martins
Booklet Design: Rabeea Syed
Food and Treats: Death In Venice Gelato Co.
Security: Kareem Bruzal
Bar: Kristoffer Diocampo, Alia Rhule, Dani Jones, Laura Hermiston
Photography:  Morgan Hotston
Videography: Shawn Kosmerly, Justin Arjune

Volunteers

Gregory Hayes, Katelyn Campbell, L Constantino, Bruce McCormack, Wu Zhang, Kaitlyn Dougon, Colin Sanders, Bronwen Deurbrouck, Kalli Lang, Benjamin Mora-Davison, Jaden Taylor, Kimberly Koronya, Nawaf Bahadur, Flynn Dauntless, Alex Olechnowicz, Mark Laderoute, Douglas Russell, Osioreame Ikiebe, Khan-ali Ibrahim, Jason Bond, Doyle Zhang, John Wang, Jennifer Link, Han Jiang, Kim Nguyen, Megan Chen, Whitney Chen, Gabriel Nilsen, Jacob Niedzwiecki, Krystle McKenzie, Chris Davies, Michael Arcadi, Helen Ouyang, Daniel Boldrin, Conor Norman, Victor Ostrovsky, Joshua P’ng, Jason Dourado

The Night of Four Houses

Project Lead: Alenn Predko
Project Assistant: Kit Burnham
LED Leaderboard: Jane Hacker
The Instrument: Lindy Wilkins
Characters and Lore: Jesse Gazic, Jillian Wakarchuk
Sidequests: Sagan Yee
Champion Improv Performers: Jon Blair, Kat Letwin, Kaitlin Morrow, Andrew Bushell
Musical Accompaniment: Mark Bond
Xen’s Cardinal Fates: Jord Farrell

Silent Auction

Ubisoft Toronto: Emily Claire Afan, Danika Bingley, Elizabeth Bourque, Julia Cole, Heather Steele, Meghan Lowery

Auction Contributors: Alientrap, The Beguiling, Benjamin Rivers, Casa Loma, Cineplex, CTRL V, DrinkBox Studios, Game Pill, House of VR, Inkskratch, Laundry Bear Games, MLSE, Royal Cinema, Spooky Squid Games, Studio MDHR, TIFF, Torn Banner Studios,  Trinity Square Video, Ubisoft Toronto, Vagabond Dog, Viral Arcade, Wes Dix (Tattoos on Ossington)

Community Partners

Equipment: Dames Making Games, Gamma Space, Trinity Square Video
Storage: The Brandscape, seekrit studio pals

Huge thanks to you all, and please get in touch if we missed you or anyone else!

Sponsors

Let’s keep in touch…

Missed the Ball this year and don’t want to make the same mistake twice? Looking for more local videogame arts and culture events to get involved with? Want to stay updated on other Hand Eye Society activities all year round?  Looking for more ways to support a Toronto videogame arts non-profit?

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