First, a terrible, terrible pun: Deck the halls with bits and poly. Now that that’s over, Christmas is finished, and it’s time for the new year, a reboot on your life. And here’s hoping your New Years’ resolution is realistic: 1080p at the least. 

Don’t forget to check out the Toronto Gaming Calendar, now available on our homepage, which will be updated as more events become announced throughout the month. (Remember, the calendar can also be added to your googlecal.) Note only the events marked with an asterisk are Hand Eye events — for the rest, we’re just signal boosting for this amazing community.

An extra note this time around: If there’s anyone out there in Toronto who either has or needs game-making talent and wants to connect with collaborators/companies to see, email us and we’ll gladly include it in our Help Wanted/Offered section. Similarly, if you’ve made a game and want to plug it here, give us a shout for some free press. Our monthly calendar goes out to about a thousand subscribers. Without further adieu…

Toronto Game Events

Fri. January 9: Sub Zero Rock, a video game rock show at Lee’s Palace, featuring the Blast Processors, Mega Ran, Epic Game Music and Phonetic Hero.

Also happening is the third annual Long Winter, a multimedia arts festival featuring netgrind, Spirographics by JamminGames, and Severed by DrinkBox Studios

Wed. January 21: Dames Making Games’s Annual General Meeting, perfect for new members looking to see what they’re all about.

Fri. January 23-25: The Toronto Global Game Jam, the world’s largest game jam event, held annually worldwide as well as in Toronto.

Sat. January 24: DMG’s January 2015 Speaker Social, featuring Susan Blight.

January 27: IGDA’s QA Q&A – Three Microtalks on Bug Testing, Fixing, and Managing the Process, featuring Jennifer Costa, QA Lead at Uken Games, Thomas MacDevitt , QA Manager at The Foundry and Brenda Puebla, QC Manager, at Ubisoft. The event will be held at Metro Hall, Room 308&309, at 7 pm.

* Sat. January 31st, 1-4pm: The Hand Eye Society’s Annual General Meeting, The Storefront Theatre (955 Bloor Street West).

Local Game Releases

I’m Fine is a text and graphics adventure from Toronto developer Rokashi, dealing with the struggle for acceptance as a man deals with a variety of personal problems.

Writer’s Block: The Game is a short, snarky text adventure from Kaitlin Tremblay about that common author’s problem.

Finally, it’s not a game, and it isn’t Christmas anymore, but what the hey, Robby Duguay’s 12GB of Christmas Vol 2, an album of game-themed holiday tunes, is definitely worth checking out.

Toronto Folks In The Media

Phantom Compass’s Rollers of the Realm has been reviewed by Indie Haven over here.

Kill Screen has an article about humor returning to video games written by local writer Zack Kotzer, and cites Toronto games Super Time Force and Jazzpunk as some of the culprits.

Unity’s blog has an article up about the history of the Unity User Group, which was started by members of Toronto’s Uken Games.

Meanwhile, Uken Games gets another profile here, courtesy of the Globe and Mail.

The Toronto Star has an interesting piece about game developer Ryan Henson Creighton’s live action room-escape adventure, Escape the Book Club Killer. Creighton’s two game companies, Untold Entertainment and LockQuest, with their mandate to create thoughtful, inspiring games are profiled in Deseret News here.

Finally, Indie Game Reviewer has published its annual top ten list for 2014, and the Toronto representation is strong.

Special Announcements

As mentioned, the Toronto Global Game Jam (pictured above) is happening at the end of the month. If you feel like testing your skills, you can still register in a few ways. Have a look here.

Interactive fiction pops up on this digest a lot, and if you’re an interested author, you’ll want to have a look at the new Interactive Fiction Fund, designed to set creators up with money and resources for their ideas.

If you scored some new gear these holidays, you might consider donating some of your old stuff to us: specifically, we’re looking for Playstation 3s, flat-screen monitors/LCD TVs (22″+), and digital projectors to enhance our game literacy and exhibition programs. Email us at info@handeyesociety.com if you’re feeling like being generous to a non-profit videogame arts organization!

That’s all for now! If there’s any events, Toronto games news, new releases, or rad media coverage happening in the new year, don’t hesitate to pass it along to Anthony via email or to @HandEyeSociety on Twitter.