Unless this cold breaks in a few days (apologies if it does), nobody’s going outside again ever! While we can’t guarantee you have enough food to survive the winter, we can make sure you have enough indie games. And if you do feel like venturing out into the cold (insert the Luke-on-a-Tauntaun meme here), there’s plenty of events happening this month. If you’re lucky, it’ll be warmer by then.

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.

Toronto Game Events

Sunday, March 1: Mississauga Pop’s Playing Games, a game-themed orchestral concert.

Tuesday, March 3: Bento Miso’s Toronto VR 11, an exploration of the evolution of virtual reality technology.

Saturday, March 7: Video Games Live: Bonus Round. Tommy Tallarico’s massive concert of video game music from every genre returns to Toronto.

Wednesday, March 11: Interact: Boundary Breaking Games, a networking event between digital media creators and professionals.

Saturday, March 14: Dames Making Games March Speaker’s Social.

Wednesday, March 25- Wednesday, May 28: Dames Making Games Open Studio Session, where you can have your work critiqued, advised, and collaborated on.

Local Game Releases

Planet of the Eyes is an action-oriented platformer with puzzle elements, starring a nameless robot scout marooned on a hostile alien world. It’s just made its way to Steam, and is well worth a look, coming to us from indie dev Cococucumber.

Alto’s Adventure is an endless snowboarding game for the iOS that involves, of all things, resuing Llamas. It sounds simple, but it’s marvelous to behold, developed by the aptly-named Snowman.

Originally created for the 2015 global game jam, I Know This has gone on to get a lot of media buzz. It’s an unofficial Jurassic Park hacking simulator, tasking the player to break into the UNIX system seen in the film.

Here’s a series of words you never thought you’d see in one place: A platformer about christian mysticism. It’s called Obeissance, was developed by merrit kopas and…well…just go look.

To Be or Not To Be, originally a choose-your-own-adventure book written by Toronto’s Ryan North (and featured in WordPlay 2013), has been adapted into a game on Steam.

Toronto Folks In The Media

Most of the new games releases this month came with a media blitz, so let’s get right to it. Firstly, Alto’s Adventure got coverage in Polygon and Kill Screen.

Kill Screen also took the time to talk about I Know This, with the obligatory Jurassic Park shout-outs

Meanwhile, Obeissance got coverage in Gay Gamer, specifically an analysis that will help you get a better handle on what’s going on.

Finally, Engadget gave us a list of 21 small game studios to watch in 2015. It included Toronto-based teams Asteroid Base and Capy Games.

BlogTO reported on plans for a Toronto e-sports bar, and Metro did a story on a potential barcade.

Special Announcements:

The Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2015 will be happening May 9-10, and Hand Eye Society will be there with a Comics vs Games exhibit. If you have a game you’d like to expose to the 20,000 TCAF visitors, we’re particularly interested in games with strong illustrative, narrative or connection to comics, but all are welcome to apply. Do it soon though!

Indigicade is a special game development program for indigenous girls ages 13-18, and they’re currently looking for applicants. If you’re interested, have a look.

Meanwhile, Dames Making Games happily announced that they hit their fundraising goal, and are sending a team of developers to the 2015 Game Developer’s Conference.

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