Good news: you’ve survived this Halloweekend’s crush of candy-hungry children and clawed your way through election night Trudeau memes. That’s all in the past now, so fulfill that insatiable need for indie game events, socials and launches with November’s digest.  Oh yeah: watch out for our sketchy but lovable great-aunt Google Calendar. She’s wanted in four provinces on several counts of adding events when they are announced.

 

WHERE TO JAUNT – Toronto Game Events

Saturday, November 7

Wordplay, Hand Eye Society’s free interactive fiction festival, is fast approaching. Text games galore will be free to play all afternoon at the Toronto Reference Library, along with the chance to hear from esteemed wordmancers Emily Short, Christine Love, and Sherwin Tija. RSVP, while not necessary, is kinda cool and available on our Facebook event.

You don’t physically have to go anywhere for this, but your heart definitely has to go to the right place. Toronto Gaymers are doing a 24-hour charity livestream for Extra-Life. Theme is games played as kids, and their broadcast schedule is now live here. Toronto GameDevs’ Stephen Crane will  also be taking part in Extra-Life, on behalf of Toronto Sick Kids Hospital.

Sunday, November 15

This is really a New York event, but Baby Castles’ 11 Years of N, a party in celebration of our hometown heroes Metanet Software has achieved honourary T-Dot status. We’ll let this time slide, ya New Yorkahs.   

 

WHERE TO HAUNT – Socials and Meetups

Saturday, November 14 

Toronto Gaymers’ board game night at Glad Day Bookshop, starts at 7 p.m.

Saturday, November 22

Toronto Gaymers’ Queer Pubcade at The Marquis of Granby, starts at 5 p.m., features Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime.

Wednesday, November 25

Torontaru: Monthly social at Get Well, starts at 8 p.m.

Press X To Answer is an upcoming game trivia night premiering in November. No concrete date yet, keep an eye on their Facebook page.

 

#ICYMI

#LevelUpDiversity – From October 22 to 28, Pytvyo Gaming spearheaded #LevelUpDiversity, a social media conversation meant to highlight the ways ethnic diversity intersect with gaming culture and industries. In addition, Pytvyo Gaming made a blog post per day for the entire week.

#Severed – Drinkbox Studios’ level designer wrote about his experience making Severed in a blog post. Some good thoughts about differences between Severed and breakout hit Guacamelee.

#OokRefund – It takes guts to say you didn’t deliver. Ookpixels, a digital publication exploring Canadian games through long-form features and their podcast, told Patreon supporters they will be refunding $5, because they produced one story instead of two this month. The perks of this for non-backers is that they’ll be releasing all their October backer content to everybody.

Coming Attractions

OKAY PLAY NETHERNOVEL PLEASE. Developers Damian Sommer and Ryan Roth made Nethernovel spoofing off the critically acclaimed Undertale, which neither had played.  

These boots were made for walking, but they just might help you solve murders in Wonderland, an audio drama-game hybrid for the iPhone, alchemized by our own Jim Munroe. Wonderland, one of Toronto’s first theatres, gets a real horrorshow and it’s up to you to call curtains for a killer. Set in the Junction in 1914, the game uses iPhone’s accelerometer to give hints that unlock future chapters. You can mosey on over to Junction Craft Brewing on Nov. 7 for the launch party that’s right after Wordplay.

Just got an Apple TV? No need to drop big money for The Phantom Pi Mission Apparition by Rocket5 Studios. It’s one of the few games you can get for the Apple TV that comes free with purchase. As a ghostbuster for celebrities, you snoop around for a poltergeist in this family-friendly puzzle. You can also get the game for any iDevice in iTunes.

I AM DEAD WHERE ARE MY KEYS was at Dreadcade so you know it’s good. It has skeletons driving a car by From Smiling/Taylor Bai Woo. I can’t even begin to describe the decibels I reached laughing at their description of “deadsignated drivers.”

Another game that premiered at Dreadcade was One Night In A Haunted House by Kaitlin Tremblay. Play with earphones if you dare, or on the lowest speaker settings with one finger about to call up your mom on speed-dial like me.

Queer-positive dating game Long Story’s chapter three is out and available on mobile, so put down the microtransaction sim and give this a go.

 

Paper Trails – Gaming In The Media

IGN’s Marty Sliva got down with Below, an upcoming game from Capy Games, the geniuses behind Super Time Force and that pixel Bautista. They also have exclusive footage of the first 18 minutes, which managed to wrench provoking depth from Silva.

Local games have been faring well with campus media. George Brown student newspaper The Dialog reported on Pytvyo Gaming, which is now an official club. The story highlights how Gabriela Aveiro worked with students from other campuses get Pytvyo thriving. Ryerson student newspapers the Eyeopener [disclosure: I worked there] and the Ryersonian [disclosure: I’m there now, campus media will consume me whole] popped over Amanda Wong’s pop-up arcade at Ryerson University.

Dames Making Games’ Dreadcade was one of blogTO’s top picks for free Halloween events. No wonder they hit full capacity so fast.

MVP

This month’s MVP is Brian Bernard, local engineer, producer, and artist. He filmed and edited a compilation of what went down at our Game Curious program with the kids at Glendower. If you like what you see in his video (we seriously can’t stop pressing replay), right now we’re running Game Curious in the Villaways neighbourhood with our friends at Art Starts.

 

A BREADWINNER IS YOU – JOBS, GIGS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Drinkbox Studios is looking for playtesters to give Severed a whirl during this week. They’ll pay for a full day of work. Apply through their totally serious application form.

Nothing makes a bot fight better than making your artifical intelligence pal play video games. Kiboto is looking for multiplayer game developers to join their open-source platform, dedicated to making robots compete in front of a live audience. If interested or if you want to be a part of their mailing list, contact info@kiboto.com.

Digifest, a digital creativity festival in April 2016, is looking for creative submissions to their IT’S A START Pitch Competition, where entrepreneurs will pitch new business ideas to a panel in under five minutes. Money, mentorship, and incubator space at George Brown College will be on the line for participants.

You’ve got three days to apply for a table at Bit Bazaar at the Mattamy Athletic Centre, running from Saturday, December 5 to Sunday, December 6. They’re looking for videogames, comics and food, but aren’t we all.

Game Developers Conference will be in sunny San Francisco in March. Dames Making Games has 25 all-access passes up for grabs through their DMG scholarship program, which they encourage broke developers and artists to apply to, especially prioritizing black, Indigenous, people of colour, and people with disabilities to apply. Applications are due by Nov. 17. Win or lose, you can mingle with con helpfuls in the GDC 2016 – Toronto folks Facebook group.

 

Monthly digests are brought to you by the Hand Eye Society, a videogame arts and literacy organization based in Toronto. If you want to support round-ups like these and get in on more perks, become a Hand Eye member for the low price of your time, if you volunteer for 10 hours with us, or your money, with 7 bucks a month.   

if you want to see your game/event/initiative featured, let us know at calendar@handeyesociety.com, @handeyesociety or @gollydrat on Twitter! 8)