Here in Toronto we’ve developed a rich videogame art scene and a vibrant interactive digital media industry, but how will it continue to thrive as the international market gets increasingly saturated? We think a part of the answer is a focus on business skills, and we are partnering with Ontario Creates (formerly OMDC) to run a program to give promising emerging game creators and developers a leg-up in our changing world. It’s the Interactive Digital Media Fund Futures program!

The six (6) participants who complete the program will be eligible to submit an application to the IDM Fund Concept Definition or Production programs starting in the Spring 2020 deadline. This will allow you to bypass the 3 years of full time industry experience requirement.

In previous years, participants have met international experts like Kelly Wallick (IGF Chairperson, Indie Megabooth) and John Polson (Humble Bundle, ALT.CTRL), learned from the experience of locals like Dave Proctor (Mighty Yell) and Emilie McGinley (GetSet Games), and developed pitch and business assets they can use for future endeavours. They’ll also make critical connections with fellow participant peers facing similar challenges.

Subjects from last year’s program include:

• Pitching and Financing: Funding Sources, Publishers, Tax Credits, Deferrals
• Legal: Incorporation, Insurance, and Contracts
• Budgeting: Payroll, Cash Flow & Accounting
• Production Methodology: Scaling Up, Hiring, Timelines/Schedules
• Audience Connection: Community Building, Publicity & Marketing
• Strategy: Designing Your Company & Alternate Income Streams

We have developed a curriculum from scratch using interviews with experienced game creators to uncover what are the most critical and useful business learnings for people in our region, from tax credits to connecting with an audience. One or two representatives from each company or team will be accepted, and they will be working on one game idea throughout the program.

This program could be a good fit for you if:

• You have an awesome game prototype with commercial potential -OR- you’ve made game prototypes in the past and have an idea for a game with commercial potential
• You have less than 3 years of full time industry experience
• You are available to attend 6 sessions in Toronto (exact date TBD, likely weekends in October and November)
• You can commit to 3-4 hours a week for the hands-on assignments
• You are an Ontario resident

[button size=” style=” text=’Apply by Sept 23!’ icon=” icon_color=” link=’https://forms.gle/az2G3YouWfiHci5GA’ target=’_self’ color=” hover_color=” border_color=” hover_border_color=” background_color=” hover_background_color=” font_style=” font_weight=” text_align=” margin=”]

There is no cost to apply. If selected, you will be required to become a Hand Eye Society member ($7/month) and pay a $100 deposit that will be returned to you on successful completion of the program. As we only have 6 spots available, we want to ensure that all the spots are filled by participants who are committed to finishing the course.

Selections will be made by Hand Eye Society staff in consultation with Ontario Creates, with an eye towards cultural innovation and viability. The HES is also committed to ensuring a diverse range of participants are considered, so you are strongly encouraged to apply if you or your team are from a traditionally underrepresented background such as women, BIPoC (Black, Indigenous or Person of Colour), LGBTQ, etc. Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list for updates, as these programs tend to fill up fast.

Please contact sagan@handeyesociety.com with any questions.

The birds are tweeting, the trees are budding and winter is taking its very last breath. Hurray! Winter is dying! Now that winter is (almost) gone we can really get to the good stuff. You’ve had the pleasure of meeting our game jammers, and now it’s time to meet our talented artists who will work alongside our jammers to create a zine through our programming with Evergreen Brick Works!

These participants will be paired with our jammers and release a zine booklet, which will be released on Sunday June 16th! More details on that coming soon~

Without further ado, our illustrators!

Lina Wu

Instagram/Portfolio

Lina Wu is an artist, illustrator, and storyteller from Toronto. She is figuring out how to be soft and strong at the same time.

Pree Rehal

Personal Instagram/Art Instagram

Pree (pronouns: they/them) is basically a trans Batman (except not rich, also not a white dude), they are an Account Manager by day, artist by night.

Vincy Lim

Portfolio/Instagram

Vincy Lim is a Chinese-Canadian illustrator whose work revolves around their queer, disabled, and abused identity. Their work focuses on self-love, humanizing disability, and creating an understanding around abuse. In addition to supporting survivors through shared experiences, and telling them the importance, and the fact, of healing.

Shel Kahn

Twitter/Instagram/Website/Comics

Shel Kahn is an illustrator, cartoonist, game designer and educator. Her work in tabletop RPGs includes art, writing, self publishing, GMing and mentorship; she also self-publishes comics and teaches art, games and more with local Toronto community organizations, museums and schools.

Hayden Maynard

Twitter/Website/Instagram

Hayden is an illustrator and cartoonist. He grew up in Kingston, Ontario and currently lives in Toronto. Nowadays he mostly sit in his apartment and draw pictures.

Alejandra Paton

Instagram/Website

Alejandra is a designer and administrator based in Toronto. Her illustration work has been published by Creative Quarterly, Format Magazine, Broken Pencil, and Applied Arts Magazine. She is a graduate of OCAD University with a Bachelor’s in Illustration, and a Graduate degree in Arts Administration from Humber College.

In Partnership With

*Takes in a breath of fresh air* Is spring really here??…The mud’s replacing the ice, it’s raining a lot, like A LOT, and the garbage is unearthing itself from the various snow banks. This wonderfully confusing time of year is just in time for our Spring Jam as part of the Game Curious at Evergreen Brick Works programming. We are super excited to announce our line up of game jam participants who will spend 3 days to create a game inspired by the various systems living at the Evergreen Brick Works.

Interested to see what they end up making? Us too! You can come and play test their games on Sunday, April 7 from 1-3pm in the Young Welcome Centre at Evergreen Brick Works. In part 2 of the Spring Jam program, 6 local illustrators will be paired up with each of the game jam participants and create a ‘zine booklet that we will be distributing on Sunday, June 16 also at the Evergreen Brick Works (stay tuned for more details!).

Say hello to our Spring Jam participants below!

Jord Farrell
Twitter

In the past 5 years, Jord Farrell has made hundreds of games.

Ananda Gabo
Twitter / Instagram

Ananda is a designer/ veg cook/ microbe collaborator/ maker. They are accumulating a lot of weird skill sets in anticipation of running a weird farm.

Ben Moull
Twitter

Ben Moull is a sometimes writer, wanderer, economist, and hobbyist game designer. They live, work and play in Toronto.

Jacob Niedzwiecki
Twitter / Instagram

Jacob Niedzwiecki is a software developer, filmmaker, and choreographer whose work fuses code, media, and movement into inventive new forms. His immersive app-based performance Jacqueries won the Vanguard Prize for Risk and Innovation at the 2014 SummerWorks festival, and toured internationally. He has created app-based experiences in collaboration with TIFF, bluemouth inc, Peggy Baker Dance Projects, It’s Not a Box Theatre, and others.

Sebastian Pines
Twitter

Sebastian Pines is an artist, academic, and neutral good gnome druid with a keen interest in roleplaying games and queerness. The themes of their body of work revolve around queer identity and queer modes of play. They also have a penchant for the macabre and love all manner of spooky media.

Phoenix Simms
Twitter / Medium

Phoenix is the former managing editor of Third Person, Toronto’s premier site for diverse and story-driven games coverage. She’s also a biracial game writer and illustrator who’s fascinated by the intersection of art and science, urban and green spaces, as well as exterior versus interior realities. She migrated from a visual arts diploma to a masters in English literature, with a self-directed focus on game studies.

In Partnership with

Here in Toronto we’ve developed a rich videogame art scene and a vibrant interactive digital media industry, but how will it continue to thrive as the international market gets increasingly saturated? We think a part of the answer is a focus on business skills, and we are partnering with Ontario Creates (formerly OMDC) to run a program to give promising emerging game creators and developers a leg-up in our changing world. It’s the Interactive Digital Media Fund Futures program!

Participants who complete the program will be eligible to submit an application to the IDM Fund Concept Definition or Production programs starting in the Spring 2019 deadline. This will allow you to bypass the 3 years of full time industry experience requirement.

Last year, participants met international experts like Kelly Wallick (IGF Chairperson, Indie Megabooth) and John Polson (Humble Bundle, ALT.CTRL), learned from the experience of locals like Dave Proctor (Mighty Yell) and Emilie McGinley (GetSet Games), and developed pitch and business assets they can use for future endeavours. They’ll also make critical connections with fellow participant peers facing similar challenges.

Subjects from last year’s program include:

• Pitching and Financing: Funding Sources, Publishers, Tax Credits, Deferrals
• Legal: Incorporation, Insurance, and Contracts
• Budgeting: Payroll, Cash Flow & Accounting
• Production Methodology: Scaling Up, Hiring, Timelines/Schedules
• Audience Connection: Community Building, Publicity & Marketing
• Strategy: Designing Your Company & Alternate Income Streams

We have developed a curriculum from scratch using interviews with experienced game creators to uncover what are the most critical and useful business learnings for people in our region, from tax credits to connecting with an audience. One or two representatives from each company or team will be accepted, and they will be working on one game idea throughout the program.

This program could be a good fit for you if:

• You have an awesome game prototype with commercial potential -OR- you’ve made game prototypes in the past and have an idea for a game with commercial potential
• You have less than 3 years of full time industry experience
• You are available to attend 6 sessions in Toronto (exact date TBD, likely weekends in October and November)
• You can commit to 3-4 hours a week for the hands-on assignments
• You are an Ontario resident

[button size=’large’ style=” text=’Apply by October 5, 2018!’ icon=” icon_color=” link=’https://goo.gl/forms/GdCmmsdlZGMrF1Je2′ target=’_self’ color=” hover_color=” border_color=” hover_border_color=” background_color=” hover_background_color=” font_style=” font_weight=” text_align=” margin=”]

There is no cost to apply. If selected, you will be required to become a Hand Eye Society member ($7/month) and pay a $100 deposit that will be returned to you on successful completion of the program. As we only have 6 spots available, we want to ensure that all the spots are filled by participants who are committed to finishing the course.

Selections will be made by Hand Eye Society staff in consultation with Ontario Creates, with an eye towards cultural innovation and viability. The HES is also committed to ensuring a diverse range of participants are considered, so you are strongly encouraged to apply if you or your team are from a traditionally underrepresented background such as women, BIPoC (Black, Indigenous or Person of Colour), LGBTQ, etc. Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list for updates, as these programs tend to fill up fast.

Please contact sagan@handeyesociety.com with any questions.

Registrations are once again open for the Hand Eye Society’s week-long full-day summercamp for kids 8-12 with Ryerson University. It’s the return of Camp Make-a-Game 2018!

Mornings are spent indoors with digital screen instruction, teaching kids to use point-and-click game creation tools. Because these tools don’t require coding, most of the instruction can focus on design principles like game mechanics or game feel and not just be focused on technical hurdles. Afternoons are spent outdoors, discussing and playing physical games like tag and soccer — and then the kids will re-design the rules and play the modified games, learning about game design while getting some exercise. By the end of the week, they’ll be game makers!

[button size=”medium” icon=”” target=”_self” hover_type=”default” align=”center” text=”Subscribe to the future camp mailing list” link=”http://eepurl.com/b6I5ZT”]

Click to play a video showing what Camp Make-a-Game is all about!

Support Camp Make-a-Game for Communities

Last year, we worked with our partners Toronto Public Library and Ubisoft Toronto to bring two additional weeks of camp to under-served neighbourhoods, with York Woods Library at Jane and Finch and UrbanArts in Weston. We were able to make these camps FREE for participants thanks to incredible support from our local Studio Sponsors, who can be seen at the end of the video above.

This year, we’ll once again be working with TPL and other to-be-announced groups to bring the program to more neighbourhoods across Toronto and the GTA, but we need your help! Send a kid to Camp for just $200/year, and join the ranks of last year’s Camp Make-a-Game supporters including: Capybara Games, Reptoid Games, Torn Banner Studios, Stitch Media, Rocket 5 Studios, DrinkBox Studios, Little Guy Games, Longbow Games, Globacore, Dave Burke, Get Set Games, Phantom Compass, Uken Games and Asteroid Base.

[button size=”medium” icon=”” target=”_self” hover_type=”default” align=”center” text=”Sign up for Studio Membership” link=”http://eepurl.com/b6I5ZT“]

Interested in partnering or sponsorship opportunities, or know a community that might want a Camp brought to them? Get in touch at info@handeyesociety.com

Camp Make-A-Gamers at UrbanArts, 2017!

The amazing visual identity of Camp Make-a-Game was created by Matt Hammill of Asteroid Base.

With that in mind, the Hand Eye Society is proud to present a series of workshops that encourages participants to create games in a new light. Coordinated by game-makers known for their thoughtful and innovative approaches to playful media, these workshops attempt to educate from more experimental, alternative perspectives. Participants will be able to take home useful technical skills, while being encouraged to explore unique game mechanics and meaningful themes in their own practice.

Pricing and Details

These prices are for each individual workshop and apply only to the ones in this series, unless otherwise stated.

• $25+HST for HES members (Monthly, Annual, Student, Studio, Volunteer)
• $40+HST for non-members
• FREE for on-site session volunteers and mentors

[button size=’medium’ style=” text=’Not a HES Member? Sign up here!’ icon=” icon_color=” link=’http://handeyesociety.com/join-the-society/#paidmember’ target=’_self’ color=” hover_color=” border_color=” hover_border_color=” background_color=” hover_background_color=” font_style=” font_weight=” text_align=’center’ margin=”]

All workshops will take place between March and June 2018. Each session will be 3 hours each, with a participant number of around 10-12. Public announcements regarding calls for volunteers, ticket sales, venue and registration will take place via e-mail newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, and this page on the HES website. Members will get an early heads-up along with discount codes, which will be e-mailed prior to tickets going on sale.

If you are in financial need or have accessibility requirements, please contact info@handeyesociety.com and we will try our best to make alternate arrangements.

How much experience/tech will I need to bring?

Most of these workshops have been designed with the experienced beginner or intermediate game-maker in mind. Here are some of the things you may be required to know or to bring in order to get the most out of the session, depending on the workshop:

• Familiarity with basic coding concepts and terminology, like variables, Boolean logic (true/false), etc.
• Prior game design experience and/or knowledge of concepts like mechanics, game feel, prototyping
• Experience with image-editing programs like Photoshop or GIMP
• Unity and C# experience (many of the workshops will use Unity)
• A laptop you can bring with you to the workshop.

We will try to run some beginner/101 workshops throughout the year to try and get more folks up to speed; however, a little knowledge goes a long way. Any game jam experience really helps (TOJam, Global Game Jam, Ludum Dare, Dames Making Game’s Feb Fatale, Itch.io jams), and Unity is a free program with plenty of video tutorials and documentation if you want to play with it before signing up. Stay tuned!

The Workshops

As each workshop goes on sale, full details will be revealed including ticket prices, software/hardware requirements, skills and takeaways, session overview and more. In the meantime, here’s a small preview of some of the workshops and what the coordinators have in store:

Gimmick with a Platformer

Asphyx, Corrypt, La-Mulana: These games adhere to simple, known forms, but explore concepts beyond their genre. This workshop is about expressing experimental mechanics through the lens of a familiar and accessible gameplay format: The humble 2D Platformer. Working from a basic Unity project, participants will come away with techniques for designing an experimental “gimmick” and integrating it into a gameplay genre of their preference.

Coordinator: Alexander Martin / @droqen
I think about games too much. I also make them. I never want to stop growing alongside the games I make. (Alex’s own “gimmick platformers” include Asphyx, Fishbane, Starseed Pilgrim, and Inconsiderate Climbers among many others.)

Gardening for the 4th Dimension

In the 4th dimension, anything can happen. What kind of plants would you grow? Luscious roses or vicious venus flytraps? In this workshop we will learn how to animate short loops and place them in Unity3D! The instructor will provide a project for Unity3D pre-loaded with a few scripts and example scenes. Participants will make their own assets, and we will work through the process of composing a landscape together. Create the garden of your dreams/nightmares!

Coordinator: Paloma Dawkins / @Palomadawkins
Paloma Dawkins is a cartoonist turned virtual reality and video game artist based in Montréal. An alumni of the HES Artsy Games Incubator: Animation Edition (2014), Paloma has been creating wild and loopy art games ever since! Her work includes Gardenarium (GDC Mild Rumpus), Alea (Comics x Games), and Palmystery (A MAZE Johannesburg), all of which can be played here.

Establishing Scene: Crafting the Beginning of a Game

This workshop will show participants how to define the expectations of a player in the very first parts of a game. Not just for establishing setting or mood, but for purposefully crafting the mind of the player around what your game might be. A carefully crafted image for conducting powerful experiences.

Coordinator: Taylor Bai-Woo / @fromsmiling
Taylor Bai-Woo is a game maker (artist, programmer, designer) from Toronto, Canada that co-owns a studio called Gloam Collective (working on a game called Bravery Network)! Outside of her studio (sometimes inside) she tends to make weird explorative games, usually ones that set an expectation and then break it in the best ways possible. She cares a lot about characters, atmosphere, and building a world that doesn’t necessarily make sense, but gives a feeling.

Autobiographical Roguelikes

A workshop in how to write procedural games in javascript using the Phaser.js game engine, and how to work in a narrative more meaningful than the usual “grab item and go.” We’ll provide a working, current boilerplate to get Phaser packed with Webpack and transpiling using Babel. We’ll go through how to maintain a game state using Redux, developed to maintain Facebook’s game state. On the creative side, we’ll be learning how to think through making a game a little stranger by starting with something familiar and changing it to something more personal.

Coordinator: Alex Leitch / @aeleitch
Alex Leitch is an award-winning kinetic sculptor and digital artist who lives and works in Toronto, Canada. Their most recent work includes the Nebula Space Derby, a game about racing whales with your brain developed for a LARP bar night in Toronto, and Hothouse, a Toronto Arts Council-sponsored installation of large-scale robot flowers for Come Up To My Room 2017 at the Gladstone Hotel. Alex teaches Game Design 1 at OCADu. They love video games that make life’s little indignities into unsettling interactions.

Forget Virtual Reality, Try Actual Reality

Video game designers tend to fixate largely on creating experiences to be shown on a digital display. This workshop is aimed to get designers also thinking about the social and physical aspects of the games they create. There’ll be discussion about real life rules fuzziness and playing to the strengths of your chosen medium. Then participants will be encouraged to test their physical game rapid prototyping skills.

Coordinator: Damian Sommer /@damiansommer
1/4 of the Gloam Collective, currently working on Bravery Network. In a previous life he made the IGF-nominated storytelling game The Yawhg, as well as the randomly generated Chess-like, Chesh.

Systems and Simulations: Breathe life into your game!

Use simple AI to breath life into your game world! Learn how to create needs that cause your virtual characters to interact with the world in ways that are unpredictable and emergent. Using a basic artificial intelligence framework for Unity3D called NeedSim Life Simulator, participants in this workshop will add needs-based behaviours to their games in order to create dynamic, emergent interactions between AI characters, the game world, and the player.

Coordinator: Jonathan Carroll / @toughguymountain
Jonathan Carroll does interaction and game design for Tough Guy Mountain, and teaches through OCADU, Trinity Square Video, Toronto Animated Images Society, Hand Eye Society, and at Tough Guy Mountain’s studio, the Brandscape.

Emergent Contraptions

Coordinator: Douglas Gregory / @D_M_Gregory
Douglas Gregory is a game designer at Ubisoft Toronto, teacher at Sheridan College, avid game jammer, and regular on GameDev.StackExchange.

 

Twining While Black

Coordinators: Liesl A. and Whitney French / @WhitneyFrench1
altopunk/alto89, also known as Liesl A. to human folk, is an artist, game developer, zinester, wannabe witch and all around super weird kid. Her claims to fame include a visual novel about an android lady’s brain (Homo Synthetica) and a tiny make-up game parody about a bored queer babe turned cyber god (Femmepocalypse). Along with Jenn Woodall, she co-created the TCAF-themed 2-player game “Battle Zine Turbo V” for the Comics x Games Jam 2017.

Whitney French is a writer, storyteller and multi-disciplinary artist. She’s been published in a couple of places but she takes more pride in the community she builds than the things she produces. She’s an Aries, a middle child, a nerd and a tree climber. Whitney also the founder and co-editor of the nation-wide publication From the Root Zine as well as the founder of the workshop series Writing While Black: an initiative to develop a community of black writers. Whitney French is presently working on an anthology of creative nonfiction by black Canadians for the University of Regina Press.

More to be announced! Send questions and comments to info@handeyesociety.com. This program is made possible by the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council.

Here in Toronto we’ve developed a rich videogame art scene and a vibrant interactive digital media industry, but how will it continue to thrive as the international market gets increasingly saturated? We think a part of the answer is a focus on business skills, and we are partnering with the Ontario Media Development Corporation to run a program to give promising young game creators and developers a leg-up in our changing world. It’s OMDC’s IDM Fund Futures program.

Participants who complete the program will be eligible to submit an application to the OMDC IDM Fund Concept Definition or Production programs starting in the Spring 2018 deadline. They will also have the opportunity to submit an application to receive one of a limited numbers of grants to assist with product development (administered by the OMDC).

Additionally, participants will  meet international experts like Kelly Wallick (IGF Chairperson, Indie Megabooth) and John Polson (Humble Bundle, ALT.CTRL), learn from the experience of locals like Alex Jansen (Pop Sandbox) and Rob Segal (Get Set Games), and develop pitch and business assets they can use. They’ll also make critical connections with fellow participant peers facing similar challenges.

The sessions will run over six weeks on Sunday afternoons starting Sept 24th and will cover the following subjects:

• Pitching and Financing: Funding Sources, Publishers, Tax Credits, Deferrals
• Legal: Incorporation, Insurance, and Contracts
• Budgeting: Payroll, Cash Flow & Accounting
• Production Methodology: Scaling Up, Hiring, Timelines/Schedules
• Audience Connection: Community Building, Publicity & Marketing
• Strategy: Designing Your Company & Alternate Income Streams

We are developing a curriculum from scratch using interviews with experienced game creators to uncover what are the most critical and useful business learnings for people in our region, from tax credits to connecting with an audience. One representative from each company or team will be accepted, and they will be working on one game idea throughout the program.

This program could be a good fit for you if:

• You have an awesome game prototype with commercial potential -OR- you’ve made game prototypes in the past and have an idea for a game with commercial potential
• You have less than 3 years of full time industry experience
• You are available to attend the weekend sessions in Toronto
• You can commit to 3-4 hours a week for the hands-on assignments
• You are an Ontario resident

Selections will be made by Hand Eye Society staff in consultation with the OMDC with an eye towards cultural innovation and viability. If you are not selected or it’s not quite the right fit for you, never fear! The Hand Eye Society will be doing videogame arts workshops throughout the year aimed at a variety of experience levels and approaches (commercial/non-commercial). Make sure you’re signed up to our mailing list to be notified, as they tend to fill up fast.

Get in touch with jim@handeyesociety.com with any questions.

We’re all set for our first full month of Camp Make-A-Game in July!

Our unique full-day week-long kids program that combines indoor screen game design instruction with outdoor, playground-based game design instruction is happening all over the city. More info and a video here.

This summer camp is FREE, and we’re bringing it to under-served neighbourhoods — with the Toronto Public Library!

We’re able to do these free programs thanks to our incredible support from local game studios, who leapt at the chance to send a kid to camp.

Lead Sponsor:

Studio Membership Supporters:

(Want to join these esteemed ranks? Find out more about membership here!)

Thanks to Matt Hammill for Camp Make-a-Game’s amazing visual identity!

Building on the success of our Game Curious and Games for Dorset Park programs, The Hand Eye Society is starting a week-long full-day summercamp for kids 8-12. It’s called Camp Make-a-Game!

Mornings are spent indoors with digital screen instruction, teaching kids to use point-and-click game creation tools. Because these tools don’t require coding, most of the instruction can focus on design principles like game mechanics or game feel and not just be focused on technical hurdles. Afternoons are spent outdoors, discussing and playing physical games like tag and soccer — and then the kids will re-design the rules and play the modified games, learning about design while getting some exercise. By the end of the week they’ll be game makers!

[button size=”medium” icon=”” target=”_self” hover_type=”default” align=”center” text=”Future camp mailing list” link=”http://eepurl.com/b6I5ZT”]

We prototyped our unique indoor/outdoor format last August with the support of our partners the Toronto Public Library, Asteroid Base and Ubisoft Toronto. Watch the video below for a taste of the camp!

Interested in partnering or sponsorship opportunities? We’d love to chat at jim@handeyesociety.com.

The amazing visual identity of Camp Make-a-Game was created by Matt Hammill of Asteroid Base!