Our buddies over at Site 3 have got a Lightning Talk event happening tomorrow night. “Using the 5+5 model from Kwartzlab, we’re inviting 10 speakers — 5 from other groups, 5 from Site 3 — to give 5 minute talks on what they’re doing.” After the talks on everything from procedural animation to magical typewriters you can have a drink with the makers in the Site3 space — which, if you haven’t checked out, is pretty sweet (and has been made more so recently by hosting the Torontron).

Also: there was some thorough coverage of our Arcadian Renaissance night at Indie Game Review and the TIFF people did a funny time-lapse of me and Callum hauling the cabinets in over here (If any sequence deserved a draining energy bar…). Nick also got some cam-footage of the Nidhogg tournament from the middle of the action, and Mike got some nice pics too. UPDATE: Check out the RGBFilter vid for some sweet Nidhogg tourney footage!

Awesome there:

Winnitron! Citing the Torontron as its inspiration, some Winnipeg folks are retrofitting a Total Carnage cabinet to play indie games. Four sticks! Also in Winnipeg was the Gr8 Bits show for their Nuit Blanche, video here! Can chiptune Weakerthans covers be far behind?!

The Fantastic Arcade debuted their amazing indie arcade (beating us by one week and two cabinets) of indie games at the Austin TX Fantastic Film Fest last month. Everyday the Same Dream had customized sidepanels. The Envirobear 2000 cab had a trackball set in bear fur. There was a Left4Dead mod set in the bar it was playing in — a kind of site-specific recursion I’ve never seen before. Super-inspiring.

And apparently there’s a new indie happenin’ going on at Montreal International Game Summit: “A one-evening party happening on November 9 (the second and last day of MIGS.) There’ll be live music! And nerdy dancing! We’ll have four or five projectors running games in the main space. The Babycastles guys from New York are helping organize, and are going to be coming up and bringing… something. Videogames? An air of mystery?” Get in touch with Stephen if you want to know more or participate.

The Arcadian Renaissance exhibit at Nuit Blanche was an amazing success. Hundreds of people came and played, many more watched as games were projected on the wall. The energy was phenomenal. If you missed it, get into your time machine and set the date to October 2nd, 2010 @ 7pm, or if your time machine is in the shop, check out this video.

The Arcadian Renaissance was made possible by our sponsors, the gamemakers, and the volunteer membership of the Hand Eye Society.

Cabinet Retrofitting: Jph Wacheski
Curator and Producer: Jim Munroe
TIFF Bell Lightbox Liason: Nick Pagee
Volunteer Coordination: Jori Baldwin
Media Outreach: Mike Drach
Deployment Officer: Callum Hay
Cabinet Graphic Design: Nadine Lessio
Flyer Graphic Design: Ben Rivers
Proposal Writer: Peter Marshall

Thanks to the folks who donated hardware and space to the project:

Tony Wong and Xtreme Labs
Rick Weiss
Jonathan M. Guberman
Alex Snukal and Interaccess
Marc Reeve-Newson
Adam Blake
Susan Bustos
Tyler Moore
Carol Mark

Thanks to

Joanna Rankin
Shawn McGrath
Miguel Sternberg
Emma Scratch
Paul Laroquod
Mark Rabo
Jaimie Woo
Sara Malabar and Scotiabank Nuit Blanche
Jim McGinley
Em McGinley
Shane Smith
James King
Andrei Gravelle
Dallas and Bill and the Pinball Exchange

Thanks to Jonah Hundert for ringside announcing and the volunteers at
the event itself:

Leif Conti-Groome
Tyler Moore
Jamie Tucker
Mike Drach
Emma Scratch
Will Perkins
Rene Shible
Chris Yurkovich
Ian-Patrick McAllister
Emily Afran
Rene Shible
Michelangelo Pereira Huezo
Carlos Yusim
Callan Burgess
Jason Spitkoski
Adam Blake
Stephen Kriedemann

Here are the six games to be showcased at Nuit Blanche tomorrow.

Cabinet sponsored by:

A two-player game where you play a ladyscientist or her robot butler fighting to keep your cottage cephalopod-free. Now with sound guaranteed to send you spinning into a Lovecraftian fever dream.

More about Cephalopods: Co-op Cottage Defence.

Cabinet sponsored by:
In the tradition of  the Japanese shmups, or abstract shoot-em-ups, is a game backed by gentle indie rock explosions, procedural graphics and a singular artistic vision.

Find out more about Everyday Shooter here.

Cabinet sponsored by:
You play a tiny green pig who lures monsters to their doom with your delicious balls of snot.  Loved for its gorgeously expressive hand-drawn animation, this is the long-awaited new version’s debut.

Find out more about Gesundheit! here.

Cabinet sponsored by Metanet Software:

The classic physics platformer has been adapted to a two-player arcade cabinet, with co-op play and a revamped health mechanic.

Find out more about N here.

Cabinet sponsored by:
Eject mass to propel yourself. Absorb and grow. Zoom out for the big picture. An ambient videogame in the best sense. [Update: Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties we could not showcase Osmos & instead swapped in the original Torontron games.]

Find out more about Osmos here.

Cabinet sponsored by:

Take a weird, roundabout trip through a minimalist landscape, with only one button to push.

Find out more about Silent Skies here.

See you tomorrow between sundown and sunrise! The Nidhogg tournament at midnight is sure to be a crazy bloodbath.

Saturday, October 2, 2010.
Sundown (6:57 p.m.) to sunrise
Midnight Nidhogg tournament
The Atrium of TIFF Bell Lightbox, 350 King St. W. at John
Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Exhibit #51 (Zone C)
Free

Please spread the linkage widely!

Here’s some things we’re still in need of:

• Somewhere to store 5-6 arcade cabinets. Got a ground level space that we could put the cabinets before and after the Oct. 2 event? Let us know the details and what part of town it is.
• Computer speakers. Have you upgraded recently and have decent speakers to contribute to the cause?
• If you come across arcade cabinet shells or  21″+ SD monitors, let us know!

Not Arcadian Renaissance-related, but still good ways to participate in the Society:

• The excellent IndieCade fest is looking for a pro-bono designer to layout their festival booklet — colour, digest-sized, 40 pages or so. A great way to be involved if you don’t have a game to enter or the bucks to fly to LA…
• If you have an idea for a new Hand Eye Society initiative for 2011 — an event or a project we aren’t currently doing that you think we should be — now is the time to let us know.

Email info@handeyesociety.com with any leads or questions!

The Torontron spews delight, causing exclamations of “awesome!” and inspiring high-fives where ever it goes. A classic arcade cabinet retrofitted to play modern local indie games, what could be better?

How about SIX of them?

Nuit Blanche, the all night art thing that attracted close to a million people last year, has accepted the Hand Eye Society as a partner in its 2010 event on Oct. 2. We’re planning to present not just the Torontron, but a full arcade of indie goodness for the event in something we’re calling The Arcadian Renaissance. The venue? The atrium of the new TIFF Bell Lightbox at King and John.

As well as the Toronto International Film Festival support, we’ve gotten sponsorship from Metanet, Spyeart, and ][ so far.

Email us if you can help with any of the following:

• Sponsor a cabinet for $1000. Show your indie support and get your name/logo in front of a massive audience. What happens to the cabinet after Nuit Blanche? Well, either your machine is made available to the public with your logo on it, or you can have it for your home or office (provided the Society can borrow it when needed). Also, going halfsies on it with someone else ($500/$500) is fine too.
• Donate some hardware to the project. We need 20″ or bigger displays (TV/CRT/LCD), PCs (boxes/laptops), arcade cabinets — send us the specs and we’ll tell you if we can use it. The less we have to buy the more money we have to do more projects.
• Volunteer your time. If getting local indie games in front of a million people sounds like something you can get behind, let us know if you’d be into helping out with logistics, documentation, promotion, design, or construction. The only way this thing has gotten rolling is thanks to the involvement of members like Peter Marshall and Nick Pagee.

It’s gonna be sweet!