Friends, collaborators, and community members: We at Hand Eye Society are making moves and planning schemes on how to prioritize our activities in the years to come, and we need your help! We are inviting all members of the independent videogame community to take part of our stakeholder and environmental scanning process, facilitated by Currents Group. The resulting strategic plan will guide us throughout a major transitional period which will include adaptations to the pandemic, as well as significant changes in staff and Board.

If you’ve ever had blue-sky ideas for what a local videogame arts organization could accomplish, now is the time to let us know! More professional development and exhibition opportunities for BIPOC creators? Artsier, weirder events that push the boundaries of  what a game even is? Virtual spaces for discussing fun stuff and tough issues? Whatever your dreams for the future of indie games in Toronto/the GTA, we want to hear from you!

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This is the first time we have undergone this process in a decade of operations, so your input would be massively appreciated. All information will be kept anonymous and presented in a way that cannot be attributed to participants.

Stay safe out there, and don’t forget to wear a mask!

The 7th annual WordPlay Festival takes place Saturday, November 9th & 10th 2019!

Sat. November 9th, Sunday November 10th

Saturday 11:00am – 4:30pm and Sunday 1:30pm – 4:30pm
Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St. (Bloor-Yonge subway)
Free!

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Hey everyone! We are at full HP from the Hand Eye Society Ball and we’re back again with another event–WordPlay 7 (they grow up so fast )! This year is going to be bigger than ever hosting even more narrative games from all over the world! Also, this year, WordPlay is now a 2-day event! Which means you’ll have more talks, more workshops and you-time to experience all of the games we have in store for you!

Without further ado, we’re extremely excited to present to you the final lineup of games for WordPlay 2019! This year you can literally type your feelings out to the one you love in Types of Romance, all the way to doing your best to cover up a sacrifice with your friends in Animalia! Play them all! There’s plenty of time!

See you there!

Apologies, for what it’s worth

Shrunken Studios

Toronto, Canada

Read a dense letter from your sibling to explore your shared history and consider what you’ve left behind.

Can Androids Pray

Xalavier Nelson Jr., Natalie Clayton, Priscilla Snow

El Paso, USA

A shortform visual novel about angry femme mechs at the end of the world, and God.

Unbecoming

Bryan Depuy

Toronto, Canada

Unbecoming is a sonically-driven revisionist body horror denouement.

Unmaking, Unmade

G.C. “Grim” Baccaris

New York, USA

Manipulate an eerie videotape and confront a dangerous infatuation by rewinding, fast-forwarding, and pausing the tape to alter its contents and reshape the fate of your love.

Types of Romance

Mary Arroz & Xinran Ma

Oakville, Canada

Woo the high-born beauty of your dreams in this vintage shoujo-inspired dating sim/typing game!

We Should Talk

Kat Aguiar, Nobonita Bhowmik, Francesca Carletto-Leon, Jordan Jones-Brewster, Carol Mertz, Jack Schlesinger

Global

“We should talk” is a short-form narrative game that will make you think twice about the words you choose.

00 Comments in moderationpressspace

Michael Arcadi

Toronto, Canada

pressspace is a one-button typing game where you put the spaces in between words.

American Election

Greg Buchanan

UK

Play as Abigail Thoreau, a campaign assistant working to elect candidate Truman Glass in the 2016 American Election.

LIONKILLER

Sisi Jiang

USA

LIONKILLER is a choose-your-own-adventure game about Hua Mulan, a young lesbian who is conscripted into the First Opium War against the British Empire.

Recalculating***

Jessica Zhang, Benjamin Mora-Davison, Christine Kilfoil

Oakville, Canada

A soft thriller visual novel illustrating how women can be taken advantage of through daily social pressures, which men may be unaware of. Players navigate through conversations by launching a ball at words which visually represent their avatar’s thought process as the situation deteriorates.

Animalia

Ian Michael Waddell

Victoria, Canada

Animalia is a massively-branching interactive comedy in which you play four forest creatures who are trying to cover up the ritual sacrifice of a small child by piloting a replica of that small child.

The Library Of Babble

Demi Schanzel

New Zealand

Wander through a gentle garden of words, discover the mumbling words of other storytellers and leave a few of your own.

Electric Sleep

Jack Sanderson-Thwaite, Matthew Weekes, Vlad Abadzhiev, Michael Becze

Bristol, UK

Electric Sleep is a pixel art interactive story, where you explore a crumbling world as an emotionally driven robot.

The Horizon

Freya Campbell

Bristol, UK

A postmodern kinetic novel, finishing a trilogy about trans women in love, tarot, alien abduction, and escaping from cycles of self-loathing.

The Vale

St. Catherines, Canada

David Evans (Falling Squirrel Inc.)

The Vale is a story driven, action/adventure game that sets out to breathe new life into medieval combat and provide a truly novel experience for visually impaired and sighted gamers alike.

Bound Together

John Vanderhoef

California, USA

Bound Together is a top-down narrative adventure game made in Bitsy that explores the relationship between a bounty hunter and his captive.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening to Steal Treasure

Alexander Blechman

Chicago, USA

A comedic poetry game where you remix one of Robert Frost’s most famous works, swapping out words to transform it into an epic fantasy battle.

Curses

Emily Flynn-Jones

Brantford, Canada

A game about words and how they wound; emotional abuse and fantasies of revenge; and doing witchcraft with your cat.

Dear Reader

Local No. 12

New York, USA

Dear Reader turns classic literature into an addictive word puzzle game, and lets you curl up and play your favorite books from Pride and Prejudice to Pygmalion.

The Last Survey

Nicholas O’Brien

Brooklyn, USA

The Last Survey is a narrative essay game about a geologist contracted by a Brazilian mining company to survey rare earth metal reserves.

Strollplaying Game Trio Pack

Smolghost

Toronto, Canada

Three small self-directed narrative games to print and play wherever you are and whenever you feel like it!

Verdure

Sharang Biswas

New York, USA

Verdure is an analogue storytelling and role-playing game about witchcraft and revenge, played in an empty kitchen while preparing and eating salad.

Our Partners

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