The last round of the Artsy Games Incubator was really good — we had a longer run (meeting weekly for six weeks) than the first round, and we all ended up making videogames worth showing. So we’re doing an open house at the Mobile Experience Lab at 52 McCaul St. (3rd floor) on Wed. April 23rd at 7pm, where there’ll be short presentations of the games we made using accessible tools. It’s a great time to find out more about future rounds of the AGI, and we’re also inviting people in the indie games community at large to bring their games-in-progress to demo — and no, you don’t have to identify as an artist. Admission: a game-in-progress, or a snack for the snack table. For a taste of what’s to come, check out some of the screenshots below.
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For those who’ve attributed my recent silence to Sidney, she’s only part of the cause. I’ve also been doing a gig for OCAD recently — The Mobile Experience Lab was looking to showcase some of the cell phone technologies they’d developed over the past two years in public spaces. I started as a consultant on narrative and then I was kept on to implement the scenarios I’d written. It was a lot of fun working with a bunch of talented folk to figure out how to make these whimsical and odd things happen on John Street. They’re hoping to launch it this summer, funding and situation willing. Below is some documentation we got during the alpha and beta testing. Read the rest of this post »

I recently produced a promotional video for some friends of mine who have a game called N+ about to be released. Based on their free Flash game N that they developed independently in 2004, it’s coming out soon on Xbox Live Arcade as well as the PSP and Nintendo DS. It’s a great game, and it was a good opportunity to work with Craig Macnaughton (my co-producer for Infest Wisely) again — he did an amazing job pulling together what was a complex shoot with effects and stunts. Click through to check out the 3 minute vid.
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A lot of artists I know have great ideas for videogames, but no programming skills. A lot of videogame makers I know wish there was more creativity and innovation happening in the field, but don’t know how best to foster it. I started the Artsy Games Incubator to try to address both issues.

We just had our first prototype set of sessions, with four of us meeting once a week for four weeks, and I kept notes. Using point-and-click game creation tools we made games and game elements for the sessions and invited feedback and discussion from the other members. It’s based on the writer’s-circle model that I’ve also used for movie making, but I wasn’t sure it’d work for games — but when the other members were playing and talking about my game Space Invader I was getting feedback as useful as I did with those other groups.

There’s going to be another iteration, so whether you’re a Toronto artist looking to get into the next group in January or an interested party who would like to get involved in some other way (Metanet and Queasy sponsorship are what made starting this possible), read more about it here.

I’m proud to say that my interview with Emily Short, my favourite interactive fiction author, is on the front page of the equally fantastic game website Gamasutra. And yes, Infocom fans, I think her work is better than Zork-era games both from a programming and writing standpoint. Download her free games and find out why.

While you’re on Gamasutra you might want to read this great interview with Jon Mak, a Toronto game maker who’s EverydayShooter builds on the Japanese underground abstract shooters — it features his sweet indie rock guitar strumming against a throbbing colourfield that makes you feel more like you’re collaborating rather than conquering. He deservedly nabbed several awards at the 2007 IGF.

And if all this game writing excites ya, we’re looking for videogame and other guest articles on theculturalgutter.com, let us know if you have an idea for a genre most consider beneath consideration. We pay $50 on publication.

For the shameful headstanding scene in my machinima piece Yoga Deathmatch I used something called Gary’s Mod. It allows you to spawn and arrange Half-Life 2 objects really easily, a surreal 3D sketchpad. Immediately it started me thinking how neat it would be to introduce more visually creative people to it, and thanks to Digifest I was able to arrange a “jam session” with a half dozen artists.

We took clips of the jam in progress and it’s going to be screened this Saturday, as part of dorkArmy’s monthly event at the Gladstone Hotel (Sept. 9, 8pm, $5). They’re bringing their Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero gear (out of the basements and into the bars!) and I always enjoy myself. If you’re not in Toronto, however, you can check out one clip from each of the artists by clicking through. Read the rest of this post »

I’ve moved them to where they belong — The Cultural Gutter. My new collaborative blog has Guy Leshinski writing about comics, James Schellenberg on science-fiction, and my videogame pieces. Once a week we’ll be featuring a new piece on one of these subjects, and once a month we’ll be having a guest write about another piece of intriguing trash — an artform that’s poo-pooed but nevertheless fascinating.

Eye, where Guy and I write, was nice enough to do a cover article for the launch, which consisted of a chat between the two of us moderated by Bert “Mastermind” Archer. The incomparably clever Marc Ngui was put to the task of realizing us in our true forms for the cover illo. You can click the little cover to see the whole thing in its subtle-yet-striking glory.