Hey, everyone.

It’s summer! And, it’s also a great time to have a utGDDC reunion for all of the game club’s members and alumni. There has already been some talk about this during the past few months on the utGDDC forums (http://forum.utgddc.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1252), and some of the club’s members are now interested in making this happen. Since it’s Canada Day at the end of next week, hopefully many of you will be available to come out and meet up around that time. I’m not sure if we will be able to book a room at the Bahen Centre for this event, but if we can’t, then perhaps we can all meet up at some quiet pub or something. I think that this event would be a really great opportunity for everyone to see each other again after several days, months, or years, and it would also be a great event to meet with some of the current and past members of the utGDDC. Plus, I’m hoping that some people will also want to bring in their laptops with video games made from previous GMDs so that other people can play them and they can show off their games (GMD 2010 submissions should all be available on the website very soon).

Recently, Liez told me about a free online service called agreeadate.com, which I will be using to co-ordinate a convenient date, time, and location for everyone to meet up at for the game club reunion. You can go to the following link, add your email, and let everyone know when you would be available to come out: http://www.agreeAdate.com/9680684167C2A7660418DCD37D5A3987CA

And just in case you’re a little concerned about submitting your email to a strange website that you may have never heard of before, like I was, then be rest assured that your email will not be passed on to third parties or used by agreeadate.com for marketing purposes. In fact, this is stated on agreeadate.com’s following web pages:

http://www.agreeadate.com/privacy.htm – agreeadate.com’s privacy policy

http://www.agreeadate.com/faqs.aspx#qrevenue – how agreeadate.com makes money

If you are still skeptical about using agreeadate.com, then you can always send me a brief email to let me know when you’d be available attend. The possible dates that are being considered for holding the utGDDC reunion are on:

June 27

June 28

June 29

June 30

July 1

July 2

July 3

July 4

I’m predicting that people will want to hang out for about 5 or 6 hours. Hopefully, more of the details will become clear as people start letting me know when they would prefer to meet up. I hope that everyone is having a great summer, and I’ll be in touch with all of you shortly to give you an update on the status of the utGDDC reunion event.

P.S. If you know any other utGDDC members or alumni who have not received this message yet, or if you have any friends that you’d like to bring along, then please feel free to forward this message on to them.

UPDATE:

Unfortunately, due to the lack of respondents for a utGDDC summer reunion and a very limited number of days left for everyone to meet up, it’s looking very doubtful that this event will be worthwhile enough to take place within the next week. If you have any opinions about when else you think that we should have this event, then post them up on the utGDDC forums and perhaps we may be able to better plan a reunion date to take place in the future. It appears that such a large event as this should have been organized several months in advance, and for that mistake, I take full responsibility. Hopefully there will still be a time in the near future when a utGDDC reunion will take place. Until then, the game club will continue working to try to organize a time when it will be worthwhile for everyone to participate.

]]> http://www.utgddc.com/2010/06/27/talks-of-a-utgddc-reunion-to-happen-soon/feed/ 0 http://www.utgddc.com/2010/06/04/come-on-down-to-the-2010-tojam-arcade-this-saturday-june-5-from-7p-m-midnight-at-the-imperial-pub-in-toronto/ http://www.utgddc.com/2010/06/04/come-on-down-to-the-2010-tojam-arcade-this-saturday-june-5-from-7p-m-midnight-at-the-imperial-pub-in-toronto/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 17:02:02 +0000 Chris http://www.utgddc.com/?p=619

Now’s your chance to come out on Saturday, June 5 from 7p.m. – midnight at the Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St E) in Toronto and see more than 72 video games on display, which were created at TOJam 2010. This huge event is open to the public and available to all ages (if you want to drink, then you’ll need I.D.) with speeches, prizes, the opportunity to play these video games, and a People’s Choice vote for the best game on display. It’s certainly something not to be missed if you like video games and are interested in seeing what Toronto’s veteran and up-and-coming video game developers were able to create during the recent TOJam 2010 event. Visit the TOJam website for more details.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn more about how to finance your own video game development project, then this presentation is for you. Several programs aimed at helping developers of video games and interactive media will be discussed, and these will include the OMDC Export Fund, the Interactive Digital Media Fund, the IP Prototype Fund, the Ontario Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit, and Telefilm’s new Canada Media Fund. There will also be more information about fund descriptions, who qualifies for what programs, and how to apply, so come on out to this presentation for a great opportunity to learn more about the resources that are available to local start-up video game companies.

The special guest at this event will be Brandon Boyer, an editor for www.boingboing.net , founder of www.offworld.com, and a former writer for Edge magazine.  Most recently, Boyer was  named Chairman of the Independent Games Festival (IGF).

UPDATE: In addition to an appearance by Brandon Boyer at this event, Mark Essen Hoffman (aka MESSHOF), who has garnered attention from his unique, artsy games, which are usually made with Game Maker, presents his newest game, Nidhogg, a game that was commissioned by NYU’s Game Center.

This should prove to be a very fun evening for those who are interested in video games and the Toronto video game industry.  You can join The Hand Eye Society’s Facebook group (if, of course, you’re in to that sort of thing) to get regular updates about their events including the upcoming social that is  mentioned in this post.

*NOTE: The Unit Bar is a very inconspicuous bar that is located just a few steps east of the Gladstone Hotel.  See the Google map for a street guide of this place.

TCAF
May 8th and 9th 2010
@ Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge St., Toronto, Canada

Admission to TCAF is Free.

http://www.torontocomics.com/

The following video game related panel discussion will also be taking place during TCAF :

The Spirit of Indie: Where Comics Meet Video Games
Saturday, May 8th, 2:00 – 2:45pm, at The Pilot (22 Cumberland Street, which is across the street from the Toronto Reference Library)
There’s more to the game industry than blockbuster, multi-system titles just as there’s more to comics than Batman. This panel seeks to explore the ways in which independent comic artists and game developers have influenced each other and spurred each other on to explore the possibilities of their medium. Cartoonists/game contributors and creators Scott Campbell, Jamie McKelvie, Jim Munroe, and Miguel Sternberg will be interviewed by games journalist Matthew Kumar.

If you haven’t played Baby Maker Extreme yet, then you owe it to yourself to at least download the free demo, if you have yourself an Xbox, or watch the gameplay videos on IGN. I can certainly say that is a type of game you don’t get to see everyday, and all I know is that Baby Maker Extreme made me laugh.

"Trial Run" video

"The Long Haul" video

It’s only 80 Microsoft Points (eqivalent to approximately $1) to buy the full version of the game, and that’s probably part of the reason why Baby Maker Extreme is currently the #1 best selling indie game on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace as of the time of this writing.

I guess it must be obvious that Mr. Steger knows a thing or two about making babies. Well done, Mr. Steger. Well done, indeed.

NOTE: If you are a UTGDDC member or alumni and you have a game that you’d like to let me know about, then please send me an email at admin@utgddc.com and I’ll see if I can put up a feature for your game onto the Game Club’s website.

]]> http://www.utgddc.com/2010/04/21/congratulations-to-game-club-alumni-daniel-steger-for-the-release-of-baby-maker-extreme/feed/ 0 http://www.utgddc.com/2010/04/19/two-new-threads-on-the-forum-are-ready-for-discussion/ http://www.utgddc.com/2010/04/19/two-new-threads-on-the-forum-are-ready-for-discussion/#comments Mon, 19 Apr 2010 21:41:15 +0000 Chris http://www.utgddc.com/?p=506 Just a reminder to all of you that the there are two new topics in the General forum that I’d like to get input on from Game Club members and alumni.

First, there are some plans in the works for a club get-together at some point during this summer. The purpose of this event will be to hang out, give an opportunity for new members to meet alumni of the club, and for everyone to basically get re-acquainted again. Some UTGDDC alumni have already began discussing plans for this event in the “It’s been a long time” topic, so get on there and let people know whether you’d be interested in meeting up and when you’d like to do this.

Second, I thought I might expand the About Us section of the website since the Game Club has lately began to garner more attention from the Toronto video game development scene and the U of T Computer Science Department. Unfortunately, I was not actually a game club member until several years ago, so if any of you know some details about how the club was founded and how it was run in the past, please post these up to the “Please help me form the history of the UTGDDC” topic in the General forum. Periodically, I’ll be posting what I’ve written so far, and it would be great to get feedback on it to ensure that my information is accurate and appropriate for the website’s new About Us section.

And lastly, if you’ve previously tried to sign up for an account on the UTGDDC Forums, but were unsuccessful, that’s because the Forums were not actually working properly at that time. Fortunately, UTGDDC alumni Thuan has recently fixed this problem. So, you’ll now find that when you register for a new Forums account, everything will be working fine, and you’ll be able to receive your account and start posting to the Forums right away. Thanks for the help, Thuan.

1st Place:

Nitro Marie

2nd Place:

Nightmare Fuel

3rd Place:

Darkest Before The Dawn

4th Place:

Lively Bitter Garden

5th Place:

Text Zombies

6th Place:

Desert Madness

7th Place:

Darwinian Fight Club

More information about the winning GMD 2K10 games will be soon to follow.

Jim McGinley will be premiering a new type of game that is exclusively designed for a club environment. Everyone at the Unit Bar will play this game together, and it should be a very interesting gameplay experiment to take part in. Also adding to the fun will be the first live demonstration of Benjamin Rivers’ new interactive drinking game, Drunken Rampage.

On top of all of that, you get to hang out with other cool developers from the Toronto video game industry. It certainly sounds like there will be lots of things to do and lots of people to see at this event, so hopefully we’ll see you there.  For more information, you can check out The Hand Eye Society’s homepage.

In case you don’t already know, TO Jam is an event that takes place each year in Toronto where game developers from all disciplines (art, programming, design, music, etc.) come together over the course of 3 days to develop their own indie games. The games being developed are usually based on a given event theme, but you don’t have to follow this theme if you don’t want to. The main objective behind TO Jam is to get game developers from all levels of ability to kick-start the development of their own unique games for the sake of having fun and learning from others. TO Jam is not a competion, and teams helping each other out is encouraged. In fact, if you decide to sign up for TO Jam without a team, you can participate as a “floater”, who is someone that gets to work with all of the groups at the event to produce game content for whatever they may need help with. You may also be pleasantly surprised at who decides to participate in TO Jam, as this event has attracted big names in the indie video games industry on several occasions. This is a great event to attend for anyone who is interested in designing and creating video games.

If you’re interested in signing up for TO Jam, or just want some more information, have a look at the TO Jam website.