For our first proper Something Saturday in Toronto we headed to the Hand Eye Society’s annual Wordplay Festival, a day of talks celebrating the use of words and writing in contemporary games.
The Hand Eye Society is a “videogames arts organisation” whose mission is to promote games as a form of creative expression. They host events like the Wordplay Festival, as well as promoting events put off by other gaming societies based in Toronto. In short, the perfect organisation for Luke to get involved with.
The Wordplay Festival is an event that the Hand Eye Society hosts annually to highlight the role of writing and interactive storytelling in games. This year, the event was hosted in the Toronto Reference Library, just 7 minutes walk from our apartment! After a quick breakfast we headed along to attend some talks and try out the games that were showcased.
The Wordplay Festival is an event that the Hand Eye Society hosts annually to highlight the role of writing and interactive storytelling in games. This year, the event was hosted in the Toronto Reference Library, just 7 minutes walk from our apartment! After a quick breakfast we headed along to attend some talks and try out the games that were showcased.
Toronto Reference Library.
The opening talk was by Emily Short, a well known innovator in the interactive fiction genre, and overall expert on interactive storytelling. After a quick overview of the strengths and weakness of interactive storytelling, she delved in depth into topics thrown to her by the audience, demonstrating a really in depth understanding of all things game writing. It was really interesting, and not just for Luke.
Emily Short on Interactive Storytelling.
After a break we were back for a second talk by the team behind upcoming indie game, A Night In the Woods. Their talk was about how their life experiences informed the setting, characters and stories in their game, which is about a cat named Mae returning to her desolate hometown in the Rust Belt. While totally surreal, the game is based on the writers’ experiences growing up in the region and should be an interesting example of how personal games can be. One to look out for in 2016.
A Night in the Woods.
The final talk was by the author of a series of Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books about being a cat ... called Holden Catfield. His talk was about the nature of choice and its role and value in games, books, stories, tv and life. It’s hard to express everything he covered in his 30 minutes up on stage but it left us thinking, which we’re pretty sure is a good thing.
Sherwin Tjia.
After trying out a few of the games on show, we registered for library cards, took a quick stroll around the reference library (which is awesome) and headed to our local (regular) library, where Elizabeth picked up a book about how dogs love humans (naturally). All in all, it was a great first proper Something Saturday in Toronto, and all within steps of our new home. The mind boggles at the variety of stuff on offer in this city, but we’re excited to give it all a go.
The festival as seen from the lofty heights of the library.
Curious to see what we were up to last year? We were enjoying a spooky Halloween weekend with the Adams Family Musical, and two years ago we were hiking the trails along Manuels River in Newfoundland.
