IGDA Toronto Spring Gala Report

Did you miss the Gala? See a video of the whole show here!

The Bell TIFF Lightbox hosted another star-studded event tonight. This time, the stars of Toronto's game development scene—indie and big ticket alike—came out to discuss their games and their studios. All that was missing was the red carpet (Note: for the next Gala, obtain a red carpet. Or at least a red shower curtain). For attendees, it was a great introduction to the local players in the industry.

The festivities were hosted by The Electric Playground's “Mega” Shaun Hatton, who's no stranger to the Toronto scene, having established Toronto Thumbs. Shane Smith, TIFF's Director of Public Programs (and two-time Australian Frogger champion) kicked things into gear by declaring that the Lightbox was a public building committed to both film and interactive entertainment. Then, the 10 groups of presenters took the stage.

First up was Jason Krogh of zinc Roe. Krogh said that zinc Roe was about developing “fun spaces” for kids. They develop both iOS and Flash games for kids as young as toddlers. They recently expanded into TV, so some of their properties such as Stella and Sam will soon be on another kind of screen.

Next was Jaime Woo, co-founder of Gamercamp. Woo said that Gamercamp is thinking a lot about what the next generation of game developers is going to look like. He said that today's game players could be tomorrow's designers and wondered what could be done to nurture them. To that end, he told us about Gamercamp Jr., coming next month.

Inspiring creativity in developers of all ages was a big theme. Example: the presentation by Jason P. Kaplan, founder of the Game Prototype Challenge. The GPC challenges game developers to create games based on a theme, often an unusual one (past challenges were “Immortality and Thin Ice” and “Loneliness and Dimensions”). Kaplan told us how a Twitter conversation between John Remedios led to the creation of GPC. All because Remedios told Kaplan he should make a game about collecting dreams. He showed us a reel of these games and talked about his own game, Flew the Coop, coming to iOS soon.

Ian Kelso and Danielle Engels of Interactive Ontario provided the first interview segment. Kelso discussed how IO can help grow interactive companies in the province. Engels suggested we all sign up for her news letter. A lot.

Mark Rabo, Craig D. Adams and Jim Munroe, the board members of The Hand-Eye Society, filled us in on what their organization is all about. The Hand-Eye Society promotes gaming as a cultural force. They encourage game developers to come out to their socials and meet members of the community who are working on videogame products of all kinds. They have guest speakers and encouraged people to come out.

Spooky Squid's Miguel Sternberg is looking for funding for two of upcoming games, both of which look very slick and entertaining. They Bleed Pixels is an uber-bloody platform game that plays like a mix of Super Meat Boy and N, with a dash of Emily the Strange. He also showed us a reel of Guerilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution. Sternberg described it as a “stealth/puzzle/gardening game.” Who says gaming is out of ideas?

Matt Rix told us the story of the making of his iOS hit, Trainyard. Rix explained how he not only made a quality game, but how he promoted it after it was released. Among other things, he challenged the users of Reddit to make the game more popular than Angry Birds. The game is so successful that he quit his old job and started a new company, Magicule.

Robert Segal and Matt Coombe described the hard work that went into establishing their company, Get Set Games. They released two games but they didn't catch on. They decided that in order to make the company profitable they needed to make games faster, even though they had spent just three months on each of their two previous titles. They had a plan to make a game per month, and they already had 10 games planned out. Fortunately, Megajump became a massive success, which means they didn't have to rush through the other nine. They are now working on Mega Race.

Ubisoft's Max Beland and Alex Parizeau took to the stage to give us a status report on Ubisoft Toronto. They're working on a new Splinter Cell game and a second title, which remains a secret, despite Hatton's sly attempts to get them to talk about it. It sounds like things are humming along at Ubisoft Toronto, with employees new and veteran getting synced with the relatively new shop.

Finally, the night concluded with Jon Remedios, Wojtek Kawczynski and Jason Azevedo talked about TransGaming Studios (you're right Shaun, there were a ton of Jasons at this thing). The gang felt they could explain TransGaming better in song. So while Remedios and Acevedo took to guitars, Kawczynski talked about the founding of the studio, their games and their GameTree console. Remedios and Acevedo sang the last part of the rhyming couplet. At one point, they were forced to rhyme “Twitter” with “Fritter.”

Toronto IGDA plans to do another gala some time in the future. In the meantime, we go ahead with our next event, Straight Outta TO Jam: Pint-Sized Postmortems. Stay tuned for details.

IGDA Toronto would like to thank all of our presenters and Shaun Hatton for hosting the Spring Gala. Also, a big thank you to the Bell TIFF Lightbox for providing the space.