#difference engine initiative

I got a notification from tumblr the other day that this blog is now two years old. I remember the initial flurry of setting it up amid the excitement of the Difference Engine Initiative, wanting someplace to house Adeline's Elopement, my first game, and talk about how and why I made it. 

I had a feeling back then that my life was about to change, but I didn't know quite how much. In the last two years...

Dames Making Games Toronto was founded roughly two years ago and has run three multi-week game-making programs, a workshop series, 19 speaker socials, three popular game jams, and a two-weekend "short program," with some amazing results.

I've made six small video games on my own and collaborated on several more. I've learned how to use a host of game-making tools and hope to be able to teach them to others.

I've given talks and spoken on panels at GameON, Feminists in Games, GRAND, FanExpo, DigiFest, and the Global Game Jam Arcade in Toronto. I'm about to add IndieCade to the list. DMG itself has been covered in the Globe and Mail, NOW Magazine, Comics and Gaming Monthly, InnerSPACE, and the Canadian Press. 

Had a lot of fun and met a lot of cool people at yesterday's TIFF Nexus Women in Film, Games, and New Media Day (the title is a bit of a mouthful; the conference topics leaned heavily towards games and visual art). Fellow DEI panelist Alex Leitch totally commanded the room with the Facial Hair of Authority (and some pointed/inspiring rhetoric), and Pearl Chen's excellent talk on why everyone should learn to code had me nodding my head vigorously.

On the Difference Engine panel, I was glad to be able to say the main thing I wanted to say. A lot of the talks, starting from the probably-correct assumption that most of the women in the room were non-coders, focused on the idea that technology/programming need not be intimidating, that artists and other creatives shouldn't shy away from learning how to do it and letting it enrich their work.

All of this is 100% true and necessary - coding is a skill that has served me very well in life, and knowing how to do it can be very empowering. But as someone who is formally educated in programming but not in art and design, I wanted to remind the artists/designers in the audience not to undervalue their own skills. Art/design is every bit as important, and every bit as difficult - if not more so - as learning how to code! 

Dames Making Games plug! Look for Jamuary info to go up in the next few days.

The games made by the six participants in the first round of the Difference Engine Initiative, plus those made by founders Mare Sheppard and Jim Munroe, have been officially released! My own contribution, the Victorian-themed stealth game Adeline's Elopement, can be found here, but it's the other games made by my fellow participants (who are amazing and whom I feel grateful to have met) that I'd like to highlight here.

Icarus by Sagan Yee

Description: Loosely based on the Greek myth of Icarus, if Icarus was a 20-something slacker trying to cope with the genius of his inventor father. Also, instead of building wax wings to escape an island, you make a jet pack!

Why you should play it: Beautiful, playful, lovingly-drawn visuals; interesting story; really entertaining parodies of genre novel writing; lonely robots.

Play it

Salsa Loco by Stephanie Fisher

Description: Salsa Loco is an anxiety-inducing top-down action game about harvesting vegetables for salsa. Unlike other farming games out there, this one is not played at a leisurely pace, unless you want to lose your crop to pests!

Why you should play it: twitchy, attention-consuming, and fun. Bunny rabbits. Comes with salsa recipes.

Play it

Dame Game by Zoe Quinn

Description: A point and click comedy/mystery game about an apartment full of nerds and some missing take-out. Also integrates external websites in to the game world!

Why you should play it: Witty noir-inspired dialog. Fedoras. Pictures of Humphrey Bogart AND Patrick Stewart. Gentle fun-poking at various nerd subcultures.

Play it

Unicorn Justice Fighter/Unicorn Robber Baron by Una Lee

Description: Part action game, part political economy simulation. Using your beautifully coloured droppings, you fight off the evil horses who can’t stand the awesomeness you bring into the universe. You can get other awesome unicorns to help you, or you can just knock them over and steal their stuff.

Why you should play it: Unicorns (lots of them). Unicorn droppings as a game mechanic/weapon. Deceptively difficult and twitchy. Makes you feel capitalist guilt when you steal stuff from the other unicorns (look at their sad, broken bodies!)

Play it

Kreayshawn: The Game by Beth Maher

Description: It’s here, it’s fresh, it’s shiny and it’s got the swag, and it’s pumping out its ovaries.

Why you should play it: It's a viral hit, so chances are you've played it already! Your enemies drop handbags when you shoot them, and when Kreayshawn dies, she turns into a kitty.

Play it