So we are finally reaching the end of 2012 and I feel that the last six months have really been successful. I have been scrolling through the blog and have been so impressed with how active everyone has been and wanna send out a big squish to everyone for being so excellent!
The 5 à 7’s continue to be super successful as does Mia’s book club – sometimes with as many as 18 attendees J. Our students keep on getting involved in interesting projects – like the Maker Faire and Arse Electronika, as well as Faculty and Research Fellows are going to cool events like IndieCade and getting noticed and reported on by CTV news. Propinquity is at the end of its prototyping phase and has been play tested with breakers JoDee and Greg. Propinquity was also shown at both MIGS here in Montreal as well as in San Francisco at the Come Out and Play festival. PlayPR continues with the Skype presentations (and the attendance has been super impressive) and we even got a chance to do a weeklong wormhole experiment, first with Toronto and then with Vancouver (I am still interested in people’s impressions). All and all there has been a lot of action – I encourage you to check out the blog…
To look forward – I just wanted to mention a few things that are on my radar in case it interests you… 2013 will likely bring with it more snow – but there is plenty to do inside 🙂
Tag will be hosting the ‘Gaming Beyond Screens’ workshop with invited guests Douglas Wilson (Joust), Kaho Abe (Hit Me!) and Jim Toeple (Dance Central). They will be here from Feb 7 – 10th. There will be some interesting work sessions (if you want to attend let me know) as well as a panel discussion on the 8th of Feb followed by an arcade/ 5 à 7 – with a bunch of physical games set up – including Propinquity, Joust, Dance Central – and one of Kaho’s.
Mia is in the process of deciding when her workshop will be – she is leaning for the last week of February – just after reading week. I don’t know too much about this – but I do know it will be for two days and Clara Fernández-Vara will be leading it. The theme of the workshop is – Storytelling in Games.
Jonathan Lessard is following up his successful Demo scene jam with the Global Game Jam scheduled to take place the 25th – 27th of January. So do tell as many people as possible – should be fun. We should have room for up to 60 people.
Angelique Manella (Decode Global) is joining TAG to run the Concordia-Dawson Games Incubator this summer with a team including Jason Begy and Joachim Desplands. We are super excited to have her aboard and look forward to new developments. It is scheduled to run through the summer of 2013.
Concordia will be presenting at the next SKYPE meeting, which is scheduled sometime in late January or early February. I would love to show work in progress or try some experimental prototyping session that includes an audience/ participants from across Canada. Anyone in PlayPR who is familiar with the presentations – please feel free to shoot me an e-mail with ideas or suggestions.
Talks – Henry Jenkins will be giving a talk at 6pm on Jan 10th at the Hall building entitled “The Transmedia Generation” – Ian Bogost will be coming between the 23rd – 25th of January (more details on the events page as I get them) – Tracey Fullerton should be coming sometime around the 17 – 20th of April (more details on the events page as I get them).
The deadlines that I know about are as follows…
1 – CHI – Jan 5th: Submissions for Works in Progress, Alt.CHI, Interactivity etc… and Jan 4 – 11: Submissions to participate in Workshops.
2 – FDG 2013 – Submission deadline for papers, panel proposals, doctoral consortium has been extended to 21 Dec, 2012. The research and experimental game festival submission deadline is Jan 13th, 2013.
3 – Games + Learning + Society 2013 is still accepting submissions until January 31, 2013.
Just do it!
That’s it for now – my intention is not to name it all – but to just raise a flag – that there are so many things happening and there will be so much more to come. Thanks to everyone for contributing – I look forward to seeing you all in 2013. Merry Christmas!