"DRINK DEEP! OR TASTE NOT THE PLASMA POOL!" OR- HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE GAMERCAMP

Toronto's Indie game scene is more than just a few isolated pockets of developers cranking out a tiny title every few years-- it's a bonafide sub-a-culture-- and to say it's hot right now is a considerable understatement. For many years there was no major studios in town who were drawn to more tax-incentive friendly cities like Montreal and Vancouver. Instead the scene grew organically from the artistically rich and diverse inhabitants, who come to games from a variety of disciplines from programming to illustration, from composers to novelists.

This relative isolation produces great creativity--people who are in games in Toronto are there because they want to be-- there's a scene here because they made it. It's like a tropical island, with a wildly diverse ecosystem because it's been allowed to flourish. And Gamercamp seems to be where the birds come out to play, in a dazzling rainbow of colourful plumage. Besides talks and workshops from game creators, the real highlight was a showcase of dozens of new games from indie and small-scale studios.  

This is a hot scene with many exciting developers and studios coming out of it. The difference now, is that the talent has been able to grow, the majors are coming calling. Ubisoft has set up shop in the Junction, with 200 people hired at a studio, that they expect to staff up to 4 times that, and after cranking out a new Splinter Cell, create brand new 'IPs' and properties. Our goverment, through agencies like the OMDC, are also now starting to fund gaming ventures. The possiblities of true innovative content, exciting new narratives, and games that push the envelope for what the form can truly accomplish could be right around the corner. If there not here already. 

Every scene needs 'hubs', physical places and events around which it can congregrate, grow, coalesce. Like the way sea creatures thrive around coral reefs-- becoming one of the life-rich, colourful, and diverse spots in the ocean.  Toronto has these places too--places like Bento Miso, a collaborative workspace and inspirational meetup for up-and-coming developers; and events like TO JAM, a weekend-long game creation jam. And that's what Gamercamp was too. 

So what's that mean for a comic-book writer? Well-- the crossover is closer than you think. Cartoonists like Ben Rivers, whose book Snow won a prestigious Xeric grant a few years back, is pushing the ideas of the 'first-person' or unreliable narrator with his survival horror Home.  Jim Munroe, sci-fi comic writer and multimedia impressario is one of the architects behind the Toronto, and continues to explore the limits of narrative in gaming with projects like  Unmanned. And writer Christine Love is bringing the epistolary novel into the 21st century with stories like Analogue:A Hate Story, interactive, manga-influenced 'visual novels', a form that is already huge in Japan. 

I've been exploring games for the past year to look into their potential for narrative. But the more I do-- the more I see there is not one answer to be found. It's the wild west. Narrative in games is really what you make of it. And the through interactivity and the power of immersion, it has the capablity to reach, to grab hold of a viewer and make them feel something like nothing else can. And this is something that I will continue to explore. It's an interesting time...