Create Your Own Torontron

11-06-2009 11:57 AM

Last Sunday at Canzine, Canada's largest 'zine fair, Toronto's own "video game collective" the Hand Eye Society were on hand with the Torontron, an arcade cabinet dedicated to showcasing local independent developers' games, produced as part of ToJam or the Artsy Game Incubator. The machine is intended to--hopefully--be used as a permanent installation at a Toronto bar or some other kind of public space, but I thought that as you already have a computer on hand, why not create your own?

Although at Canzine there was an illuminating session about creating your own home arcade cabinet, I'm proposing something much simpler--just downloading the games that were featured on the cabinet and playing them, because they're all worth a shot. There were six games:

First up, Night of the Cephalopods, from Miguel Sternberg, an amazing top down shooter that distinguishes itself by narrating what you do as you do it. It's quite something, oddly thrilling and very playable!

Next, lockOn 2, created by Jph Wacheski, the man who went to all the bother of building the Torontron. This is a quite unique "proximity shooter" that visually reminds me of a Jeff Minter game (if Jeff Minter was able to hold himself back from his worst visual excesses). The full version costs $5, but there's a perfectly servicable demo version for those of you who aren't sure about stumping up the cash straight away.

Then there's Rosemary Moscoe's Albacross, in which you play a forlorn albatross on the journey back to his mate. This has some especially lovely pixel art even if the gameplay is simplistic (it's like a top-down scrolling shooter, without the shooting) but it's still worth the playthrough just to enjoy the visuals (the picture of the albatross in love is just too adorable.)

Mondrian Provoked is inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, and developed by Jim McGinley, and it uses Mondrian-like artscapes to create a moving maze that you try to get to the end of--but just surviving is hard enough!

Some games are hard to describe, despite being simple, or rather, hard to explain. BananasInPajammers' absurd Monster Puncher is one such game, in which you play a monster/fist/helicopter hybrid punching fish flying into the sky. Give it a shot!

Finally there's Heavy Weather, not to be confused with the upcoming Heavy Rain, because this game is a lot more interactive, mature and intelligent. Well,sort of. You play a business man on Toronto's island trying to survive falling objects. It's quite silly and very slight, but a good high score timewaster!

You may notice that all these games are quite simple to play - relying on movement and at most two buttons. That was to make the games workable on the arcade cabinet (which only had a joystick and a couple of buttons) and to ensure that the games that would introduce people to Canadian indie development wouldn't be dauntingly complex. I think it's very successful, and these games all do serve as a nice introduction, but for those of you who might want something meatier, simply exploring the game links above should help you find some really fascinating titles.