Marie-Christine-Bourdua
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Beers with Friends: Mixing drinks with Toronto's gaming scene
By ten in the evening, a steady stream of people stand outside the Get Well bar in downtown Toronto, clamoring to get in. The west-end watering hole is home to Torontaru, a new monthly meetup for local video game developers and players, which gathers on the last Wednesday of the month. Even in the event's three-month infancy, Torontaru has established itself as a meeting place for game developers to discuss fresh ideas or hatch harebrained schemes, but a casual and safe meeting place is at its core. Kris Piotrowski, creative director at Sword & Sworcery developer Capy Games, says conversations during Torontaru may lead to game ideas, but "maybe it's not intentional." "It just happens," he tells Joystiq. "This is the kind of environment where things do happen." The idea for a casual meetup for game makers in Toronto was one pulled from a similar event in Japan. Piotrowski, Marie-Christine Bourdua (Fez, producer) and Renaud Bédard (Fez, programmer) were inspired by a gathering organized by 8-4, a localization team and podcast crew based out of Shibuya, Japan. "[Marie-Christine and I] went to Japan a few years ago and we were invited to an event called Otaru, which is a gathering of developers," says Bédard. "I guess [the team at 8-4] wanted to have some kind of social evening that they could do every week - every Thursday - where they could drink with friends and bring whoever's in town to be part of it, so you just get there and you talk to people and meet people." Torontaru strives to bring that safe environment, for gamers and creators to come together, share drinks and stories and help grow an already expanding scene.
Fez 2 cancellation 'a surprise' to Polytron producer
Polytron producer Marie-Christine Bourdua said she was surprised to learn Fez 2 was canceled, telling Joystiq she wasn't even in Montreal – the studio's home base - when company co-founder Phil Fish announced the game's fate on Twitter. "But it's ok," Bourdua told Joystiq at Torontaru July, a new monthly meet-up for game players and developers in Toronto, Canada. "It was weird and special to learn it that way, but I respect and trust Phil a lot, so that's totally fair that he decided that and he has his reasons." "We learnt it the same minute you did," original Fez programmer Renaud Bédard said, referring to the Fez 2's abrupt cancelation announcement on Saturday. "The development of Fez 2 is up to him. If he decided [to cancel it] now or he decided it at the end of development, it's easier to cut it out now, than it is to say 'Hey, we've been working on this for years and I'm not feeling able to finish it.' So in that way it just makes more sense," Bédard, who joined Capybara Games at the tail-end of 2012, added.
