Where I’m Going To Be For Holiday

I’ve complained enough about the transition shock of full time employment. I was afraid I’d have no chance to go to conventions and events like I have over the past two years, let alone time to continue game development.

But I am going to places this year – Toronto, Vancouver, Hamilton and Ottawa.

April 2016 – TAAFI (Toronto, Ontario)

July 2016 – IEEE CEC (Vancouver, British Columbia)

July 2016 – ConBravo (Hamilton, Ontario)

September 2016 – OIAF (Ottawa, Ontario)

If last year was the year of game conferences for me, this year is the year of animation conferences. The Toronto Animated Arts Festival International (TAAFI) and Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) are supposedly among the best festivals for animation, aside maybe from Annecy in France. More realistically, other film festivals in Toronto and Montreal have more notable animated features despite focusing on standard live-action work. Regardless, I loved TAAFI, and I’m excited for OIAF. If nothing else, it’ll be a few days to relax, something I can use more of.

IEEE CEC is a little different… an artificial intelligence conference, where I’ll present a paper I’m publishing. I’ll talk more about that research soon, as it will tie into my next game project. And this is an excuse to see Vancouver, the San Francisco of Canada, for only 80% the living cost. Being the long touted epicentre of games and animation, maybe I’ll get lucky and find something cool walking around the city.

And ConBravo I was at last year, but as an exhibitor. This will be my first time purely as a attendee. It was convenient to spend the weekend there this year on the connection flight back from Vancouver. The con’s mobile app is brilliant for social media, and the event actually has a number of voice actors and Youtube stars I’ve heard of this year, so I’ll enjoy myself immensely.

It’s notable that I am not exhibiting at any of these. I have no updates ready to show yet, and many of my adventures last year robbed me of the chance to just walk around and enjoy being a geek. I’m making that up now, maybe it’ll make me a better exhibitor next year.

So if you will be in any of these cities, and you see a meek kid with messy hair and foggy glasses and a skinny brightly coloured tie, don’t be afraid to say hi!

And if you are around Windsor, please do check out Hackforge’s monthly Order of Indie Game Developers meeting. The last couple of presentations have been knockouts, and you’ll be happy you came.