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GamerCamp Level 3 Coming To The Bathurst Street Theatre

GamerCamp [1]GamerCamp [1] Level 3 is coming to Toronto’s Bathurst Street Theatre (and other various venues around Toronto) on November 25th-27th, and this is shaping to be the event’s biggest – and possibly best – festival to date (at least until Level 4). The full GamerCamp Schedule [2] and Speaker Bios [3] are now online. This year’s keynote speaker will be Seth Cooper, Chief Architect and Lead Designer of Foldit, a membrane-folding puzzle game that made international headlines when its players solved, in less than three weeks, a key mechanism in HIV that had stumped scientists for over ten years. Seth’s Friday morning presentation is sure to be inspiring.

Other featured speakers include:

GamerCamp’s Demos will continue the tradition of pushing the boundaries of where games can go, with Craig Adams [11] and Damian Sommer [12] presenting the technology behind Eye Pilot, possibly the world’s first optically-controlled video game. After their talk, you’ll be able to check out Eye Pilot as well as three other very cool peripherals that came out of an initiative spearheaded by Emilie McGinley from Bigpants [5]. Dustin Freeman [13] will be talking about Tweetris, a Kinect hack that is a mix between Tetris and Hole In The Wall—with a special version created for Gamercamp.

The demos, of course, are only a fraction of the estimated over 40 games attendees will be able to try at Gamercamp – but you won’t be able to experience any of it if you don’t get your tickets now [14], before they’re all gone!

Sunday morning, Gamercamp also brings back the 8-Bit Cereal Breakfast, which was a big hit with attendees last year. Last year we went through over 50 lbs of cereal and 100 litres of milk! We’ll have to break that record for 2011.

Events like the 8-Bit Cereal Breakfast are the signature of Gamercamp, and for Lv3 the organizers are introducing three new experiences that are sure to inspire:

Urban Road Trip – What would a live-action Mario Party look like? We asked ourselves that question and the Urban Road Trip, held on Saturday night, was born. Teams of five will race across the city to compete in mini-games like “Human Mario Kart” to battle it out for bragging rights and our inaugural Gamercamp Gaudy Trophy! The Urban Road Trip is included with Gamercamp but
separate sign up is required.

Grilled Cheese Factory – With all the fun we had with the 8-Bit Cereal Breakfast, we knew there had to be another food-based event. Enter the Grilled Cheese Factory – an homage to the legendary lunch food—the grilled cheese sandwich. Attendees will experience a buffet of breads and toppings including Kraft Singles, PB&J, sriracha, Nutella, and bananas—to create a time machine in their mouths.

MakerU Iron Chef Competition -Finally, tangentially on the food side, we are also hosting our first Iron Chef competition, where devs will put their skills to the test in a three hour jam to create a game around a secret ingredient. The competition will be part of MakerU, our games laboratory where attendees can build a board game with Adam Clare of the Board Game Jam [15], be part of a game within a game led by David Fono and Kate Raynes-Goldie of Atmosphere Industries [16], and learn how to make basic digital games with Jason P. Kaplan [17] of Game Prototype Challenge [18]. At the end of MakerU, attendees will vote on their favourite Iron Chef game proving who rules above all at Gamercamp Stadium.