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The first year was at the Ossington Theatre: watching talks, demos from local developers Metanet, Spooky Squid, Capybara and an early Drinkbox Studios, broken up by a meet n’ greet cupcake break. It moved to the Toronto Underground Cinema. It also hopped between both George Brown and UofT campuses. It even momentarily occupied Wrongbar for an Anamanaguchi show, and a park on the Esplanade for a LARP-esque version of Mario Kart. This year, in a continuing tradition of changing things up, Gamercamp will be held in the boutique Hotel Ocho.

“I think Gamercamp is this whole idea of ‘why not,'” says festival founder and organizer Jaime Woo. “It’s funny. People who have been coming since the first Gamercamp have become used to the fact that the next Gamercamp won’t look like the previous one.”

Starting up just as Toronto began to dig its heels into indie game dominance, Gamercamp has served as an eclectic gathering of game-minds. Touching on everything from art assets, music compilation, and emotional reasoning, there have been featured keynotes from the creators of DayZ, Sword & Sworcery, Papo & Yo, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, The Depths to Which I Sink and plenty of other local tinkerers.

But as the city has grown, so has its relationships. There is now barely a month that goes by when there isn’t a session, social to-do or speaker series with guests nearby and abroad. That’s not to mention the international draw of Game Developers Conference and IndieCade. While the exercise may have been in earnest, Gamercamp’s ongoing transformation may be its biggest asset in the growing world of game chats.

“This is very grassroots,” says Woo, “just started by two people who really liked games. We don’t have a comic like Penny Arcade, we don’t have that culture around it… It’s really import that Gamercamp reflect the evolution of the Toronto scene, the evolution of the game scene, my evolution over the five years. When we started, talks were very new for Toronto. We’ve been very lucky that there are now a lot of them. It’s very important that there are more than the talks. While talks are fantastic, not everyone who would approach games might want to see a talk.” Some may want to play.

This weekend will have a raft of speakers, names both big and small. Jill Murray, a writer, will talk about her work on Assassin’s Creed’s talk-like-a-pirate sequel Black Flag. Alexander Bruce will speak about birthing his indie darling Antichamber. Journalist Ben Sainsbury will present his work on Stringer, an Oculus Rift program which simulates the heavy difficulties of covering a war. Vass Bednar, who works at Queen’s Park, will talk about games’ future role in politics.

It’s not all chit-chat. An even greater influence is being placed on playing games, an often-unifying factor. Ocho presents opportunities behind every door.

“I can’t wait for people to walk into the hotel and see games everywhere,” says Woo, “We’re jamming games inside the rooms and suites. We’re putting them up in the restaurant, putting them in the gallery space. There’s really nowhere in that hotel that won’t have games. Except for the washrooms. The washrooms don’t need any games.”

One room will house SoundSelf, an abstract voice controlled game which reacts to chanting by chanting back. Another has Starwhal: Just The Tip, a cybergalactic joust-fest starring cosmic narwhals. A Fishing Game With Actual Water, as advertised, has players tapping literal bowls of water, testing reflexes and getting fingers gross and pruney. There will also be general arcades, featuring Jazzpunk, The Stanley Parable, games from ToJam’s past, titles from the recent ROM collaboration and a sneak peak at some of the PlayStation 4’s weirder offerings (only confirmed being Octodad’s console debut).

There will also be curatorial aspects. On top of the ToJam retrospective, there will also be an exploration on ninjas, an enduring trope of the game world dissected by historical context, and appearances from creators of ninja games N++ and Mark Of The Ninja. There’s also Double Flawless, a gallery which gives a runway take to game heroes.

Gamercamp isn’t huge. It’s getting bigger. And its reputation is blooming. But given the modest amount of resources, it won’t likely bloat to the levels of PAX or GDC. But scale doesn’t equal greatness, and the amorphousness afforded by being small(er) scores it extra points.

“I think at some point that’s going to mellow out,” says Woo, “we’re trying to see what works for us. I’d rather things seem fresh than have it be something people can get used to. When a format works, we’ll stick to it. We’re not trying to arbitrarily change things. As games change in their role in culture, Gamercamp will have to change with it.”

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