Cecily Carver

News Has a Kind of Mystery

Me and my two theatre-related games are in today’s Globe and Mail! The piece covers my game for Praxis Theatre’s Jesus Chrysler, my game for Ride the Cyclone, the interactive web experience for Canadian Stage’s Red, and the Royal Opera House’s opera-themed iPhone game. The author notes that “in video games, as seldom in life or theatre, you can always repair your mistakes by starting again.”

In more game-oriented media, the witty and insightful Leigh Alexander recaps last Friday’s TIFF Nexus Difference Engine panel in an article for Gamasutra, with extensive quotes from me and the other five Difference Engine panelists. The Toronto Standard also has a summary of the events at TIFF Nexus, including the excellent discussions of feminism in games.

CLARIFICATION: of the games listed in the Globe and Mail article, I made the Ride the Cyclone game and the Jesus Chrysler game. I didn’t make the games for Red or the Royal Opera House.

TIFF Nexus Recap

Had a lot of fun and met a lot of cool people at yesterday’s TIFF Nexus Women in Film, Games, and New Media Day (the title is a bit of a mouthful; the conference topics leaned heavily towards games and visual art). Fellow DEI panelist Alex Leitch totally commanded the room with the Facial Hair of Authority (and some pointed/inspiring rhetoric), and Pearl Chen’s excellent talk on why everyone should learn to code had me nodding my head vigorously.

On the Difference Engine panel, I was glad to be able to say the main thing I wanted to say. A lot of the talks, starting from the probably-correct assumption that most of the women in the room were non-coders, focused on the idea that technology/programming need not be intimidating, that artists and other creatives shouldn’t shy away from learning how to do it and letting it enrich their work.

All of this is 100% true and necessary - coding is a skill that has served me very well in life, and knowing how to do it can be very empowering. But as someone who is formally educated in programming but not in art and design, I wanted to remind the artists/designers in the audience not to undervalue their own skills. Art/design is every bit as important, and every bit as difficult - if not more so - as learning how to code! 

Dames Making Games plug! Look for Jamuary info to go up in the next few days.

If you’re looking for my game, Adeline’s Elopement, it’s here!

What Have I Been Up To?

Tom Jokinen’s feature about the Canadian Opera Company in the December issue of The Walrus, Adventures of a Supernumerary, included a brief interview with me. If you’re interested in the ideas I expressed - which boiled down to “opera is weird/wonderful”  - you might be interested in this blog post I wrote on the subject in my days before working at the COC. The subject of whether opera can ever really be broadly “accessible” is something I still think about a lot.  

I took on the role of co-coordinator (with my fellow Difference Engine Initiative alum Zoe Quinn) for Dames Making Games. After a few very fun and very well-attended socials, I’m looking forward to taking on some bigger challenges (and hopefully, seeing some very cool games) with this project.

I also spent the last several months as the “social media person” for Ride the Cyclone, a Canadian musical, as it toured to Vancouver, Whitehorse, and Toronto. Everywhere it went there were sold-out houses and ecstatic reviews, and when I finally met the cast and creative team they turned out to be a truly wonderful bunch of people - and so social-media-savvy that working with them was a breeze and a joy. As part of the promotion I made a video game for the show, Space Age Bachelor Man.

I was also approached by Praxis Theatre to make a video game along the same lines for their play Jesus Chrysler, this time titled Save a Pinko. The mechanics are somewhat more sophisticated (and the game is considerably more difficult) than Space Age Bachelor Man - check it out!

As an alum of the Difference Engine Initiative, today I’ll be speaking on a panel at the TIFF Nexus Women in Film, Games, and New Media Day. I’m looking forward to chatting about our experiences with this program, which has already shaped my life in so many positive ways.

The Difference Engine Games

The games made by the six participants in the first round of the Difference Engine Initiative, plus those made by founders Mare Sheppard and Jim Munroe, have been officially released! My own contribution, the Victorian-themed stealth game Adeline’s Elopement, can be found here, but it’s the other games made by my fellow participants (who are amazing and whom I feel grateful to have met) that I’d like to highlight here.

Icarus by Sagan Yee

Description: Loosely based on the Greek myth of Icarus, if Icarus was a 20-something slacker trying to cope with the genius of his inventor father. Also, instead of building wax wings to escape an island, you make a jet pack!

Why you should play it: Beautiful, playful, lovingly-drawn visuals; interesting story; really entertaining parodies of genre novel writing; lonely robots.

Play it

Salsa Loco by Stephanie Fisher

Description: Salsa Loco is an anxiety-inducing top-down action game about harvesting vegetables for salsa. Unlike other farming games out there, this one is not played at a leisurely pace, unless you want to lose your crop to pests!

Why you should play it: twitchy, attention-consuming, and fun. Bunny rabbits. Comes with salsa recipes.

Play it

Dame Game by Zoe Quinn

Description: A point and click comedy/mystery game about an apartment full of nerds and some missing take-out. Also integrates external websites in to the game world!

Why you should play it: Witty noir-inspired dialog. Fedoras. Pictures of Humphrey Bogart AND Patrick Stewart. Gentle fun-poking at various nerd subcultures.

Play it

Unicorn Justice Fighter/Unicorn Robber Baron by Una Lee

Description: Part action game, part political economy simulation. Using your beautifully coloured droppings, you fight off the evil horses who can’t stand the awesomeness you bring into the universe. You can get other awesome unicorns to help you, or you can just knock them over and steal their stuff.

Why you should play it: Unicorns (lots of them). Unicorn droppings as a game mechanic/weapon. Deceptively difficult and twitchy. Makes you feel capitalist guilt when you steal stuff from the other unicorns (look at their sad, broken bodies!)

Play it

Kreayshawn: The Game by Beth Maher

Description: It’s here, it’s fresh, it’s shiny and it’s got the swag, and it’s pumping out its ovaries.

Why you should play it: It’s a viral hit, so chances are you’ve played it already! Your enemies drop handbags when you shoot them, and when Kreayshawn dies, she turns into a kitty.

Play it

(PS: Are you a woman who would like to make a game of your very own? Or perhaps you’re already making games? Check out Dames Making Games, a friendly group of lady game enthusiasts!)

Space Age Bachelor Man: The Game

Ride the Cyclone, a funny, dark, and touching musical, is coming to Toronto on Nov. 10. I’m working with Ride the Cyclone on their social media, and also created this game featuring the character Ricky Potts from the show! Ricky is an awkward, nerdy type who dreams of a much sexier life on another planet; in his mind he’s the Swingin’ Space Age Bachelor Man (complete with shiny cape, revealing outfit, and dance moves) who rescues the Cat People of Zolar.

Play the game!

Who’s Cecily?

During work hours, I’m a social media professional: the person who does the tweeting/Facebooking/blogging for the Canadian Opera Company. Outside of work hours, when I’m not working on my freelance projects, I am the developer behind such exciting titles as Adeline’s Elopement and The Escape of Queen Victoria.

After graduating with a degree in Computer Science from the University of Alberta, I worked in the software/development industry for several years in Toronto and NYC, mostly as a .NET consultant on an assortment of projects.

One of my biggest passions (and greatest comforts) is opera. Last year I switched gears dramatically to work as a social media co-ordinator for the Canadian Opera Company. I am thrilled to be working so close to the art that I love, not to mention writing about it on a daily basis. Before working for the COC, I maintained a blog, “All Time Coloratura,” that chronicled my experiences as a Toronto opera-goer.

This summer I had the opportunity to participate in the Difference Engine Initiative, a program founded by Mare Sheppard and Jim Monroe of the Hand Eye Society to encourage more women to become game developers. My first game, Adeline’s Elopement, launched at a Hand Eye Society social on Oct. 3, 2011.

While I’ve never really self-identified as a “gamer”, a number of games have been important to me at various points in my life, especially ADOM, Monkey Island 1 and 2, Grim Fandango, and Baldur’s Gate I and II.

I hope to make the kinds of games that speak to my nerdy girl friends, with an emphasis on literary references, witty asides,  and unusual (especially if female-focused) subject matter. Adeline’s Elopement, inspired partially by the Thief games and partly by an early 19th-century novel titled Adeline Mowbray, was my first effort in the “2D stealth games inspired by novels” genre.

Aside from opera, games, and social media, I enjoy literature, dancing, and playing the piano. While I was born in British Columbia and raised mostly in Alberta, I’ve been a proud Torontonian for several years. I live in the Annex with my partner, Dave.