Even with only 2 previous Gamercamp events, my expectations for this years festival to celebrate play were enormous.  I began to question whether it was possible to top last year’s event but somehow Jamie and Mark managed to do it again.

Last year, my main attraction to Gamercamp were not the game discussions or the amazing key note speakers.  Even though I am both a fan and a creator of games, I was drawn to the Saturday night 1-up event: an Anamanaguchi concert.  With no expectations for any other part of the weekend long event and only a small glimpse of the independent game community in Toronto, I was soon thrown into a whirlwind of intelligent designers and talented creators.  I was surrounded by movers and shakers making waves in the game industry.  Between new glimpses into the then unreleased Sword & Sorcery and the announcement for The Bleed Pixels, the discussions lead by teachers and professors about the philosophy of play and the all around casual nature of people in their PJs on a Sunday morning eating cereal, watching cartoons and playing some retro games, I somehow managed to forget that this was the world that I was trying to enter.

Now, still new but finally in the industry and working with some amazing people, Gamercamp has been a different but equally incredible experience.  All the same people were floating about, though for most their roles had changed, and some new faces that have made themselves more widely known in the past year and mingling with them has been fantastic.  I didn’t have my notepas out this time furiously scribbling down names of people I should know but could actually walk up and talk to some of them.  Even better, those whom I have already had the pleasure of getting to know then introduced me to others and i began to realize how large yet tight knit the scene in Toronto is.

And i am a part of it.

It blows my mind.

I think one of the new friends I met today, Michael Brown (appologies in advance to everyone else I met that I’m not mentioning, you were all amazing as well!), put it best when after talking about getting the job at Queasy, used the world surreal to describe the experience.  It is the best word I could use to not just describe this years Gamercamp but the last three months.

I won’t delve into the specific talks or demos I found most interesting.  There were enough people furiously tweeting and blogging away at George Brown today.  But i will say that it was an amazing experience, not just as a stand alone event, but as punctuation to my experiences since my new venture in local development.

Hopefully this shorter and more personal view on Gamercamp hasn’t bored you and you decide to come out next and have your own experience if you haven’t had one yet.