Open World Map: Digital Sovereignty for Game Creators
Join us for a technocritical day of demos, inspiration, and workshops towards a more open digital world for game creators!
Enshittified platforms and proprietary tools are not only making the world worse, but they make it harder for game creators to connect with an audience. But as tech-savvy systems thinkers, game creators are uniquely positioned to push back in a number of ways.
Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop, though a phone will do in a pinch.
10:00am: Apple & Google VS droqen
Did you know that a Toronto indie game maker took Google & Apple to court? A mild-mannered solo game dev was "the first to test amendments to Canada’s Competition Act that now allows private parties to challenge a companies’ conduct" (Toronto Star). Jennifer R. Whitson (Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology & Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo) joins Alexander Martin (aka droqen of Starseed Pilgrim fame) on stage for a coffee chat about the case and the consequences.
10:30am: Opening Up Your Workspace - Office and Communication Tools
Disgusted by Google's complicity with Trump, TGW co-organizer Jim Munroe kicked his 15 year habit in a month. He will be sharing the self-hosted alternatives for collaborative docs, safer email and calendar hosting options, and even an open source Android OS for his phone! Learn about community-run technocritical projects like Yunohost that makes DIY self-hosting much easier for the moderately technically able, and the power of asking for help in welcoming forums.
11:00am: Building a Better Internet Through Games
Christine Lemmer-Webber and David Thompson from the Spritely Institute have a long history of developing open source technology and decentralized (social) networking protocols such as ActivityPub, used most widely by Mastodon. But social applications could be so much more... if we developed new foundations for a community and user freedom respecting internet. But how to explain such tech, how to make sure it actually works, and how to keep it all fun? Spritely's team talks about their use of game jam demo-driven-development to build an internet for social good!
12:00pm: Opening Up Your Workspace - Game Creation Tools
Tired of feeling powerless when your game dev tools change their terms of service or increase their monthly fees? Matt Hammill (Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime) was, so he took the plunge into open source alternatives: Godot, Krita, Blender, and more. He'll give a tour of his workspace and share the pain points and keyboard shortcuts he learned along the way.
12:30pm: Lunch in the Open Garden
Come outdoors and have a unconference style discussion along with food provided by Alientrap Games.
1:30pm: Open Demo Time
Do you know about something cool -- or have you made something -- related to open source or decentralized tech? Hop on the mike and take a few minutes to show and tell.
2:00pm: One Character, Many Worlds
What if your D&D character could login to a video game? What if they could login to many games, and carry your escapades through many worlds? Join the notorious Cousin Vagabond (@rpg.actor) on a quest that transforms your Bluesky account into a passport for adventure! Along the way you'll learn how the AT Protocol is expanding our capacities game designers, liberating our data as players, and unlocking new ways to craft collaborative worlds beyond the social web.
2:30pm: Elephant in the Room
Have you bounced off the indie social media alternative, or never even tried it? Rob Gehl, author of Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse and the Struggle for Democratic Social Media (Oxford Press), will give us an insider tour and teach us hands-on tips and tricks to make the non-algorithmic and non-extractive option work for you and your game creation practice.
Part of https://torontogamesweek.com 2026!
Poster art: davidhellman.art