Matthew J.X. Doyle introduces falsework studio, an LA-based, artist-led production company that treats the game engine as an artistic medium. Through Spider Lily (a Chinese-mythology worldbuilding project turned indie game) and Declaration of Dependence (an Unreal-powered MetaHuman installation at the 2026 Venice Biennale), he'll talk through the studio's philosophy as a service provider and incubator for artist IP, and the real-time craft behind both projects.

When the most American character in your video game adaptation is played by a Belgian martial artist, you know you’re in for something special. September 24th at 5:30 we’ll see how Jean-Claude Van Damme can unite a global force of brawlers to save the earth from a ruthless dictator. Please come back Jean-Claude!

Their System, Our Game looks at the history of Pathfinder and how it encourages aspiring makers to break into the game design space. Through interviews with player-creators and third party makers, the authors use a range of perspectives to define homebrew for TTRPGs. Taking a closer look at homebrew design, they create two homebrew campaigns (available as free downloads) collaboratively with two different groups of players. Player accounts of gameplay and designer reflections of how their homebrew actually played out at the game table outline some of the challenges and perks of designing on the fly, creating customized settings, and bending or breaking rules.

On September 12, come and play 59 EXPERIMENTAL GAMES — made by game makers based in Montréal !

Get tickets now for FREE at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ludodrome-2026-tickets-1993647769145?aff=oddtdtcreator

We end the year of TAG critical watch events with a Paul Anderson’s (not the one you think) 1995 classic, Mortal Kombat. While the Oscars that year completely ignored Mortal Kombat, awarding Babe (that’s the talking pig movie for those of you who weren’t around) for Best Visual Effects, Mortal Kombat was out there doing the real work. But where is Babe now? At a time when Mortal Kombat has multiple follow-up films and over two dozen games, the pig is nowhere to be found. Did this film play a role in the death of Babe? Can we credit some of the longevity of the Mortal Kombat franchise to this dynamic piece of media? All these questions and more are up for discussion as we celebrate the end of the term with a pigless tournament for the soul of Earthrealm.

Cinema. Has. Returned. Join us on Wednesday March 25th at 5:30 for a critical viewing and discussion of the new paradigm of game to screen adaptations: The Minecraft Movie. While not solar powered, staring at the screen displaying this movie for too long may certainly produce a result. My understanding is there is some kind of chicken in this film. As always, this is held in the Fine Arts screening room, EV 10.525.

On March 12th, TAG will be joined by the t3rkko game collective for a networking event. Join us at 3pm to meet the team and find opportunities to collaborate in game development!

Now you might be thinking that this movie looks terrible, and it is entirely possible that you’re right, but did you know this is the 4th highest grossing video game film of all time? Nostalgia for Azeroth is one hell of a drug. Join us on Wednesday February 18th to see legendary viking Ragnar Lothbrok battle some Orcs for the future of Azeroth in front of a green screen to the tune of 440 million gold pieces. The magic in this movie does look pretty cool though! As always, a discussion will follow the film screening so we can break down everything we’ll witness here.

Have you ever wanted to see the dramatized interiority of a tetromino? Well too bad, because this installment of the TAG Critical Watch Series features Taron Egerton playing a human being who really wants that good Tetris. Would this have been better if all the actors were playing blocks limited to horizontal movement while on a constant downward trajectory? These questions and more will be up for discussion as we critically watch Tetris on Wednesday January 28th, in the Fine Arts screening room, EV 10.525.

After captivating a bigger audience than normal when you accidentally kill the wrong character on stream, you discover an opportune strategy to grow your following: play EVIL to appeal to a wider audience.

Stream Evil is a research-creation project funded by SSHRC and the mLab that investigates tandem play: playing single-player games with multiple people. Research into tandem play shows that players often make different choices, take bigger risks, and/or lean into spectacle when playing together. Consequently, Stream Evil is a game developed to explore how audience feedback can shape moral decision-making during gameplay.

The team, Josh Spatzner, Jules Maier-Zucchino, Justin Roberts, Mia Consalvo, and Beck de Heuvel, have been working on this project for two years and are excited to finally share it with fellow TAG members! Please join us for a launch party in which we will finally publish the game and have it available for members at TAG to play it.

Join as Friday January 16th at 3:30 across from TAG in the Milieux Atelier (EV 11.425) as we celebrate the launch of Stream Evil!

Gotta go faster. Back by popular demand, we have Sonic the Hedgehog 2, a film that will surely deliver on the deep and winding threads established in the first film. Will Sonic continue to run? Will Tails have tails? Join us for the answer to these pressing questions and more during this installment of the TAG Critical Watch Series on Thursday December 11th, in the Fine Arts screening room, EV 10.525.

It’s 1989, the era of the Pinball Wizard has ended and a new hero emerges to face the challenge of a lifetime: Super Mario 3. Don your finest Power Glove and join us on Thursday November 13th at 5:30pm in the Fine Arts screening room, EV 10.525 for the TAG Critical Watch Party for The Wizard.

The Technoculture, Art, and Games Research Centre is holding an open house at Concordia University. Come check out the lab, meet our members, and see some of the game research and creative projects that happen at TAG.

We’ll see you on October 30th at 4pm in EV 11.435 for TAG’s Annual General Meeting. This is your chance to meet other TAG members, learn about all of TAG’s happenings this year, and to make yourself known to the TAG community.

Join Leonardo Abate, Michael Iantorno, and Marc Lajeunesse for a discussion about tabletop roleplaying games. We’ll look at exciting moments in the development of TTRPGs across time and place. Starting with a general overview of how TTRPGs developed in America, we’ll venture across the sea to look at the beautiful TTRPG coastline of Italy where in the 80s and 90s small but imaginative subcultures of TTRPG gaming developed independently, with games that were never translated to English. We’ll also discuss the development of the Open Gaming License and how it spawned subcultures of homebrew practices.

We’re starting off this year’s TAG Critical Watch Parties with Tron: Legacy. Have you wondered what it would be like to be trapped in a game when you’re dad is already trapped inside of that game? Of course you have! Tron: Legacy has answers to that age old question.

Join us for a screening of the film and a subsequent discussion on the themes, form, and legacy of Tron…..legacy.

Seating is limited and goes quickly. If you plan to attend please email tag.coordinator@concordia.ca with the subject line “Tron Critical Watch” to secure your seat as soon as possible.

Join Dr. Carl Therrien, Dr. Mia Consalvo, Nathanaël Roussy, and Elizabeth Eraña for a roundtable discussion on Disco Elysium. Dark play, detective stories, and the inner reaches and turmoils of the human mind are all on the table for this discussion!

Join us for a screening and discussion of 1995's Jumanji, featuring Robin Williams, roll to move mechanics, and CGI jungle animals.

The TAG Critical Watch Series is an opportunity to reflect on how video games are adapted and represented across film. The film screening will be followed by a short discussion, which is then followed by a podcast recording with select members of the audience and/or our guests. March's film is the original Jumanji (1995).

Seating is limited. If you would like to reserve a place on the podcast for this month's film ahead of time, or if you would like to suggest films for future screenings, please contact the TAG coordinator at tag.coordinator@concordia.ca.

Join us on March 14th for a talk on extreme design and game narrative with Evgeni Puzankov.

Evgeni Puzankov is a PhD student in the Department of Computational Art at York University. He is a game maker and narrative designer with over 15 years of experience, mostly specializing in weird, absurd, and political games. Evgeni has been teaching narrative design indepently for five years, and is a curator and producer of the indie micro-fund called ‘Briefs,’ presented by the Austrian art collective Gold Extra.

Join us for a screening and discussion of 2016's Assassin's Creed. No amount of hay can hide this film from our critical eyes!

The TAG Critical Watch Series is an opportunity to reflect on how video games are adapted and represented across film. The film screening will be followed by a short discussion, which is then followed by a podcast recording with select members of the audience and/or our guests. February's film (which is being screened in March to account for the break!) is Assassin's Creed (2016).

Seating is limited. If you would like to reserve a place on the podcast for this month's film ahead of time, or if you would like to suggest films for future screenings, please contact the TAG coordinator at tag.coordinator@concordia.ca.

To celebrate the launch of Streaming by the Rest of Us: Microstreaming on Twitch, TAG hosts a conversation about streaming to no one on Thursday February 20th at 3pm.

An in-depth investigation of the Twitch streamers who make up the largest population on the platform: those streaming to small audiences or even no one.

The vast majority of people who stream themselves playing videogames online do so with few or no viewers. In Streaming by the Rest of Us, Mia Consalvo, Marc Lajeunesse, and Andrei Zanescu investigate who they are, why they do so, and why this form of leisure activity is important to understand. Unlike the esports athletes and streaming superstars who receive the lion's share of journalistic and academic attention, microstreamers are not in it for the money and barely have an audience. In this, the first book dedicated to the latter group, the authors gather interviews from dozens of microstreamers from 2017 to 2019 to discuss their lives, struggles, hopes, and goals.

For readers interested in livestreaming, and Twitch in particular, the book rethinks the medium's history through accounts of the everyday uses of webcams, with particular attention to notions of liveness and authenticity. These two concepts have become calling cards for the videogame livestreaming platform and underlie streamer motivations, the construction of their practices (whether casual, serious, or anywhere in between), and the complex “metas” that take shape over time. The book also looks at the authors' own practices of livestreaming, focusing on what can be gained through experiencing the lived reality of the practice. Finally, the authors explain how Twitch's platform (studied from 2017–2023) informs how streamers structure their every day and how corporate ideologies bleed into real-world spaces like TwitchCon.

Pinball is an archaic arcade game for some, a technical marvel for others, and a favorite pastime for more and more dedicated players. Little is commonly known about pinball except that it’s made up of big sturdy amusement machines where you shoot steel marbles with flippers up a tilted playfield. Both game culture communities as well as scholars tend to underestimate the finesse of playing and the design decisions behind developing physical pinball devices. Most importantly, it is a game of hybridization in different aspects: Pinball is physical and digital, retro and contemporary, mechanical and electronic, skill-based and chance-induced. Therefore it should be worth more attention. This talk gives an overview on why pinball research could be more than a side note within game studies.