Project Play teams up with Forest City Comicon

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: JAMIESON ROBERTS / PROJECT PLAY
The first two years of Project Play were hosted here on campus. They've now outgrown the space and are teaming up with Forest City Comicon for the largest event of it's kind on October 18 at the London Convention Centre.

Project Play is a charitable organization that hosts a one-day gaming event in order to raise money to support community organizations in London, and for the first time since the company was founded in 2012 they are teaming up with Forest City Comicon to bring a bigger, more involved event to London. Co-founder of Project Play Greg Picken says that the people at Forest City and Project Play are all very community-minded.

“Our motto from the get-go has been about building community, whether it’s through the charitable side, or just getting people together to play games. And they’re definitely a group of people that have had the same mentality, so it’s a perfect fit.”

The company itself is a team of five people, but everyone who helps out on the event day is a volunteer. Picken says that makes it so that a lot of money can go back into the community. The money goes into gaming bundles, which include consoles, TVs, videogames and board games that they donate to organizations that work with families and children.

“We see it as a great opportunity to support organizations and groups in the city that are doing fantastic things.”

Organizations that they have given to include Merrymount Children’s Center, Women’s Community House, the Women’s Rural Resource Center of Strathroy, and the Northwest London Community Resource Center. This year Picken said they want to focus on a theme of inclusiveness; one confirmed organization is the London chapter of Autism Ontario, who work in the community with youth and adults with autism.

Project Play’s event day includes board games, card games and role-playing games, as well as tournaments. There will also be videogames from local companies, as well as smaller developers.

“It’s really neat to see people discover games that are being made in their own community, and games that they may even play and not even realize that they’re made in London.”

Digital Extremes, Big Blue Bubble and Big Viking Games will all be involved, as well as a number of smaller companies including Sky Orchard Games, Halfbot and some people who just develop games for fun. It’s a good way for indie developers to get feedback on their games, even if it’s only a prototype.

The first two years of Project Play were hosted in Fanshawe’s Student Union Building, which gave them a good connection with the game development program here.

“If you come out here and check out a game, and it kind of inspires you to say ‘I’d like to be able to make a game’, then Fanshawe is right there that we can point people to… that’s always been key for us, is just having as many opportunities as possible to support the community all under one roof. We get the players together in supporting that side of things; it’s all for a good cause in the community.”

Forest City Comicon is Oct. 18 and with Project Play in partnership there will be a lot of extra content to look forward to.

For more information, visit projectplay.ca