Welcome to the Papercut Arcade

What is The Papercut Arcade.

The Papercut Arcade Collective was formed with the intention to run interactive events, workshops and exhibitions. We aim to produce interactive stories and games, share and inspire each other through creative challenges, and to create safe spaces to explore creativity and art with like-minded folks. We are still shaking out the details of our identity as a collective and so stay in touch as we collaborate and coalesce into the creative collective we aim to become.

Our collective strives to be an inclusive and safe group for people of all races, identities, and levels of education. We wish to respectfully acknowledge that we host events, and play on the *unceeded*, ancestral, and traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.

Upcoming Events

The Great Selfie Battle #3

Photo description: A black and white, head and shoulders image of a person with short bobbed hair cut, posed with gloved-fist raised and mouth open in a scream. Behind them, a cartoonish, graphical backdrop features a many-pointed star and dots.

Photo Challenge: Self portrait snapshots on a theme.
Date: November 23rd 2019
Location: Online
Hashtag: #GreatSelfieBattle2019
Participants: Louise Chow, Kay Slater, and Christopher Alan Slater.

Embrace the selfie.

The self portrait, a portrait of an artist produced or created by that artist*, has a long and noble tradition. The selfie however is often associated with low art and derided for it's casual and ephemeral nature. From duck face to selfie sticks, it is not a type of self-portrait that commands much respect. This makes it the perfect method by which we can practice our photography and creativity without the worry of being "a good photographer".

This November, a few members of our collective will publish the results from our Selfie Battle list of photo prompts. The only restrictions for this challenge are that participants be the focus of each shot, that each selfie be in some way connected to a prompt, and that the final snapshot be uploaded to social media using our collaborative hashtag. Artists are encouraged to embrace all the elements and tools used to produce a series of selfies tagged with #GreatSelfieBattle2019. Photos will be shared via social media (any channel is fine) with the understanding that clubIF will collect and repost on their instagram channel to archive the event. The challenge will remain closed for one more year as we figure out how we want to open the challenge to others and how to ultimately present this work going forward.

Collective members Kay Slater and Louise Chow have engaged in this challenge (of their own making) for the past two years. Check out #GreatSelfieBattle2018 and #GreatSelfieBattle2017 on instagram for previous years!

CYOA JAM #2

Home: An Interactive Domestic Fiction Salon Photo description: A black and white image showing 2 people leaning over tablets, across from each other at a table. Between the tablets is a bowl of pistachio nuts, a glass of liquid, and a white title card for the project.
Date: November 30th, 2019
Location: 336 E 1st Avenue, Vancouver/Coast Salish Territory.
Check out the public facebook event here
Participants: Open Call (see below). Now accepting applications*.

Let's make some (more) interactive fiction! We will use the theme HOME to create interactive stories/games during the month of November with the intent to share with folks on November 30th.

The writing theme that connects our work is HOME, but the format in which you present your interactive story is up to you. You can do a mini booklet, a Twine project, a performance piece, an RPG game, an audio project, or any other format you can think of! Work within theme and then get it ready to share with a public audience on November 30th at our salon. During the month, we invite you to use the hashtag #clubIFHome so we can document the event! First time making interactive fiction? Don't struggle in silence and isolation! Throughout the month of November, our club channels will be active (chat with folks via our Facebook messenger or Discord channels) as we collaborate and share our process (and often, our frustration) while making our stories.

Need some inspiration? Check out some of the work that was created during our last ClubIF jam!

Our application process for CYOA events is very informal. As long as you adhere to basic rules of respect, are willing to label any content that may be unsuitable for public consumption, and are willing to challenge yourself to produce work on theme with the event - we want you to participate. The CYOA jam (which happens throughout November) involves conversation and sharing our our social media platforms. The final salon event will showcase work that was produced and our collective members reserve the right to review and approve all materials presented at our public events.

Note: We will be trying to drive some donations on behalf of the GVFB (Greater Vancouver Food Bank). In fact, here's the link to our donation page if you want to get a head start on us!
ClubIF defines *artist as a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a sculptor, photographer, painter, novelist, poet, or filmmaker. The keyword is practice; therefore, if you make art or produce work with the intent of participating in a ClubIF challenge or exhibition, you ARE an artist.

Inedible Cakes

A multimedia salon. Photo description: A black and white image of a black forest cake, flipped upside down.
Date: February 13th, 2019
Location: 336 E 1st Avenue, Vancouver/Coast Salish Territory.
Participants: Open Call (see below). Now accepting applications.

Whether she said it or not, Marie-Antoinette's infamous quote "let them eat cake" has been used for everything from a call to arms for class revolution to ironic patisserie slogans. These words have come to be associated with the naive, the willfully ignorant, the libertine, and the apathetic. As we stand in front of the ticking clock counting down to when our planet's temperature will rise another 1.5℃, we are surrounded on both sides by those who wield capitalistic ownership and those who choose to plug their ears and cling angerly to their privilege and heritage.

This salon will feature an open call to artists and creators. Non-collective members are invited to submit one project for consideration (in progress or final art, writing or performance). Due to space constraints, we’ll only accept one submission per artist at a maximum framed size of 24 inches (width or length). Works on paper must be framed and all 2D work should be ready to hang (unless it is a booklet or reading material). For interactive submissions requiring technology, artists and creators will be responsible for acquiring hardware and setting up their projects for the salon. Projects that incorporate food items (perishable or non-perishable) will need to be contained, and cleaned up sustainably by the artist at the conclusion of the salon.

Submission deadline for consideration is Friday February 7 at 5pm. Drop-off to collective from February 8–9 (11am–5pm) – be sure to submit your jpg/write up in advance! DO NOT BRING IN YOUR ART UNLESS YOU’VE RECEIVED APPROVAL. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Note: ClubIF defines *artist as a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a sculptor, photographer, painter, novelist, poet, or filmmaker. The keyword is practice; therefore, if you make art or produce work with the intent of participating in a ClubIF challenge or exhibition, you ARE an artist.

CYOA JAM #3

A Salon Those Theme Is Yet Undecided Photo description: A black and white image showing 2 people leaning over tablets, across from each other at a table. Between the tablets is a bowl of pistachio nuts, a glass of liquid, and a white title card for the project.
Date: April 23rd, 2019
Location: 336 E 1st Avenue, Vancouver/Coast Salish Territory.
Participants: Open Call - Not Yet Open (see CYOA 2 above).

Let's make some (more) interactive fiction! Theme is yet undecided but we are aiming for our 3rd public event to happen April 23rd.

The format in which you present your interactive story is up to you. You can do a mini booklet, a Twine project, a performance piece, an RPG game, an audio project, or any other format you can think of! Work within (the as yet undecided) theme and then get it ready to share with a public audience on April 23rd at our salon. During the month, we invite you to use the hashtag #clubIFHome so we can document the event! First time making interactive fiction? Don't struggle in silence and isolation! Throughout the month of November, our club channels will be active (chat with folks via our Facebook messenger or Discord channels) as we collaborate and share our process (and often, our frustration) while making our stories.

Need some inspiration? Check out some of the work that was created during our last ClubIF jam!

Our application process for CYOA events is very informal. As long as you adhere to basic rules of respect, are willing to label any content that may be unsuitable for public consumption, and are willing to challenge yourself to produce work on theme with the event - we want you to participate. The CYOA jam (which will happen throughout April) involves conversation and sharing our our social media platforms. The final salon event will showcase work that was produced and our collective members reserve the right to review and approve all materials presented at our public events.

Note: We will be trying to drive some donations on behalf of the GVFB (Greater Vancouver Food Bank). In fact, here's the link to our donation page if you want to get a head start on us!
ClubIF defines *artist as a person who practices any of the various creative arts, such as a sculptor, photographer, painter, novelist, poet, or filmmaker. The keyword is practice; therefore, if you make art or produce work with the intent of participating in a ClubIF challenge or exhibition, you ARE an artist.

Past Events

CYOA JAM #1

Photo description: A black and white image of a white walled room with several people milling about, reading or playing games. A large table on the left hosts 3 laptops at which 2 people sit playing games. In the background, the door to the street is open and a vehicle can be see parked outside.

Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Date: June 13 at 7PM
Location: Coast Salish Territory/East Vancouver
Check out the public facebook event here

Our inaugural group of ClubIF Jammers were an eclectic bunch of animators, artists, designers, musicians, programmers, and writers playing with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" concept around the chosen theme of "HUNGER". Featuring the work of Alix Anttila, Toren Atkinson, Louise Chow, Emile Koelhuis, Emily Papel, Kay Slater, Christopher Alan Slater, Lisa Smedman, TomoRobo, and Brendan Vance.

We're in the process of collecting and consolidating all of the event content onto the website. If you were one of our creators, please be sure to fill out and return the Google Form (sent via Facebook) so that we can feature your work on this website!

Note: We encourage donations on behalf of the GVFB (Greater Vancouver Food Bank). To support our efforts, please check out this link to our donation page!

Projects

CYOP

Creator: Christopher Alan Slater
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: Twine, Playable Online, One Player.
Content Advisories: Mature Language. Sexual Language and Innuendo. A Cocktail Recipe.

Hunger shows up in my poetry in a few ways. In A Malfunctioning Effigy, it's everywhere. In east vancouver (main street), it's both on and under the surface. And in Black-eyed Violet, it's a bit of a problem, I would say.

Description of the Work:

Playing more with the structure and format than with the exhibition's assigned theme of Hunger, CYOP is simply an experiment using the interactive fiction writing (IF) tool Twine for creating something other than interactive fiction.

Project Files:

CYOP

Hungry Ghosts

Photo description: 3 Screenshots are shown with 1 large photo on the left and 2 smaller images stacked atop one another on the right. The left hand image shows green grass, a large ying/yang symbol, Chinese gate architecture and two small figures. The text caption reads: You must journey into the past. Eight places you must visit. Eight times you must consult the I-Ching . On the right, the top image shows a laptop with RPG maker and a screenshot of the work-in-progress game. The lower right photo shows another grass background game shot with trees, two figures and some very small text on a grey rectangular background.

Creator: Lisa Smedman
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: RPG Maker, Windows, One Player.
Content Advisories: Safe for all ages, mentions the word "rape" but does NOT depict it in any way.

When does love turn to hate? When does a relationship sour? Is it a single event that tips the balance, or the accumulated weight of individual moments? "Hungry Ghosts" uses a choose-their-past format, in which the player chooses alternative versions of a couple's history, to help avoid a tragic outcome.

Description of the Work:

Hungry Ghosts was created as a "vertical slice" of an envisoned game that combines iChing fortune telling with a love story that has gone horribly wrong. By choosing the right "fortunes" for the couple, across eight different slices of that couple's relationship, the player reshapes history to avoid a tragic outcome. PLEASE NOTE: Only the Forest level (linked via the tree) is playable; the rest are not yet complete.

Project Files:

Download Hungry Ghosts for Windows (.exe)

The Hungry Hills

Creator: Christopher Alan Slater
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: Twine, Playable Online, One Player.
Content Advisories: Violence. Murder. Death. Poison. Intoxication. Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles...

For what do we hunger? We have an appetite for food and drink, of course. We can hunger for power or merely for approval. Some of us hunger for companionship and some of us hunger for violence. These come up pretty frequently in your typical western fantasy roleplaying games and their narratives. Since I'm already working on one project in that context, I figured what the heck, let's go there again.

Anyways, here's the blurb for it: Decades before he becomes King, the dutiful young squire Christopher must enter the Hungry Hills, a place known to swallow travelers whole. How far is he willing to go to prove himself worthy? What is he willing to sacrifice? And what is it all for? What will sate his hunger?

Description of the Work:

An experiment in using a new Twine format called Chapbook. The Hungry Hills is a fantasy tale in a choose your own adventure style, is intended as a prequel to a collaborative role-playing game project called The Birthday Dungeon. I'm using this as a chance to further the worldbuilding and character building begun in that project. The cyoa format presents an interesting challenge for character building, the choices need to make sense for the character, yet there needs to be different outcomes. Does it mean the character(s) will be fundamentally altered for readers who choose different paths? As someone who has inhabited (and still inhabits) shared worlds, I think... perhaps, but perhaps it doesn't matter. Like the multiverses of our superhero comics, we see different takes on classic characters all the time. And while some of them may be unpalatable , most of the time they're a treat.

Project Files:

The Hungry Hills (forthcoming).

MermInsta

Photo description: 3 screenshots from l-r show different mobile views of the instagram game - the first panel is a gradient of purple and blue on which text reads: MermInsta - By Kay Slater, a #hungry4cyoa adventure. Swipe to choose your own adventure. In Vancouver? Drop by our live event from 7-10 PM Tonight. 336 E1st Avenue. The second panel is a how to play screen and the third shows the first game screen of text with the image of a mermaid at a rock.

Creator: Kay Slater
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: Instastory, Instagram, One Player.
Content Advisories: Cannibalism & pescetarianism.

I love challenges when I can push what is possible and delight in the making process. In the end, I decided to satisfy (the theme and) my craving by mastering the Instastory platform (something which I had been struggling to do since its inception). To my happy surprise, the challenge became all the more juicy when I learned that the insta-format canvas only kept things live and sequential for 24 hours (and that once posted, it could only be deleted and not resorted).

Also, cursed apples.

Description of the Work:

From paper flip book to instagram, this project encompasses my learning the instastories platform, my live story prototype and the final CYOA project. The prototype combined hand-drawn elements from previous projects with instagram interactivity and animation. During the Salon, I reposted the game story in sequence (with final artwork) for anyone with access to a web browser. This has now been archived in my IG highlights.

Project Files:

Sprawlgods

Photo Description: A dark screenshot of a the game showing 2 large bilboard style prompts that read; (in red) MOSES god of highways, eater of earth, and (in green) CHOOSE?

Creator: Brendan Vance
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: Unity, Windows, One Player.
Content Advisories: Discussions about climate change & the anthropocene.

Neighborhoods, when built in the Canadian style, are the hungriest of organisms. They hunger for water; they hunger for gas. They hunger for expansion into every unceded tract of land. They hunger for all that surrounds them; and like blackberry bushes, they are impossible to contain.

What are we to do with them, now that the burning of gas has destroyed most of the water? Can they become a site for reflection; for pilgrimage, even? Come then, one and all! Come see what this country has done.

Description of the Work:

Today the world is a long, flat plane. Though nightmares lurk behind us—and calamities rush on from ahead—we travel, for the moment, between.

No one wants to live upon a long, flat plane (except those born before and after it). And so there came the SPRAWLGODS, who filled the world with THINGS.

Cars for the roads, and roads for the cars; houses, and houses, and houses, and lawns. A Sprawlmart every 7 miles. A world that would destroy itself, if not for the ECONOMAGIC holding it in place. Paradise.

Project Files:

Download Sprawlgods for Windows (.exe)

Toren's Saturday on Commercial Drive

Photo Description: A laptop shows an open window and a text file.

Creator: Toren Atkinson
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: Windows folders and txt files, One Player.
Content Advisories: Toren's passive aggressive nature is laid bare.

Description of the Work:

Windows folders and txt files. Choose a folder, take a path, come to an end result.

Project Files:

Play Toren's Saturday on Commercial Drive.

The Time-Traveler's Apprentice: A Choose Your Own Culinary Adventure

Photo Description: The photo shows a clear, soft cover binder through which the title page can be seen. It reads: The Time-Traveler's Apprentice. A Choose Your Own Culinary Adventure by K. Alix Anttila. On the left, blue index cards with some hand writing can be seen.

Creator: Alix Anttila
Exhibition: Hungry: An Interactive Adventure Salon
Published: June 2019
Format: Zine/Booklet & Index Cards, One Player.
Content Advisories: All ages (wars/violence mentioned but not shown).

Under the theme of "Hunger", this work explores the origin of common (and sometimes uncommon) foods.

Description of the Work:

A task-oriented CYOA that takes the participant on a journey through time and geography to explore how landscape, trade, and history affect the modern diet, while also giving small glimpses into the cultures, societies, and trade-routes of the past.

Project Files:

Forthcoming

Creators

K. Alix Anttila

Photo shows head and shoulders of white person with blue eyes and dark grey glasses, wearing a dark coat, pastel plaid shirt, and a beige hat with a brim and a button on the side. Alix stands in front of a wall out of which plants are growing.

Twitter: @kalixa
Vancouver, BC
Guest Creator

Artist Statement

I like to explore history and culture in fun interactive ways. It's important to understand where we come from, what shapes our own society and the societies and cultures of those around us. From word choice, to food choice, to how we interact with each other and our environment - it's all done through well-worn paths - and sometimes I like to ask "hey, what happens if I step off this path and go over there?" or even the more simple "how did I get on this path in the first place?"

Bio

I studied history and the German language in university, have lived in various cities across Canada and also in Germany. I now reside in Vancouver, BC. I'm an aspiring novelist. I also draw/make-art, study history, and learn other languages in my spare time.