December IGDA Finland Turku Hub Gathering

A year of gatherings came to an end in Turku with a special guest from the finnish mobile game history. Taneli Armanto, the creator of the famous Snake -mobile game on Nokia devices was sharing some stories behind the Snake -game and boy was it interesting. The game is probably one of the most largely distributed mobile game ever and while it was in development, it wasn't clear it would turn into a huge success. Vitali Kirpu, an indie developer from Turku is making a name for himself with his Pixel Piracy getting greenlighted in Steam in just a few days. In the game, the player controls the crew of a pirate ship. The player must sail the ship over a number of sea zones, each with procedurally generated events in a roguelike fashion, while facing pirates and other hostile forces, recruiting new crew members, keeping discipline, outfitting, upgrading ship and more.

The game was quickly featured in Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Polygon and Wired UK. Check out a gameplay video, it's great!

-IGDA Finland Turku Hub folks

Happy Holidays!

IGDA Finland Oulu Hub November Gathering

After a hugely successful October gathering we decided to play it a bit more conservative in November and arranged a classic pub night. This time we chose to occupy the restaurant Otto K instead of our usual place, just to explore possible future establishments for our gatherings. The place felt good and the staff was very supportive, so maybe we’ll give Otto K another chance some time during 2014.

The house was filled with around 20 local game developers who gathered around the tables to have more or less meaningful discussions with each other. The ice hockey game shown on the screen sparked some discussion about violence in games vs. violence in sports, but in general the tone of the conversations were quite casual.

At the moment we are working hard on planning and arranging the gatherings of 2014, so stay tuned and remember to play games!

- Antti Wilenius & the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub volunteers

IGDA Finland Turku Hub Gathering with TicBits

Winter is on us with it's dark and gloomy reach but there was no sign of it in the IGDA Finland Turku Hub gathering in November!

The Turku based company TicBits was our guests of honor this time giving a brief intro into how the wholly self-funded company has grown into 10 people with some very ambitious games coming up. After this, it was time to focus on the most important things: networking, sharing ideas and drinks.

TicBits is also 3rd on the Deloitte's Rising Stars in Technology Fast 50 Finland 2013  -list. The Turku scene could not be more proud!

Turku Gathering will be back in December!

Mobile Mixer event & IGDA Finland Networking event with Facebook

Slush and Splash! The audience of the November Gathering was presented with a double feature: Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer mixed & IGDA Finland Gathering!

First up was the Mobile Mixer panel with variety of industry veterans talking about the present and the future of mobile game development. After the panel people had the opportunity to talk to panelists and get to know a bit more about the companies represented in the panel.

After the panel there was a brief moment to let the new info sink in. After that the IGDA Finland Gathering kicked into gear with Facebook presenting their mobile gaming platform. The presentation was short and sweet with code samples detailing the implementation using different frameworks.

Here are few links for the interested: Games hub of the Facebook developer site, Open source sample apps and tutorials for iOS, Android, Unity and Canvas. Oh and last but not least here is something special: Facebook presentation with code samples.

Stay tuned for updates on the greatest party this holiday!

Kicking off IGDA Finland Tampere Hub

It finally happened. With the first IGDA Finland Tampere Hub gathering held at 29.10.2013 now behind us, the whole organizing team can let out a sigh of relief. After months of planning we can say with utmost certainty that the team did a marvelous job at putting it all together. But it would not have been without all you folks taking part in the gathering and making it a night to remember. We would also like to express our gratitude towards our sponsor Fragment, a game development studio situated in Tampere. Thank you!

The event took place in Jack the Rooster, a local rock bar situated near the city center in Tampere. The doors opened at around 6 pm allowing the long queue of people to finally trickle inside and enjoy their first cool beverage courtesy of Fragment.

Once we had all the early arrivals inside, the program could commence. The official program consisted of an introduction to IGDA Finland by Tatu Laine followed by speeches from our sponsor Fragment.

Starting something new does not usually come without obstacles. First of all, due to the high turnout of people, we were having some issues with getting people inside as fast as possible. One of the biggest problems, however, was that people believed the kitchen to be open during the event. This was not the case and we will try to remedy this in the future.

Jack the Rooster proved a wonderful choice of venue. It really had that rock’n’roll feeling that we experience in the game development industry here in Finland. We were also able to negotiate great pricing for IGDA Finland members as well as our sponsors.

On a personal note, I would like to thank the whole organizing team for all the hard work they have put into making this happen! Tampere really has the spirit that becoming a great international game development hub requires.

Until next time, IGDA Finland Tampere Hub volunteers Timo Heinäpurola Annakaisa Kultima Minna Eloranta Arto Koistinen Mika Kuusisto Mikko Karsisto Jukka Mikkonen Jukka Kauppinen

IGDA Finland Oulu Hub Gathering

On the 17th of October IGDA Finland Oulu Hub arranged a gathering at the Business Kitchen premises, targeted primarily for students and game development hobbyists interested in getting a job or an internship position in a game development studio. The evening featured an array of speakers and presentations for those who arrived.

Tony Manninen (Ludocraft) took the floor first and provided the attendees with an inspiring presentation about the most important skills and traits required from a game developer

Second on the stage was Tero Takalo (Studio Outo) who shared his views on developing game graphics and what aspiring graphic artists should focus their skills on.

After the graphics presentation it was time to focus on programming, naturally. Niina Tampio (Ludocraft) told the audience what are the most important skills of a game programmer and how one should approach this highly demanding profession.

After our main presentations the floor was given for the representatives of Business Oulu, Business Kitchen, OuluSES, Oulu Game Lab and Stage, who all introduced their organizations and enlightened the attendees about how they can be of help for those interested in getting into the game industry.

The rest of the evening was dedicated for networking and socializing while having some drinks and snacks provided to us by our generous sponsors Ludocraft and OSAKO.

All in all the evening was a huge success in terms of both the number of attendees who participated and in the amount of positive feedback collected. In fact, we were so overwhelmed by the success, that we are most definitely looking into arranging a similar kind of evening during next year!

Stay gamified!

- Antti Wilenius & the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub volunteers

Autumn Turku Hub Gatherings with Tribeflame, Wargaming and Gameturku

September and October was filled with exciting events in Turku. Here’s a digest of what’s been happening in our local IGDA Finland Hub!

23.9. IGDA Finland Turku Hub gathering with Tribeflame

Tribeflame presenting

A monday night didn’t stop enthusiastic game developers and hobbyists from gathering with Tribeflame, one of the longest running game companies in Turku. Tribeflame has released a number of games, such as Light the Flower, Reiner Knizia's Labyrinth, Reiner Knizia's Clustermaster, and the latest of them being Benji Bananas that has reached 20+ million downloads combined in the Appstore and Play Store.

Gentlephant was also demoing a “Super meat boy for mobile” -kind of game which was met with great interest and a lot of cursing because of the hardcore platforming nature of the game. Together we celebrated Turku’s biggest game success so far with drinks and Bar Bryssel’s great sauna!

9.10. Turku Game Lab re-launch and Turku Hub gathering with GameTurku and Wargaming.net

The day was filled with events. Firstly the Game Tech & Arts Lab was re-launched as Turku Game Lab in the ICT-House. Turku University’s and Turku University of Applied Sciences’ game lab will strengthen the community and give tools for students and to-be developers to get their hands dirty in making games.

The day continued with a gathering in the usual place with GameTurku and Wargaming.net. GameTurku is a new portal and brand for the Turku game development scene. GameTurku is now the go-to place the get information about everything that is going on in the area: http://www.gameturku.com/

We were also very lucky to have Yury Shilyaev, the director of education and Aleksandr Zezulin, executive producer at Wargaming.net as guests for our gathering. Our gathering once again hit over 100 guests and after Alex's presentation he was met with a long Q&A session about all things World of Tanks and etc. We also learned that approx. third of the players of WOT spend money on the game and a few guys from the audience confessed to have used hundreds of euros to the game!

Aleksandr answering tough questions

We'll be back on November with more exciting guests and reasons to share a pint with a fellow game developer!

Tatu Laine & Turku Hub Coordinators

IGDA Finland Rovaniemi Hub launch

The northernmost IGDA hub in the world has now officially been opened at Rovaniemi, on 26th of September, in the arctic where it’s so cold that computers keep constantly freezing! Not really, just kidding..

The formal part of this event took place at the main campus of Rovaniemi University of Applied Sciences. There we had two guests who talked about IGDA Finland, about the support it has to offer for students and starting game developers, and about their personal experiences on taking up a career in gaming industry. Total number of people listening and asking lots of good questions was 19, so one might say that we had a fairly good start considering the size of the audience.

First speaker was Tatu Laine, Creative Director from NordicEdu. He talked about IGDA, what it actually is and why we should know it, and also about educational games that his company’s focuses on.

Second speaker was Jukka Laakso, CEO from Rival Games. Among other things related to working in a game startup, he introduced us to IGDA Scholarship. It is really something you should check out if you’re planning to have a career in the business.

After the formal part we moved to have some drinks and of course talk some more. We also had totally new participants who were then introduced to the Pelilabra room at Valtakatu 19.

All in all, it was very encouraging and motivating to hear the guys’ startup stories and the things they had learned along the way. The stuff I personally learned from this event actually could have their own post some time later. Informative and fun indeed, more of this, please! Here are some photos from the gathering:

IGDA Finland Oulu Hub September Gathering

On 19th of September the local game developers of Oulu gathered once again for a relaxed night out at the restaurant 45 Special to embrace (or ward off) the closing autumn. This time there were no presentations or other official programme, but rather some laid-back socializing and casual conversation. Amongst the discussion one could hear longing for the “good old” games, listen to new game ideas being tossed around and participate in general game or game development related chat. All in all, a very warm and easy-going evening.

In October IGDA Finland Oulu Hub will arrange a “Interested in game industry” evening, targeted especially for students interested in applying for a job or an internship in a game development company. We will have a couple of presentations from professional game developers and after that we’ll spend the rest of the evening networking and having fun. And of course, you don’t have to be a student to join in; all are welcome!

For more information about our events and news concerning the Oulu game development scene, follow https://www.facebook.com/IGDA.Finland.Oulu.Hub

Antti Wilenius & IGDA Finland Oulu Hub coordinators

IGDA Finland Turku Hub Gathering with Turku Game Startups

The fall gatherings were kicked off in the flavour of Turku based game startups and boy, was it tasty! Bar Bryssel was once again filled with enthusiasm especially because this time we had a show from a total of 6 arising game development stars!

• Kuutti Entertainment, who are bringing game classics back to life

• Binary Cat Games, who are developing a rock-themed puzzle platform game for PC called Synesthesia

• Team Enigmatic, who are developing Enigma Elevator, an eccentric point'n'click adventure where you play as the only teenager in the world

• Vitali Kirpu, an indie dev who is working on Pixel Piracy, a side-scrolling 2d, pirate roguelike game

• Indium Game Stories, who are developing Unhuman, where you play as a survivor in the city of the damned. Indium is also working on a cross-platform game engine

• Brainboxing, who are developing Caligula Master, a game heavily inspired by the movie Cube

  

The night continued on with some special announcements. Turku’s very own Unity hero, Veli-Pekka Kokkonen, who has been really active in boosting the local gamedev community also treated us with live news about Unity2D from the Unite ‘13 conference. He’s been involved in creating the Unity2D framework and so the news were met with cheers and requests for demos and premium support!

Also, one of the longest running game companies in Turku, Treehouse was over to playtest one of the most ambitious games the Turku game scene had seen so far. Fierce battles were had between contestants with this highly competetive game, but we’ll get back with this awesome game a bit later...

Tatu Laine & IGDA Finland Turku Hub coordinators

IGDA Finland Gathering with Bitsquid

The season has now officially started! We had a great crowd to see what was on Bitsquid's sleeve. Johan Strömberg gave us a brief rundown on Bitsquid as a company and Niklas Frykholm followed it with extensive Bitsquid engine demo.

In case you missed the Presentation part head to http://www.bitsquid.se/ and Bitsquid GDC 2013 Showreel to see what's the fuss is all about!

See you at the next Gathering!

IGDA Finland Oulu Hub August Gathering and Presentations

The IGDA Finland Oulu Hub was officially launched on the 21st of August with presentations from Jyri Partanen (IGDA Finland) and Petri Nordlund (Unity). The event attracted a total of 36 game developers and game development hobbyists at the Business Kitchen premises.

Jyri Partanen The event started with Jyri telling the audience about IGDA, and more specifically about IGDA Finland, it’s mission and what IGDA is all about.

Petri Nordlund

Petri Nordlund from Unity Finland talked about Unity both as a company and a game engine, providing a compact but thorough presentation containing a lot of information that was new for many of the attendees.

After the presentations, the group of developers migrated to 45 Special where the evening was filled with cold beverages, socializing and discussion about game development. IGDA Finland Oulu Hub was also lucky to have Jyri “Jay” Ranki as a surprise guest at the gathering, who had many words of wisdom for the local game developers and the volunteers behind the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub.

Tony Manninen and Jay Ranki

The official launch of the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub marks the first steps on a long path in making the Oulu game development scene even bigger and better.

If you want to hear more about IGDA Finland Oulu Hub and the local game development scene, you can find us on Facebook.

‘Til we meet again!

- Antti Wilenius & the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub volunteers

IGDA picnic at Tähtitorninmäki

Do we hear a hallel-ouya?

It's time to get your baskets and blankets ready because it's not a proper summer without the official IGDA picnic! As the fabled day approaches fill your mind with joyful things, game-related or not (we don't discriminate), that you can share with us. Much has happened since the last Gathering, and we wouldn't dream of robbing you of your best chance to rave about it all.

And what better place to do some summer-gazing than Tähtitorninmäki at the idyllic seaside of Helsinki! Be prepared for seagulls, cruise ships and a grassy downhill (although we can promise you only one of these).

Polish your shades and flip-flops. See you there!

-

IGDA picnic 13.8.2013 at 7 pm Tähtitorninmäki

IGDA Finland June Gathering and Presentations

Midsummer is right around the corner and there was just enough time for the season's last IGDA Finland Presentations and Gathering! IGDA Finland Presentations focused on several important aspects of game design. We had three presenters, the first one being Kai Rosenkranz from Nevigo. He showed us how Articy:Draft, the first professional game design tool, helps with the design process.

At this point the Presentations was hijacked by couple of guys from company called RILBITS who presented us with tools to create merchandise from our games.

Miikka Junnila from Aalto University gave us a lecture on the basics of game design, starting from the definition of a game.

And lastly we got some advanced curriculum from on free-to-play and its impact on game design process at Digital Chocolate.

After the two hour back-to-school we got drink tickets out and had a blast by the courtesy of our sponsor, Grand Cru. They showed us a cool trailer of their upcoming game Supernauts along side mansized logo!

Because this was our last Gathering of the seasons we had something special for the partiers, Oculus Rift and Leap Motion! These cool gadgets were on the floor for everybody to test and experience.

All good things come to and end, although for us this means just a two months rest before we kick off season 2013-2014. Check out the coming Gathering dates HERE!

IGDA Finland February Gathering with Viope

12.2.2013 something called an IGDA Gathering happened. Club Adams, the new meeting place of gaming community in Helsinki area, was baptized with style. The first one to steal the spotlight was Viope.

Viope served us a multitude of goods. Firstly, they sponsored the February Gathering and donated a fair amount of precious drink tickets. We are ever grateful!

Viope had reserved another seat at the sitting: the first show of the night was the award ceremony of Viope Game Programming Contest 2012. We heard a few words from one of the judges, Remedy’s Saku Lehtinen, and then the stage was taken over by Viope’s Kwame Afreh and Tram Nguyen, who had the honour of presenting the awards.

The nominees came all over the world, Saudi-Arabia, Macedonia and Singapore, to name a few. Eventually both the main award and the student award went to a Singaporean entry Kindly ever after by the team Ancora. Congratulations! Check out all the nominees from here.

The spotlight was occupied again later that night: it was time for the Finnish Game Jam award ceremony! This year there was no single winner, and the prizes were in fact Honorable Mentions designed to celebrate noteworthy gaming experiences. In the spirit of the Game Jam the categories were delightfully wonky, such as Beertasking and Multidrinking Award and Public Love Award. You can see a list of all the honored and nominated games from here.

So that was the February Gathering. People swarmed in like there was no tomorrow, and thanks to all of you we made a record: whopping 296 visitors! We are insanely happy! We also offer a big thank you to our host Club Adams.

See you next time!

Closed for the summer

Check out the Gathering dates for 2012-2013!

WildChords at IGDA Finland April Gathering

Bring out your guitars! For many people it was just another Tuesday night in Helsinki, but game lovers know better. Old and new friends alike found their way to Bar Cuba to converse, relax, and participate in sudden brainstorms.

After most of the visitors had settled in the stage was claimed by Ovelin, the melodious sponsor of the evening. Cristoph Thür, co-founder and CEO of Ovelin, was so kind as to entertain us with a few words and a demonstration of their acclaimed iPad game WildChords. The innovation of WildChords is to learn to play the guitar the fun way through gameplay objectives. Be afraid, Guitar Hero.

Ovelin donated visitors a few drinks and a guitar pick, and one especially cozy corner of Cuba was reserved for those who wanted to try the game for themselves. Evening was not short of wildlife as Ovelin´s exotic mascot Carsten the Crocodile was also present, ready to pose for the multitude of cameras.

We had 140 human visitors and one crocodile. Maybe in the next IGDA gathering we will hear live guitar music from one of you? Thank you to everyone and see you in May!

  Photos by Stuart McQuade

IGDA Finland 2011-2012 season start on September 6th!

One sign of the approaching fall are the IGDA Finland pub nights. Finnish game dev scene is buzzing due to the eyes of the international game developers community being on Finland! Season kick off will take place on September 6th at Cuba bar. On the agenda we have some casual networking along with live music! Come catch up and hear what is happening in the Finnish game development scene. If you still haven't received your IGDA membership card, ask about it when you register to the event at the desk at Cuba bar. If you are not a member, no problem! Everyone is welcome to take part in the IGDA Finland events! This fall will be action packed! IGDA Finland is arranging interesting events focusing on games, marketing and starting up a game studio, just to mention a few. Top-tier Finnish game studios will share their insights on what has kept them busy over the summer and we will have a visit from the guys of Unity. If you have any wishes or suggestions regarding Unity, see the thread at IGDA Finland's Facebook group wall. The first ever IGDA Finland event outside the capital area will take place in October when IGDA Finland goes to Tampere. We'll have free transportation from Helsinki! More information to follow in late September.

Also: • New website: check out http://igda.fi • We'd appreciate any feedback on the IGDA Finland newsletter • Jobs.igda.fi is at your service!

We hope to see you all at Cuba on September 6th.

IGDA Finland Coordinators team: Sonja, Vesku, Joona, Samuli, Collin, Pauliina and Joonas.

IGDA FINLAND SEPTEMBER GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday, 6th of September, doors open at 7PM

Invitation: IGDA Finland April Gathering

Hi everyone, next IGDA Finland Gathering will take place on April the 5th at Cuba Bar as usual. Join us to hear and share the latest buzz in Finnish game industry! Also remember:

• Nordic Game Conference will take place on 10-12 May in Malmö.
• Lots of new positions at jobs.igda.fi!

IGDA FINLAND APRIL GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday, 5th of April, doors open at 19:00