March Gathering - 11th Tuesday

Greetings fellow developers!Yay! The long winter darkness is starting to fade slowly but surely with even occasional direct sunlight. :)

This month we have something special for the Finnish Game Industry! Bugbear is celebrating it's 8th birthday by sponsoring free drink tickets at March gathering!! So come, find out what the night has to offer and have couple free beverages while at it!

*IGDA FINLAND MARCH GATHERING* Place: System Rock, Keskuskatu 4, 00100 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday 11th March, doors open at 19.00

See you there!

IGDA Finland Web Team Introductions

It's about time we introduced ourselves, the new people rolling our daily magics behind the bytes! As you all (should :D ) know by now, Teemu Haila / iNF (me, that is) took over Miikka during the summer. I got a huge load of cr- ...unfinished tasks right in the beginning to sort out. But that's all well and good, since (imo) we are definitely now in the better part of top-5 IGDA sites worldwide! But let's get on with it to the real people: #Lead Coordinator - Jyri Ranki He might be "just" a general leader, but all our bigger decisions and designs go to him before you guys. Never forget the ones in charge!

#Coordinator - Miikka Luotio Our very own coordinator and ex-webmaster QA's anything and everything done to this site. Every word in this text is 100% Miikkaâ„¢ Approved! Miikka is also updating our blogs with content from sources like volunteers.

#Webmaster - Teemu Haila Webmaster/admin/root/team leader... what ever suits you best! I'm the creative face directing our current progress and the one in charge of making sure everything works around the clock. As if that could be possible in Internet. While I do most of the stuff alone, I'd like to highligh two people:

- Juho Hartikainen He has been a spiritual support (sob) during the darker hours of intense labour and also did our wonderful new logo! Huge kudos for that.

- Niko Kosonen While he hasn't yet participated in any (visible) way, he will be developing some freezingly cool ajax magic for us. Tip: it's something we won't talk about in advance, but you'll love it!

So that's about it for the crew. I'd ramble here all night, but Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin got me addicted (again) and I can't risk leaving it alone. See you in the meetings!

February Gathering -- tshuh! the flu season is here

Long and dark winter is getting to the bones of Finnish game developers. It is the flu season in Finland and that surely shows! In February IGDA pub night attendees were a bit few in number but strong in spirit! This time there was only about 80 attendees.Except pre-GDC chatting and local game industry news, the attendees filled out a questionnaire about the venue. There has been a discussion whether IGDA Finland should find a better venue for the pub nights. What do you think? Are you satisfied with System Rock? Don't be shy to share your opinions at the discussion forum. The results of the survey will be available soon and naturally we’ll share the details with you.

This time we would like to give props to long distance travelers from Tampere and industry activists from Universomo, Recoil, Sumea and Remedy!

Next pub night will take place on 11th of March. We shall be sharing the latest news from GDC and perhaps a little surprise for all of you from some of us :)

February Gathering - 5th Tuesday

Hey there! It's time for the second gathering of 2008! Winter seems to have skipped on us but IGDA Gathering has not! This time it's back to the basics, no presentations and sponsoring. So, come and enjoy couple beverages with your friends and just have good time - afterall "Tipaton Tammikuu" is officially over by 5th February! Or you can also come and bring in your Nintendo DS for some WiFi fun with fellow developer friends!! It's the same place and same time as usual.

*IGDA FINLAND FEBRUARY GATHERING* Place: System Rock, Keskuskatu 4, 00100 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday 5th February, doors open at 19.00

See you there!

January gathering – Intimate and Interactive despite “tipaton tammikuu”

Year 2008 got a kick start on 8th of January when there were both IGDA Finland Presentations and a pub night in snowy Helsinki. This time IGDA Finland Presentations in association with Remedy was held at Papa Giovanni Showroom just opposite System Rock. The room was fully booked with 56 persons. It was especially good to see new people joining as well as individuals who usually don’t visit the pub nights -- something for all that is!

Pub night was in line with "tipaton tammikuu" (Alcohol-free January) with slightly less people than usual. This time 106 developers reached SystemRock. Both lectures and pub night attracted new faces which is always super! There were also regulars from Bugbear, Housemarque and Sumea. Also a group from Tampere were there again which can be seen as a challenge to fellow developers from other bigger towns like Oulu, Jyväskylä and Turku! Next time I am hoping to see other towns' strike forces joining the party!

For more photos of the events, Click here

The topic of IGDA Finland Presentations was "Tools". Kai Auvinen (Art Director) and Lassi Leppinen (Technical Director) from Digital Chocolate and Sami Vanhatalo (Lead Technical Artist) from Remedy talked about their design and development tools. The key lessons learned from the sessions were that mobile developers deal with short development cycles and broad range of handsets. Efficient tools shorten the production times and help to retain the quality. Sami Vanhatalo focused on Alan Wake and tools utilized in the development of the game. Sami showed some pretty impressive stills of their landscape texture tool and talked about the proper mix of public and internal tools. Check out Teemu Haila’s liveblog for details!

It was also delighting to see that not only Nokia but also game studios attract foreign talent to Finland. Sulake and Sumea have been doing pretty nice work with international recruitment – this time Recoil Games brought their foreign guests who were in Helsinki for an interview to the IGDA gathering. It was another cozy night with good discussions and a lot of hopes and wisher for the New Year!