June Gathering: Tuesday 9th

It's time for IGDA Finland season 08-09 finale with a presentation from Remedy! Join us on June 9th and enjoy a fun evening with fellow developers. We would like to thank the Finnish game developer community for being so active. It has truly been a pleasure to organize the events for you! Also special thanks to Remedy for supporting IGDA Finland presentations session and Cuba Bar for the nice venue. After the June IGDA Gathering it's time for summer holidays. See you again in fall '09!

IGDA FINLAND JUNE GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map) Time: Tuesday, 9th of June, doors open at 19:00

IGDA Floor-ball Season Coming to an End

Hello! Just a short remainder about our floor-ball deal with Mr. Goodliving coming to an end with the last chance to participate on Thursday 4.6 (that's tomorrow, folks). We'd like to thank Mr. Goodliving for their generous offer during the past spring and hope that you liked it too! There might be chance to return with a similar deal after the summer, so if you (or your company) is interested in sharing your activities with the other fellow developers, just hook us up next Tuesday in the season ending meeting or write an email!

IGDA Finland May Gathering

The winter's last cold breath was still to be felt lingering in the air as last May's Gathering took place at Cuba Café as usual, with a delightful 157 visitors present! We've seem to have attracted a nice number of new people to the event this time around, taking into account that a whopping 37 visitors were there for the very first time. Who knows, perhaps the wild rumours about free drink coupons sponsored by Digital Chocolate might have had something to do with that. [singlepic=455,320,240,,center]

Apart from the usual mingling and such, we had the good guys from Digital Chocolate present and they showed us a few of their brand new games, including Tower Bloxx Deluxe for the XBox Live Arcade and California Gold Rush for the iPhone. The 4 player Tower Bloxx setup seemed to be in a specially heavy use all night long, with hardly a moment without anyone eagerly on the controls.

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You can find the rest of the photos in the gallery by clicking here or via Flickr. And don't forget that the next Gathering is taking place at Cuba Café on the 9th of June, from 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm. Be there or be square!

NOTE: The June Gathering starts at 7:00 PM, instead of the 6:00 PM stated in this post earlier.

April Gathering - Midspring Meeting

The cold winter had passed but left the midspring weather a bit chilly. However, the people in game industry showed what they're made of and joined the Monthly Gathering on April 7th. It was a good evening for IGDA as Cuba Café saw a total of 97 visitors out of which 7 were new.

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One of the main topics of discussion was of course the Game Developers Conference 2009 and the good vibes it left on people. There were other major topics in addition, including the prospering of Finnish titles in App Store and our new industry partner, Walkthru, a Finnish company concentrating on translating games from English to Finnish.

People also talked about the Special Interest Group, Women in Games or "WIG SIG" which got a new advisory board. Sonja Kangas is now a board member in WIG SIG as well as Nordic Game Program and IGDA Finland. You can find more details from Sonja's article about WIG SIG.

The game development club Score is exclusively representing Finland in Microsoft Imagine Cup semi-finals with two titles: Villa Penguila and Unity. Both games can be downloaded from Nordic Game Portal.

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You can check out the rest of the snaps at the gallery or alternatively at Flickr.

Don't forget to add the next Gathering Event on your calendars! It'll be held on May 5th, same place, same time. See you there!

May Gathering: Tuesday 5th

World Premiere of Tower Bloxx Deluxe and surprises on May at the next IGDA Finland gathering! "Experience the ridiculously addictive smash-hit that's already played by millions across the globe! Create swaying, tipping and tumbling towers sky-high in this action-puzzler. Get the full HD experience exclusive to Xbox Live Arcade and challenge yourself with 6 massive game modes, revolutionary social scoring, Xbox Live avatar integration, power-ups, and even party multiplayer. How high can you go?"

Vappu will be nothing compared to the blast provided by Digital Chocolate on May the 5th, and their smash hit Tower Bloxx -- played by millions across the globe -- will be just an appetizer! The world premiere of Tower Bloxx Deluxe for Xbox live Arcade will be at the IGDA Finland gathering on May. Digital Chocolate will also give a taste of other projects they have been working on.

This is your change to meet the developers and see what will soon come out from Digital Chocolate!

IGDA FINLAND MAY GATHERING Place: Cuba Café, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map) Time: Tuesday, 5th of May, doors open at 19:00