IGDA Finland does good!

IGDA Finland team attended Gayla charity bowling event at Tali last week! Special thanks to super IGDA-team Vesku, Tipi & Sonja! We did great, were the grooviest team and got all the way to semi-finals!

IGDA Finland is also partnering game development course for 15-25 year olds at Pelitalo which is located on the 2nd floor of Happi youth house (Nuorisotalo). If you are 15-25 year old, live in Helsinki area or nearby and would like to develop digital games but don't know how -- this is our chance!

Pelisuunnitteluklubi Onko kipinää pelien suunnitteluun, mutta ei riittävästi tietoa tai oikeita kavereita hommaan? Tule suunnittelemaan ja kehittämään pelejä ammattilaisten johdolla. Sinun ei tarvitse olla itseoppinut osaaja, kunhan olet kiinnostunut hommasta ja innokas tekemään. Klubissa lähdetään tutustumaan pelisuunnitteluun kevyesti valmiita työkaluja hyväksi käyttäen. Ohjelmassa käydään läpi kattavasti koko pelinkehitysprosessi suunnittelusta toteutukseen ja tuottamiseen. Meillä ei tarvitse pönöttää tai pelkästään koodata, vaan kaikki tapahtuu innostavassa ilmapiirissä, kevyellä otteella.

Klubi aloittaa toimintansa kesäkuun kestävällä kurssilla.

Ajankohdat: Kesäkuun kaikki maanantait kello 17.00 – 20.00.

Ilmoittautuminen osoitteessa: pelitalo.nettiareena.fi/pelinkehitys Mukana järjestämässä Bugbear Entertainment Ltd., Helsingin nuorisoasiainkeskuksen Pelitalo ja International Game Developers Association (IGDA Finland)

IGDA Finland May Gathering at Cuba w/ Uplause!

Kick the Summer off right, join us on May 3rd for a truly jam-packed set of events. Before the IGDA Finland May Gathering, IGDA Finland Presentations brings you "The Different Faces of Change" a program done in association with the University of Tampere about change in the game industry.

Here is a short preview of presentation:

"The only thing that is stable is change itself." This phrase goes hand in hand with game developers. There are at least five different levels of turbulence that people have to deal with when innovating games. Researcher Annakaisa Kultima, from the University of Tampere will open up these thoughts as the overarching theme within the findings of two game research projects: GaIn and GIIP."

The presentation will feature industry fellows that will elaborate the topic further in the following speeches: * Ilari Kuittinen, Housemarque: "Same Same, But Different" * Teemu Vilén, Turmoil Games: "(Re)emergence of Adventure Games" * Ari Nykänen, Kuuasema: "Turning to Indie: Postmortem of Supersonic" * A Guest Appearance of Jason Della Rocca, Perimeter Partners: "Sex with Daphnia"

Following this event we will HOP :D on over to Cuba bar where Uplause will be showing off the World premiere of massively multiplayer audience games "pub edition." Also a taste of Housemarque's Outland with free drinks for those who arrive early. :)

So mark the date and make sure you join us for this fantastic Summer kick-off!

IGDA FINLAND PRESENTATIONS Place: Sulake auditorium, Korkeavuorenkatu 35, 00130 Helsinki Time: Tuesday, 3rd of May, from 17:00-19:00 Sign up to the event at Facebook or by email sonja kangas igda fi

IGDA FINLAND MAY GATHERING Place: Cuba Bar, Erottajankatu 4, 00120 Helsinki (map: http://igda.fi/?page_id=5) Time: Tuesday, 3rd of May, doors open at 19:00

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

Behind Alan Wake's Engine - a recap of a seminar by Markus Mäki co founder of Remedy, and Olli Tervo lead programmer

By Reina Magica Markus Mäki, co-founder of Remedy, explained the timeline of his company and why they chose to build a new engine from scratch using eight programmers. With changes in the industry and the majority of gaming moving to console platforms, the company needed to make an engine that would support their next game, Alan Wake, and also improve the technology for console games.

The key features desired for the new engine was a smooth open world experience, with 100% dynamic lighting for indoor and outdoor. There was a choice not to use technology from a 3rd party, so with a small team, there were important choices on making the production manageable. They limited the scope of their engine to focus on one console, in this case, the Xbox instead of PS3, and decided not to build for multiplayer. Also, they used middleware whenever possible.

Olli Tervo, lead programmer, explained their coding philosophy and how they optimised their time. He explained how they approached building an open world engine and the problems that arose. They chose to divide the open world area in smaller blocks than originally planned, which was better for memory but caused longer loading times. There were many spotlights in Alan Wake, so they needed to create good looking lighting which would still render quickly, so the majority of lighting used deferred rendering. They made use of the multithreading in consoles, and optimised the dvd layout by use-pattern and by what needed to be loaded most often.

With that, they built a successful engine. In talking about improvements, he mentions that a future focus might be on content creation tools.

March Gathering: Remedy, Death Rally and Alan Wake

March Gathering was a double treat. Remedy's CTO Markus Mäki and LeadProgrammer Olli Tervo gave their GDC 2011 tech track presentation on "Alan Wake, the writer who made us rewrite our engine". Sulake auditorium was completely packed with over 100 attendees and for those who couldn't attend, IGDA volunteer Reina Magica kindly wrote a summary of the presentation.

More photos from the Gathering.

After the presentation the evening continued at the Cuba bar. Remedy together with Mountain Sheep presented the iPad version of Death Rally and provided drinks for the cheerful crowd. This was another IGDA Finland Gathering in a row where there was over 200 attendees (224 to be exact!). WOW! Mad crazy! Networking is all good and great to see people interested in sharing and learning within Finnish game industry.

Besides the great gathering there is certainly a lot to buzz about Death Rally, a month ago Bugbear announced they are doing Ridge Racer Unbounded! Also recently more information on Rochard (Recoil) and Outland (Housemarque) have been made available and Get Outta my Galaxy (Ookoohko) was released - so lots of things are happening.

Next time we'll experience something new at the IGDA Finland Gathering. Finnish game startup Uplause will bring their massively multiplayer audience game to Cuba. The invitation is coming out shortly! Stay tuned and save the date: April the 5th!