IGDA Finland October Gathering with Unity and GameFounders

9th October was a day of tricks and treats for the game folk in Finland.

October’s IGDA Finland Presentations are now behind us, and they were a success! All 250 tickets were reserved in advance. The theme of the evening was Unity 4, and a few lucky ones even won themselves a full Unity Pro 4.0 license. Just in case you inexplicably missed the event, let’s recap.

Nick Jovic and his merry men from Unity Technologies gave us a taste of the next generation of their platform. Colossal Order’s very own Damien Morello shared his tips and tricks for Unity, and you even get a chance to put your freshly gained knowledge to good use: Antti Lihavainen opened VIOPE’s world wide Game Programming Contest.

What comes to the post-Unity Gathering in Bar Cuba, the words of a fellow attendee sums things up nicely: ”It's a bit crowded.”

Nick Jovic was in the mood for a popquiz, and awarded correct answers with Unity’s t-shirts. We learned, for example, where the company’s main office is situated (San Francisco, for future reference) and where Unity will established their newest office (Berlin, now you know).

The other big thing came from across the Baltic Sea. Kadri Ugand from the Estonian game accelerator GameFounders first greeted us with kind words and then dropped the proverbial bomb: the second round of GameFounders program is now officially open!

Thank you for spending an evening with us! This time the number of attendees in the Gathering went up to 261. See you in November!

Angels Game – Connecting games and business 13.11.2012

Tekes Skene-program & Finnvera Venture Capital proudly presents: Angels Game matchmaking event. It brings game companies and business angels to the same table.

How to be part of it: 1. Fill out a form at the Finnvera site by 31th October 2. Angels Game jury will go through the applications on 5th and 6th November 3. Selected game companies will be notified on 7th November 4. Companies will be provided some pitching coaching (date TBD)

The Angels Game event will be on 13th November at Finnvera, Eteläesplanadi 8, Helsinki.

IGDA Finland October Gathering with Unity

October draws near, and so does the next IGDA Finland Gathering. This time we have organized a set of presentations for you to enjoy.

Pre-event: IGDA Finland presentations @ Bulevardi 31, Helsinki The presentations will revolve around Unity, the game development tool we all know and respect. As the launching of Unity4 approaches, we felt it appropriate to venture deeper into the mysteries of this popular software that hit 1 million registered users in April 2012. We have managed to gather an interesting line of speakers. The schedule and topics are as follows:

Speakers: Regional Sales Director Nick Jovic, Unity: Latest News Product Evangelist Russ Morris, Unity: Unity 4 Workflows -- Tips & Tricks Field Engineer Ken Noland, Unity: Inside the Tech - Hidden Gems

Damien Morello, Colossal Order:Unity Engine in a production environment Antti Lihavainen, Viope: Viope Game Programming Contest

PS. If you want to win something cool: please bring your business cards with you! We'll do a draw at the end of the Unity presentations.

Time: 9.10.2012 at 17.00-19.00 Place: Bulevardi 31, 00180 Helsinki Seminar is organized by IGDA Finland Eventbrite Event: Link  

IGDA Gathering in Bar Cuba

After the presentations it's time to indulge in cold drinks and hot topics just around the corner. The main sponsor of the October gathering is Unity. They will pamper us with drink tickets and other tangible utilities. We will also hear a few words from our other contributor GameFounders, a feisty startup accelerator that focuses on game developers. GameFounders startups will be showing their Unity projects on iPads. Can you handle so much luxury?

Bar Cuba. 7PM. Be there to share the passion with us!

IGDA Finland October Gathering Time: 9.10.2012 at 19.00 Place: Cuba Bar, Erottaja 4, Helsinki Finland

IGDA September Gathering with Mental Moustache, Tekes and Joensuu Science Park

Summer is finally over. For us igdaphiles this is very good news.

The fall season was kicked off with a set of interesting events on 4^th September. The magical trio Tekes, Neogames and Finpro, organised the Games Outbreak seminar at Korjaamo in Helsinki. The seminar was also the launching event of Tekes' Skene programme. Tekes is planning to help keep Finland's game industry alive and kicking, visit here to find out the details of the masterplan.

Afterwards the thirsty crowd headed for this falls very first IGDA Gathering in Bar Cuba. The sponsor of this gathering (and the generous bringer of drink tickets) was Mental Moustache, an independent game company based in Outokumpu. Heikki Koljonen, the CEO and mastermind extraordinaire of Mental Moustache, entertained us with a delightful trailer of their new game title Spincraft. We were all cordially invited to the beta testing as well.

There were over 220 visitors in Bar Cuba, a good start for the season. We were thrilled to see you for the first time after the summer, let's hope we keep bumping to each other throughout the long winter. See you around!

IGDA Finland in Steam

If you haven't heard of Steam Greenlight before, it's about time. Steam Greenlight is a new publishing platform inside Steam, where users can influence which games are to be sold in Steam's Store. Greenlight is a great opportunity for Finnish game developers to get peer support and, quite simply, to get the word around. And on the internet the word does get around.

Naturally IGDA Finland doesn't want to stand in the way of progress. IGDA Finland has a Greenlight Collection in Steam, where we want to showcase your games. The collection is an easy way to browse, rate and discuss upcoming games. If you want your game in the IGDA Steam Collection, contact us and ask us to add your game. If you already have a Steam account, send a message to the user IGDA_Finland. If you aren't in Steam yet, you can send email to jukka.huiskonen@igda.fi.

We also have our own Steam Group, and we welcome you all to join us there! The point of all this is to help gamers and developers throughout Finland to find an inspire each other. What Finland lacks in size, it makes up for in enthusiasm.

See you in Steam!