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 October Gathering and Presentation with Unity

The weather is getting colder, but our season is just getting warmed up! We have cooked up for you a hot bowl of IGDA Finland Presentation on the topic of Unity to keep you warm, so check out the presentations and speakers below:

Native 2D is coming to Unity! (Andy Touch) Andy will demonstrate the new framework and how to setup your projects to use 2D features such as physics, polygon collider generation, sprite objects and spritesheet animation. He will also talk about how the new features fit into Unity's existing asset-creation workflows and give examples of 2D-related additions to the scripting API.

Unity Tips&Tricks and Good Practices (Marco Trivellato) In this presentation we will talk about different Unity tricks that the audience will be able to take away and use immediately. Topics include profiling and optimisations, memory and garbage collection, editor tricks as well as Unity game development good practices.

Unity Physics Gameplay (Sampsa Lehtonen) In this session we delve into the physics features of Unity and explore how they can be used to implement and enhance gameplay. The focus is on Sampsa's personal experiences and lessons he has learned while working on Unity games with 2D / 2.5D physics gameplay.

Unity Editor: Make it work for you (Brendan Erquiaga) In this presentation we will cover all aspects of Editor Scripting and how everyone should leverage them to improve development. We will talk about scripts to help remove friction from your pipeline, methods to automate tedious tasks, and tricks for improving day-to-day Unity use. Additionally we will explore the strength of giving editor tools to your designers, allowing them to maximize their efficiency. 

Game Development World Championship 2013 (VIOPE) Game Development World Championship 2013 is a sequel of successful Viope Game Programming Contest 2012, which engaged over 500 teams from 70 countries. The GDWC 2013 is open to game developers and enthusiasts all over the world, from students to freelancers and professionals. The competition starts from 8th October 2013 and lasts to 26th January 2014. Especially throughout the competition, participants will be couched by the world's famous companies - Rovio and Microsoft - to name a few. The winning team will get great prizes (to be be announced at the Opening Ceremony), more importantly to showcase your talents and grab future opportunities in the gaming industry.

Presenters:

Andy Touch (Unity) Since he added physics to a cube and watched it bounce, Andy has been interested in experimenting and playing around with gaming technology. Having specialised in Unity at university, and then going on to teach the engine to higher education students, he is now part of the Evangelist team at Unity Technologies and helps to spread the word to new users and to show off what it can do! He loves creating interactive 3D art experiments, taking part in game jams & hack days and helping Unity Developers to get the most out of the game engine.

Marco Trivellato (Unity) Marco is a veteran in the game industry with a strong background in computer science and a passion for programming and video games. He worked for many years in Italy, Canada and now England. In his time in Vancouver he worked for Electronic Arts and Next Level Games as systems and rendering software engineer on triple-A titles like FIFA, Fight Night 3 and Captain America, spending most of his time on game engines, focusing on their performance and architecture. Then he decided to move on and joined Unity for a new career challenge. He now works in UK as Field Engineer helping other game developers to make great games!

Sampsa Lehtonen (Recoil Games & Draconus Entertainment ltd.) Sampsa Lehtonen is a game programmer with over 10 years of experience in the industry. Even with a Master's degree in computer science, he is self-taught what comes to developing games. He has been working on titles ranging from indie (Triplane Turmoil 2 for PC) to mobile (Rock Runners for iOS and Android, Bad Piggies) to "triple A next-gen" console games (Rochard for PS3, PC, Mac and Linux).

Brendan Erquiaga (Retora Game Studios) Brendan is an independent game developer who has been using the Unity Engine to fuel his creations for the past four years. Being a Designer/Programmer, he has always enjoyed the freedom & speed of working in Unity. He started as a self-taught hobbyist, then attended university for game design which helped him work his way up to full-time developer. He has lead large teams, created solo projects, done Unity contract work, developed for Retora Game Studios, and last year he taught teenagers to develop mobile games in Unity. Currently Brendan is the Creative Director at Retora Black, a mobile game studio out of Phoenix, Arizona.

IGDA Finland Gathering start at the same place right after the presentations. Stay tuned for updates!

IGDA Finland Presentations – Unity Time: 8.10.2013 at 17:00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

IGDA Finland October Gathering Time: 8.10.2013 at 19:15 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

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