December Gathering with Supercell

Things are getting heated in the Finnish game industry and one of the hottest companies in town is throwing Christmas party with us: Supercell!

New console generation is just around the corner and another year is upon us, which makes December Gathering the best place to meet up and reflect on the awesome past year. Supercell will make sure that you won't get thirsty while thinking! So come join us in the Club Adams for the most Super Christmas party this year with IGDA Finland and Supercell and lets ready ourselves for the year 2014. See you there!

IGDA Finland December Gathering & Christmas Party Time: 10.12.2013 at 19.00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

Mobile Mixer event & IGDA Finland Networking event with Facebook

Slush and Splash! The audience of the November Gathering was presented with a double feature: Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer mixed & IGDA Finland Gathering!

First up was the Mobile Mixer panel with variety of industry veterans talking about the present and the future of mobile game development. After the panel people had the opportunity to talk to panelists and get to know a bit more about the companies represented in the panel.

After the panel there was a brief moment to let the new info sink in. After that the IGDA Finland Gathering kicked into gear with Facebook presenting their mobile gaming platform. The presentation was short and sweet with code samples detailing the implementation using different frameworks.

Here are few links for the interested: Games hub of the Facebook developer site, Open source sample apps and tutorials for iOS, Android, Unity and Canvas. Oh and last but not least here is something special: Facebook presentation with code samples.

Stay tuned for updates on the greatest party this holiday!

Kicking off IGDA Finland Tampere Hub

It finally happened. With the first IGDA Finland Tampere Hub gathering held at 29.10.2013 now behind us, the whole organizing team can let out a sigh of relief. After months of planning we can say with utmost certainty that the team did a marvelous job at putting it all together. But it would not have been without all you folks taking part in the gathering and making it a night to remember. We would also like to express our gratitude towards our sponsor Fragment, a game development studio situated in Tampere. Thank you!

The event took place in Jack the Rooster, a local rock bar situated near the city center in Tampere. The doors opened at around 6 pm allowing the long queue of people to finally trickle inside and enjoy their first cool beverage courtesy of Fragment.

Once we had all the early arrivals inside, the program could commence. The official program consisted of an introduction to IGDA Finland by Tatu Laine followed by speeches from our sponsor Fragment.

Starting something new does not usually come without obstacles. First of all, due to the high turnout of people, we were having some issues with getting people inside as fast as possible. One of the biggest problems, however, was that people believed the kitchen to be open during the event. This was not the case and we will try to remedy this in the future.

Jack the Rooster proved a wonderful choice of venue. It really had that rock’n’roll feeling that we experience in the game development industry here in Finland. We were also able to negotiate great pricing for IGDA Finland members as well as our sponsors.

On a personal note, I would like to thank the whole organizing team for all the hard work they have put into making this happen! Tampere really has the spirit that becoming a great international game development hub requires.

Until next time, IGDA Finland Tampere Hub volunteers Timo Heinäpurola Annakaisa Kultima Minna Eloranta Arto Koistinen Mika Kuusisto Mikko Karsisto Jukka Mikkonen Jukka Kauppinen

Games track on Nov 13th, Slush

Slush Games track will occupy the Black Stage on November 13th. Check out the Games track program.

At 11:30am 10 mobile game startups will hit the stage. Each one will have one lesson to share with the crowd from the first leg of their journey. After the learnings we'll involve Kristian Segerståle and Aki Järvilehto into the discussion. What will these two experienced game developers / business leaders have to say to the startups?

The startups: Gajatri Studios (Tiina), Headnought Games (Pauli), PlayRaven (Lasse), Fat Lemon Games (Jani), Rival Games (Jukka), Boomlagoon (Antti), Small Giant Games (Markus), Nonstop Games (Juha), Tuliotus (Sami) and SongHi (Daniel).

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Other gaming related events during Slush:

- Facebook's "Getting started with Parse ­- the new way to build" workshop at the Slush Basement on November 13th - 11:00am - 1.45pm. Facebook will organise four 20 minute sessions in a row. No pre-registration needed.

The workshop will focus on: - User acquisition using Facebook's Mobile App Ads - Growing your game using Facebook's social channels - Cross platform social integration with Unity

- Neogames & IGDA Finland game industry mingle at 5pm White Stage - meet other investors, publishers and developers. Snacks and drinks available.

- Official Slush party on November 13th from 9pm onwards

- Women in Games networking event on November 14th, at 5pm (Teatterimuseo)

IGDA Finland Oulu Hub Gathering

On the 17th of October IGDA Finland Oulu Hub arranged a gathering at the Business Kitchen premises, targeted primarily for students and game development hobbyists interested in getting a job or an internship position in a game development studio. The evening featured an array of speakers and presentations for those who arrived.

Tony Manninen (Ludocraft) took the floor first and provided the attendees with an inspiring presentation about the most important skills and traits required from a game developer

Second on the stage was Tero Takalo (Studio Outo) who shared his views on developing game graphics and what aspiring graphic artists should focus their skills on.

After the graphics presentation it was time to focus on programming, naturally. Niina Tampio (Ludocraft) told the audience what are the most important skills of a game programmer and how one should approach this highly demanding profession.

After our main presentations the floor was given for the representatives of Business Oulu, Business Kitchen, OuluSES, Oulu Game Lab and Stage, who all introduced their organizations and enlightened the attendees about how they can be of help for those interested in getting into the game industry.

The rest of the evening was dedicated for networking and socializing while having some drinks and snacks provided to us by our generous sponsors Ludocraft and OSAKO.

All in all the evening was a huge success in terms of both the number of attendees who participated and in the amount of positive feedback collected. In fact, we were so overwhelmed by the success, that we are most definitely looking into arranging a similar kind of evening during next year!

Stay gamified!

- Antti Wilenius & the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub volunteers