Jyväskylä February Gathering

Expa’s second gathering this year was held on its usual spot and time, on a Tuesday at Shaker. We had two great guests, researchers from the Gamecloud-project from Lappeenranta University of Technology and Lasse Seppänen from PlayRaven.

Before the gathering we had a workshop with Gamecloud, connecting game projects to the cloud service developed in the project. Janne Parkkila, Kati Järvi and Timo Hynninen helped us figure out Gamecloud and get the service running. It is now in closed beta, but the API is open and on Github. At the gathering, we heard a bit more on where their research is now and how we can use it for making games.

Our other guest was Lasse Seppänen, CEO of PlayRaven, which just received $2.3M in seed investment. Lasse told us about his history at Remedy, for example about making Alan Wake. He also told us more about PlayRaven, and the game they are currently making, Spymaster. A game about managing spies in mid-war Europe? Can’t wait for it to be out. Everyone was eager to hear tips from a games industry veteran, so we almost didn’t let him off the stage after the questions started pouring in.

Thank you everyone for a fun gathering and we hope our guests visit us again soon!

Expa & IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub volunteers

IGDA Finland February Gathering with Amazon Web Services and VIOPE

Now that the year has finally gotten to a great start, we decided to ramp it up in IGDA Finland February Gathering.

First up we have a small message from this year’s awesome Finnish Game Jam 2014. After that the people from Amazon Web Services will give you a short intro on how gaming companies are leveraging their platform. And last but not least is the VIOPE crew presenting the Game Development World Championship 2013 which has reached its end. The 4-month-long competition drew massive attention of developers from 79 countries around the globe. It’s now time to reveal the finalists and announce the winners. Come and celebrate with us at the GDWC Closing Ceremony!

Here is a sneak-peak at what Amazon is presenting at the Gathering:

Amazon offers a comprehensive set of development tools and services that make it faster and easier for developers to build, deploy, distribute, scale, analyze, and monetize successful games. Learn how companies like Supercell, Rovio, Grand Cru, and Mojang are utilizing AWS platform to innovate faster and focus on game development instead of undifferentiated heavy-lifting of managing IT infrastructures. You will also get a chance to hear about some of our latest developments including application and game streaming from the cloud (Amazon AppStream) and C3, our latest generation of compute-optimized instances providing customers with the highest performing processors and enhanced network performance making this instance type a perfect fit for MMOG games.

The lovely people Club Adams offer the cloakroom service free of charge!

IGDA Finland February Gathering Time: 11.02.2014 at 18:00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

Jyväskylä Expa, now also an IGDA Finland Hub!

Expa's December Gathering had both a great guest and lots of cause for celebration. Formally, Expa is registered in 2013, but actually, it was already alive and well in 2012. This means that Expa is now one year old!

Congratulations Expa!

But there is more: Expa is now officially an IGDA Finland hub, representing game developers from Jyväskylä around Finland and the world.

As a guest, we had Joachim Achrén, formerly the lead analyst at Supercell and now running his own company, Next Games. Joachim gave us great tips on what kinds of numbers to crunch in games.

We also heard about the game projects that are part of Expa Game Lab. Four games in total are on their way to completion in 2014, and we heard what Buggers, Seth, COMA and CyberAfrica had been doing.

In January, Expa kicked the year off with Unity and Microsoft, when the LevelUp-tour came to Jyväskylä. First, developers spent the day doing games for Windows 8 and Windows Phone. It was a great chance to hear tips and tricks for Unity, and then have a chance at publishing a game on the Windows platforms.

Later in the evening, we played Tekken Tag Tournament 2. There was a tournament of 12 players, with Sami Sorvo taking the lead with an unbroken chain of wins. Congratulations!

IGDA Finland January Gathering with Applifier

This week Tuesday meant Club Adams would be full of game developers from dawn till dusk – and beyond! – as LevelUp, the game development tour organized together with Microsoft and Unity, started its second day early in the morning and continued till late in the afternoon. No doubt many great games were worked on and we will be looking forward to seeing the fruits of everyone's labors!

After a hard day of work it was time for everyone to grab their well-earned drink tickets and put them to good use. Before the attendees were too engaged in their chatter however, the gathering sponsor Applifier shared the highlights of their service Everyplay which monetizes with video ads, brings you high quality users and provides game replays for users to share.

Whether it was the belated winter or possibly prolonged holidays that kept a lot of people at home, it was still another successful gathering with a grand total of 177 attendees. Thanks for everyone who showed up and those who made it possible – until next time!

IGDA Finland January Gathering with Applifier

Year 2014 has barely started while we are already looking forward to kick it off with some real treats! Next week our friends at Applifier will be sponsoring this year’s first official gathering which is guaranteed to lighten up your mood in the middle of this winter without winter. Applifier is the company behind Everyplay Replays and Everyplay Game Ads. Everyplay Replays is live in over 230 mobile games, including Bad Piggies, Tiny Troopers 2 and the latest success story in the field of mobile gaming, Beat the Boss 3. At the moment they are working hard on the Android release of Everyplay Replays, so to get a first feel of the Everyplay Android, join us for the first IGDA Finland meeting of 2014!

Additionally, we are organizing a weeklong game development tour LevelUp together with Microsoft and Unity! From the 13th to the 17th of January the tour will be at five different cities, bringing you the opportunity to take your Unity games to Windows platforms with help of the best trainers. Prepare for good time, exciting competitions, great prizes, delicious food and drinks –and of course parties! LevelUp is free and the evening parties are open for everyone. Space for the event itself is limited however, so make sure to reserve your spot in time! Read more of the event on here.

LevelUp arrives in Helsinki and takes over Club Adams on Tuesday, January 14th and after an intensive day of making games it’s time to relax in the official IGDA Finland January Gathering, the generous folks of Applifier making sure your mouth won’t be left dry.

IGDA Finland January Gathering Time: 14.01.2014 at 19:00 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

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