IGDA Finland March Gathering wth Reaktor Ventures: The Aftermath

Hello hello! Time to recap the Helsinki March gathering with Reaktor Ventures. This time there was no seminar so we got started a little later. The evening was more of a hands-on experience with a number of exciting Virtual Reality demos available. We also cheered and toasted Vesa Raudasoja for his success in the Board of Directors election! Vesa is the first Finn and only second European member of the Board, and his goal is to bring the “international” back to IGDA. To illustrate some of his ideas, Mr. Raudasoja described a collaboration between sites in different countries during the 2016 Global Game Jam. During the jam, the different locations posted progress updates, made video calls and cheered each other on over the weekend. What’s up for you in the next three years, Mr. Raudasoja? “I want to connect the dots in a large scale. The time is ripe for the European and International game developing communities to start working together more closely, in a natural way. I think all it needs is a little push in the right direction, and I wish to be there to put things in motion.” “Over the ten years I’ve been involved in building this community, I’ve made a lot of friends and connections, but it doesn’t end here. We are going to do this as a community, I couldn’t have made this alone.” Mr. Raudasoja also hopes that everyone would would offer him any insights or ideas about how to improve the international community and collaboration between the game developers of the world. You may contact him at vesa.raudasoja@igda.fi.  

Reaktor Ventures

The evening was sponsored by Reaktor Ventures, the Finnish seed stage investor. Mr. Ville Vesterinen, EIR of the company, talked to us about how Reaktor Ventures works.

“We like to be the first investor in the company, to add the most value. We invest from tens of thousands up to one million euro, and also offer the services of Reaktor’s 350 designers, coders & growth engineers to our portfolio companies free of charge. We have a strong interest in the Finnish game industry and want to work hard to make it succeed just as we want to work hard for the Finnish startup space in general.“

“So far at Reaktor Ventures we have invested in two very promising companies in the VR space. We have invested in both VR content as well as VR enabling technology, and intend to continue doing so in the future! Games are the obvious choice but VR has promise in many different sectors and we’d love to see companies across the board.”

Sólfar studios is an Icelandic gaming studio working on two titles: Everest VR experience (more on that later) and a game called Godling. Univrses is an early stage Swedish company developing the hottest central technology for all VR hardware - positional tracking.

What do you feel the future is going to be for VR technologies, Mr. Vesterinen?

“We believe that VR, and in due course AR will be among the central new growth markets of the coming decade and beyond. We have exceptionally deep understanding and competence in VR related technologies here in the Nordic countries, and we believe that wider Scandinavia, and especially Finland, is going to be home to many world leading VR and AR companies.”

Everest

Sólfar and Reaktor Ventures had erected a black box in the middle of the venue. Inside awaited a thrilling virtual reality experience on Mt. Everest, using the new HTC Vive system. Created from over 300,000 hi-res images, the environment also in fact allows you to physically move around, thanks to the Vive’s motion tracking tech. Cleverly using virtual step marks on the floor and a barely visible grid inside the VR world to mark the walls of the room, you can move around fairly safely inside the virtual experience without the fear of walking into a wall.

An exhilarating additional experience came from the handheld controllers. The handle-shaped controllers had great and very responsive grip, and the feedback felt surprisingly realistic - as if you were really dragging a gloved hand along the rope handles of a bridge! Also, being able to see your hands in virtual reality really adds to the immersion.

All in all, despite the shortness of the actual demo, the experience was very engaging, and doing what every responsible person should do to overcome their fear of heights – step over the edge into a bottomless icy gully –  was surprisingly terrifying, in spite of knowing there was solid floor under my feet!

Finnish Virtual Reality Association, FIVR, had a successful day hosting the grand opening of the Finnish VR Hub at YLE Iso Paja in Pasila earlier on Tuesday. The hub offers space and hardware for devs working on VR and AR projects, and contains currently powerful PCs, HTC Vive and Oculus Rifts. FIVR aims to bring together Finns interested in VR development. They currently have some 400 members, professionals and hobbyists alike, and joining is free of charge.

Their big day was rounded up by some very nice demos by FIVR members. The demos included a fun platformer called Lollihop, a VR comic episode game demo called Since They Left (Riidenpolusta Lähtien), a Samsung Gear VR space flight demo and another Vive demo, an exciting VR space painter called Tiltbrush. We got to try a couple of these demos, but due to very long queues, we simply couldn’t get through to all of them. Joonas Häll tried Lollihop, a game where you control an adorable platypus in a platformer world: “The game was really cool - you can control the camera through the headset, so by leaning forwards you can see things up very close, or take a peek behind a wall and see where you’re going to jump to. Very enjoyable!” I had a peek at Since They Left. It is going to be a five-episode game, combining features of comics, visual novel and adventure games. According to the game’s developer and main artist Kriina Rytkönen, the demo was an “episode 0”, proof of concept and a prequel to the main story. The story itself is going to feature the demo’s youths ten years later, meeting up in a forest with some supernatural elements. Sounds like fun! Maxine was again full to bursting with people having fun, trying out the demos and enjoying themselves. Until next time!  

Photos by: Janne Karvinen

Vesa Raudasoja elected to the IGDA Board of Directors

Vesa Raudasoja, a long time active member of IGDA Finland,  has unlocked quite an achievement as he was elected to the IGDA Board of Directors. IGDA Finland warmly congratulates Vesa Raudasoja for his election and wishes him continued success in his future endeavors.

The results of the election came out on Thursday the 3rd of March and new board members will officially begin their terms on 1st of April 2016.

The final results are as follows:

• Vesa Raudasoja - 473 votes
• Lucy Morris - 318 votes
• Melody Schaeffer - 241 votes
• Cat Wendt - 213 votes

More information on the election and results can be found here: http://www.igda.org/news/278072/2016-IGDA-Board-of-Directors-Election-Results.htm

IGDA Finland March Gathering with Reaktor Ventures

Guess what, folks! February is almost over and it´s time to get ready for the March gathering. And we´ve got plenty of awesomeness in store.

This time our event is sponsored by the fantastic Reaktor Ventures. They want to invest in the best seed stage companies and help them become global leaders in their industry. In addition to investing venture capital, the company makes their 300 professionals available for their portfolio companies for free. Since February 2013, Reaktor Ventures has invested in 27 seed stage companies, including 5 gaming startups.

Also, we´ll have some VR setups, including HTC Vive, for you to try out! Pretty cool, right.

vr_promo

For a full day of VR, remember to check out the The Finnish Virtual Reality Association Grand Opening with seminars and demos held at YLE Iso Paja, in Pasila. More info and registration: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fivr-hub-grand-opening-tickets

This will be a night to remember, so make sure to join us in March!

IGDA Finland March Gathering with Reaktor Ventures
Time: 08.03.2016 at 19:00
Place: Maxine, Urho Kekkosen katu 1 A, 6th floor, 00100 Helsinki

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend. The cloakroom service is offered free of charge.

IGDA Finland Turku Hub February with King

In February IGDA Finland had the great pleasure of being visited by game developers from the Swedish company King. Benjamin Glaser, Mikael Säker and Robert Käck toured Finland and visited Kotka, Helsinki and last but not least, the Turku hub. Be sure to also check out the report of the Helsinki event. On Wednesday 10.2 they spoke both at the ICT-building in Turku, and at the IGDA evening gathering at Restaurant Mauno. The audience got an insight into King as a company and a brand, and a thorough and enthusiastic presentation of King’s game engine Defold, that is about to be publically launched very soon. The gathering also featured a demo corner.

From shooting bubbles to blasting blossoms

Robert and Benjamin gave us a short history of King, and some very helpful hints for students that are interested in breaking into the game industry.

The company was founded in 2003, and the first kinds of games produced were so called “skill games”. These are small puzzle type games with very quick rounds, and usually the theme was shooting bubbles. In the early business model there was also betting involved.

Between 2003 and 2010 King created around 150 IP’s. The company became profitable in 2005 and partnered with Yahoo at this time. When Facebook entered the social media scene, King developed the “Saga”-format and targeted Facebook users. The Saga format includes the maps that the player progresses on, the star system and the progression of the puzzles. In 2012 mobile had also become an important frontier for King games to conquer. The core mechanic of the games stays the same. A distinct feature is the cross platform functionality. King’s four franchises are Candy Crush Saga, Pet Rescue Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and Bubble Witch Saga.

King has 1700 employees in 13 studios around the world. The Shanghai office is the newest one. King games have a user base of 330 million, which is challenging to manage. The company has been awarded the title of Sweden’s best employer twice, and there is much effort put on nurturing a balanced company culture and clear values. Employees need to have a certain mindset to fit in, and aspirants for jobs go through a process of interviews to make sure that they are a fit.

Robert, who works with the King brand, gave the students at the ICT lecture some valuable hints on how to apply for internships and jobs in the game industry on a general level. Target fewer companies, rather than shooting with a shotgun and sending out masses of generic applications. Be sure to write applications that stand out in the competition. What kind of company do you want to work for, and what is the company that you are applying for actually like? Ask around and do research. Also networking is very important, as many recruitments are made via referrals, at least when it comes to King. Volunteering for IGDA is one way to network for example…

Not for tech tinkerers

Benjamin and Mikael’s aim for doing this tour of Finland is also to spread the word on King’s game engine Defold. The engine has been in development for over six years, and is ready to be officially launched. Although it has been possible to get invites for quite a while already, so the engine is already functioning and in use. The latest game release from King – Blossom Blast – was made with Defold.

Although King is developing the engine, it is not only for internal use (and there are no King ads or anything like that in games made with it). One of the initial developers and founders of Defold, has said “we wanted to make something that was state of the art, not state of the industry”. The point being that Defold is not tech focused. It contains solutions for generic problems.

And it will be given out for free.

Benjamin mentioned several reasons for this: 1) To make sure King is relevant in the industry – that they are a tech savvy company; 2) Creating a larger user base leads to improved production quality and also benefits the internal users; 3) It’s nice, and they have the means to do it. Of course, showing good will to the game developer community is part of a branding strategy as well.

During the daytime lecture Mikael gave the audience a lot of insight into the game design process, and in the evening his presentation was more focused on showing how Defold works. One of his main messages was that when we are designing, we are not just having ideas and then implementing them, rather, design is about making ideas work, and “discovering the idea” as the design process moves forward.

The developers of Defold hope that their engine will make this process easier by making the engine and design process collaborative – “things communicate”. One effect of using Defold has been shortening the loading time for the games, which also makes the gaming experience much more pleasant for the player.

If you want to know more, check out the Defold webpage: http://www.defold.com/

Democorner

The gathering also had a couple of demos to try out: Sauna Simulator by students at Turku UAS and Quadro Delta’s Ragnorium. The Sauna Simulator was made in 48 hours at the Global Game Jam, and became an instant hit on YouTube with 25000 views in less than a week.

For more about Quadro Delta, check out their website: http://www.quadrodelta.com/

Text: Jenny Wiik

Photos: Natasha Trygg & Toni Heinonen

IGDA Finland Turku Hub

IGDA Finland Seminars + February Gathering with King: The Aftermath

Hello again! Time to recap the Helsinki February gathering! The atmosphere was very warm, with an impressive number of people having showed up to hear the pre-gathering seminar. We had King representatives talking about the company's new game engine Defold, as well as New Dawn and Housemarque to show us a teaser trailer of their upcoming documentary feature film, Name of the Game. While waiting for the Candy Crush Royalty to show up, we had a chance to set up a Pulla Crush of our own - King, our sponsor this month, had provided some delicious Shrove buns for the Almond team and the Jam team to battle over. ;)

The Defold Saga

Robert Käck, Mikael Säker, and Benjamin Glaser from King introduced us to King's brand new game engine, Defold. King acquired Defold, now a six-year-old company,  two years ago. So far, Defold has been used for the King title Blossom Blast Saga, and a number of indie games.

The core idea around Defold is to create a lightweight game engine that would cut down the time spent fiddling with tools, and help you spend more time actually creating awesome games. Since most of the Defold devs come from AAA backgrounds, they know the importance of performance and scale - not just that of the games, but of the tools as well. Moreover, they wanted a tool that the entire team can use, from programmers to artists.

The engine itself will be very customisable. Capable of 2D and some nice physics out of the box, at its core Defold is 3D. The main scripting language is Lua, and all the features support fast and easy workflow. When restructuring folders, for instance, the engine keeps track of references for you. You can even make changes in scripts while running the game in the editor and see them take effect immediately! This is really good news for testing small tweaks. The builds for different platforms are also very fast, thanks to Lua.

There are some limits, of course – 3D and requires a little bit more effort and tinkering, and Lua as scripting language means you basically need to go low-level to create AIs. Currently the devs are working on a new, better editor view and engine expandability.

Sharing is caring

King is releasing Defold to the open public for free. There will be no premium versions, the engine will be the same inside and outside the company. When asked why, the answer was "because we can". Openness also maintains positive pressure to keep up great quality and discourages trick solutions.

The engine is currently at invite phase, and there are invites available for IGDA people here. Defold will be officially published at around GDC this year.

Vote Finnish in IGDA elections!

Vesa Raudasoja was applauded to the stage to remind the audience of his nomination to IGDA Board of Directors. Mr. Raudasoja feels that while IGDA is the largest game developers' association in the world, it is very US-centric. Mr. Raudasoja would like to offer global perspective and unite the European game front. If you are a member of IGDA, exercise your right to vote!

Name of the Game

Last but not least, we got a teaser sample from Name of the Game. What started as a marketing video about Housemarque's still very hush-hush game project collaboration with the arcade game legend Eugene Jarvis has now turned into a full-length film production.

The New Dawn camera crew has been following the development process for 18 months now, and while Mikael Haveri, the Head of Self Publishing from Housemarque told us that at first they felt a bit shy and may have needed a beer to relax in front of the cameras, they have now become a natural part of the process. We can attest to that, having seen his butt in some epic ice swimming scenes!

The film will follow the key moments of the project, but it also dives into the lives of the devs outside the project. Release is expected after the game – still unnamed – is released, but we can't wait to see the result!

If you missed the presentation, you find the trailer and more info here.

Photos by Daniel Schildt

That's that for this time! Hope to see you in March!