Theme Park Organizing Free Art Workshops in May

Theme Park is organizing two wonderful three-day workshops in Kouvola on May 25-27 at the Meduusa studio. The workshops will be lead by Ivan Smirnov and Evgeniya Zherebtsova, two professional teachers from the Smirnovschool, an online digital art school. They both have nearly a decade of experience in creating art for entertainment industry.

Please note that both classes require intermediate knowledge of Photoshop and will be running simultaneously, so it’s impossible to attend both of them.

For more information and to sign-up please visit the Eventbrite page:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/theme-park-may-workshops-tickets-39083196894

Theme Park is a group of people passionate about making art for the entertainment industry, who want to share their knowledge with other professionals, hobbyists and students.

Reboot Develop Reduced by 10%

Reboot Develop 2018 is taking place in the historical city of Dubrovnik, Croatia, from 19th to 21st of April. In its fifth year, it solidifies its position as a worldwide game industry event with continued growth. This year's conference promises more than 1500+ attendees from 600+ international companies representing an intriguing mix of big established game development studios as well as 100+ indie studios, countless representatives of investors and publishers as well as most of the key tech companies from the game industry.

IGDA Finland members get 10% off standard tickets using promocode: REBOOTFINLAND2018

Visit the conference website for more information: http://www.rebootdevelop.hr/

Get 20% off Game Dev Days in Tallinn

Game Dev Days is right around the corner and IGDA Members get 20% off standard tickets using promo code IGDAFIN. Game Dev Days is a great knowledge sharing event where business meets creativity.

Attention Indies! The deadline for submitting your game to the Game Village is March 15th.  Game Village is the conference's indie project showcase and competition where developers can present their latest games and get feedback from experts and conference attendees. The best project will be selected during the show and be awarded by a special prize and automatically qualify for Casual Connect's Indie Prize competition. 

The Game Village package includes: 2 Standard conference passes, demo space to showcase their game, and access to the workshops.

Check out the conference website for more information: https://gamedev.ee

Helsinki Hub: Bravo, February, Bravo

By Giorgos Riskas and Roope Sorvo

IGDA’s first gathering in Helsinki in 2018 IGDA started with a blast.

London-based BRAVOCOMPANY, stepped in at the last moment to sponsor the February event and showed cased their tactical team combat game Forces of Freedom. The company have coin the term “Coffee Break eSports”, which they use to describe a competitive real time team multiplayer games that can be played in 4 minute sessions.

In his seminar “Forces of Freedom in Early Access: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly!”, Florian Stronk, the co-founder and CEO of BRAVOCOMPANY, openly discusses the development process of Forces of Freedom, the company's first game.

In his presentation he didn’t shy away from the things that went wrong in development; sharing anecdotes that serve as learning moments and advice for the future.

Much emphasis was given to the importance of the community. When BRAVOCOMPANY first started, the team was short on resources and experience but full of ambition and passion for what they were doing. Now they would like to let other people benefit from the experience they gave gained throughout their development process.

Heavy emphasis was also placed on communication between the developer and the players. According to Stronk, the most important aspect of this communication is honesty, admitting one’s mistakes and taking whatever action is required to handle issues at hand.

Forces of Freedom was also available for play in the traditional IGDA demo corner. The team-based third person shooter pits two 5-person teams against each other over multiple game modes, with matches clocking in around four minutes. The full version is planned to feature multiple classes from scout to sniper, with maps spanning around the globe and covering over 50 years of history.

Despite the game drawing from real life military history, the game’s purpose is to bring people together across national borders. The matchmaking system used puts people from several different countries in the same team.

The game has already attracted more than 10 million players in Google Play’s Early Access. Based on organic traction and reassuring metrics, the company is focused on evolving Forces of Freedom into an entertainment product to be enjoyed over the years.

IGDA Board of Directors Election - 2018

On behalf of IGDA Finland, we wish to remind you that IGDA org has open election for the IGDA Board of Directors where we have the best candidate from Finland – Christopher Hamilton!

Chris has had an incredible impact on the Finnish chapter of IGDA for years with his huge passion for games and community development. We need a representative such as him to be elected to the IGDA Board of Directors in order to have the voice of Finnish gaming industry heard globally.

VOTE FOR CHRIS!