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

applifier-logo-blue 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.

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

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Supercharge word of mouth by letting players share video replays with Everyplay Replays! Live in over 230 mobile games including Rovio’s Bad Piggies, Dreamwork's Turbo, Chillingo's Tiny Troopers 2, Everyplay Replays enables your fans to spread the word on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube! Get the free service that's delivering up to 7.5% of daily installs to hit games!

Increase your revenues with in-game video ads that reward users with virtual items! Everyplay GameAds are used by top games like Song Pop, Ruzzle, Sonic Dash and Hill Climb Racing to drive industry leading monetization.

Mobile Mixer event & IGDA Finland Networking event with Facebook

Welcome to IGDA Finland November Gathering with Facebook on November 12th!

IGDA Finland November Gathering will be a double treat. The evening will start with Pocket Gamer & IGDA Finland Mobile Mixer sponsored by Applifier, Rovio and Unity and continue as IGDA Finland Gathering sponsored by Facebook.

Agenda

5:30-7:30pm cocktails, food, networking & Mobile Mixer panel

Featured speakers: Oscar Clark • Evangelist • Applifier Oleg Pridiuk • Technical Evangelist • Unity Jussi Immonen • Senior Publishing Manager • Rovio Tiina Zilliacus • CEO • Gajatri Studios More to be announced soon!

Following the Mobile Mixer, IGDA Finland November Gathering with Facebook will mix the industry influences and mobile game superstars. Facebook will talk about the power of the Facebook Platform and sponsor some drinks!

Welcome to connect, relax and learn!

Pocket Gamer & IGDA Finland Mobile Mixer Time: 12.11.2013 at 17:30 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland Register: EventBrite

IGDA Finland November Gathering with Facebook Time: 12.11.2013 at 19:30 Place: Club Adams, Erottaja 15-17, Helsinki Finland

IGDA Finland October Gathering and Presentation with Unity

Upcoming Unity 2D toolkit, tips&tricks, physics, etc... The list goes on what the awesome IGDA Finland Presentation held for the attending crowd at Club Adams, which peaked at 270 attendees!

Andy Touch from Unity presented us with the upcoming feature to Unity. He showed us a glimpse on how the developers can use Unity more easily to create 2D games with the build-in tools. After Andy, Marco Trivellato took to the stage, also from Unity, and provided some essential tips & trick to help the developer on daily tasks, which ranged from profiling the game to garbage collection. Sampsa Lehtonen (Recoil Games & Draconus Entertainment ltd.) revealed what he had learned in making 2.5D games, such as Rochard which focused on the physics in 2/2.5D games. Brendan Erquiaga from Retora Game Studion wanted us to use our time better and so focused on the essentials of Editor Scripting in Unity. Examples ranged from simple short-keys to changing how Unity pre-/post-processes models. And last but not least, VIOPE launched the Game Development World Championship 2013 in the event, see more info here.

Warm thanks to all presenters and attendees. Stay tuned for updates of the upcoming gathering!

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

Pocket Gamer's Mobile Mixer in Helsinki 23rd April

Pocket Gamer has teamed up with Neogames and the IGDA Finland with support from Cocoa China and Papaya Mobile, to organize Pocket Gamer Mobile Mixer in Helsinki. Pocket Gamer's Mobile Mixers unite the greatest minds and freshest faces in the world of mobile games development with a heady mixture of presentations, panels, and networking - all gently lubricated with a little complimentary booze.

The Program

Doors Open (5pm)

Welcome - Chris James, MD - Pocket Gamer

Market Spotlight: China Cocoa China's US GM Lei Zhang, explains why it makes sense to look East right now!

Market Spotlight: Russia Nevosoft's Business Development Director, Julia Lebedeva points out that one of the fastest growing app markets is right on your doorstep Acquisition & Monetisation Panel: The hottest topics relating to recruiting users and making money discussed with industry luminaries. Chris Hanage, GM - Papaya Mobile Tommy Palm, Mobile Guru - King Thorbjörn Warin, CMO - Grand Cru Jon Jordan, Editor at Large - PocketGamer.Biz

Recruitment Focus Looking to advance your career? Look no further. Rovio Unity Grey Area Supercell AppCampus

Battle Panel - Big Vs Small Is it better to stay small, nimble and retain full creative control or do you need to think big to survive in the increasingly competitive market place? Chris James is your referee for a tru david vs goliath battle featuring leading industry heavyweights. Chris James, MD - Steel Media Illkka Paananen, CEO - Supercell Markus Pasula, CEO - Grand Cru Games Jami Laes, SVP Games - Rovio Johannes Vuorinen, Co-Founder - Frogmind

Sign up to the event: Eventbrite.

IGDA Finland October Gathering with Unity and GameFounders

9th October was a day of tricks and treats for the game folk in Finland.

October’s IGDA Finland Presentations are now behind us, and they were a success! All 250 tickets were reserved in advance. The theme of the evening was Unity 4, and a few lucky ones even won themselves a full Unity Pro 4.0 license. Just in case you inexplicably missed the event, let’s recap.

Nick Jovic and his merry men from Unity Technologies gave us a taste of the next generation of their platform. Colossal Order’s very own Damien Morello shared his tips and tricks for Unity, and you even get a chance to put your freshly gained knowledge to good use: Antti Lihavainen opened VIOPE’s world wide Game Programming Contest.

What comes to the post-Unity Gathering in Bar Cuba, the words of a fellow attendee sums things up nicely: ”It's a bit crowded.”

Nick Jovic was in the mood for a popquiz, and awarded correct answers with Unity’s t-shirts. We learned, for example, where the company’s main office is situated (San Francisco, for future reference) and where Unity will established their newest office (Berlin, now you know).

The other big thing came from across the Baltic Sea. Kadri Ugand from the Estonian game accelerator GameFounders first greeted us with kind words and then dropped the proverbial bomb: the second round of GameFounders program is now officially open!

Thank you for spending an evening with us! This time the number of attendees in the Gathering went up to 261. See you in November!

IGDA Finland October Gathering with Unity

October draws near, and so does the next IGDA Finland Gathering. This time we have organized a set of presentations for you to enjoy.

Pre-event: IGDA Finland presentations @ Bulevardi 31, Helsinki The presentations will revolve around Unity, the game development tool we all know and respect. As the launching of Unity4 approaches, we felt it appropriate to venture deeper into the mysteries of this popular software that hit 1 million registered users in April 2012. We have managed to gather an interesting line of speakers. The schedule and topics are as follows:

Speakers: Regional Sales Director Nick Jovic, Unity: Latest News Product Evangelist Russ Morris, Unity: Unity 4 Workflows -- Tips & Tricks Field Engineer Ken Noland, Unity: Inside the Tech - Hidden Gems

Damien Morello, Colossal Order:Unity Engine in a production environment Antti Lihavainen, Viope: Viope Game Programming Contest

PS. If you want to win something cool: please bring your business cards with you! We'll do a draw at the end of the Unity presentations.

Time: 9.10.2012 at 17.00-19.00 Place: Bulevardi 31, 00180 Helsinki Seminar is organized by IGDA Finland Eventbrite Event: Link  

IGDA Gathering in Bar Cuba

After the presentations it's time to indulge in cold drinks and hot topics just around the corner. The main sponsor of the October gathering is Unity. They will pamper us with drink tickets and other tangible utilities. We will also hear a few words from our other contributor GameFounders, a feisty startup accelerator that focuses on game developers. GameFounders startups will be showing their Unity projects on iPads. Can you handle so much luxury?

Bar Cuba. 7PM. Be there to share the passion with us!

IGDA Finland October Gathering Time: 9.10.2012 at 19.00 Place: Cuba Bar, Erottaja 4, Helsinki Finland

IGDA Finland proudly presents: ARTtech seminar at Assembly 2012

As a summer job, UGDA Finland team put together ARTtech seminar for Assembly 2012! :) This year IGDA Finland put together the ARTtech seminar @ Assembly2012! The theme is "Tinkering" of games and electronics and you'll have a chance to hear on playful prototyping by Tuomo Tammenpää (Fri 3rd August, 12AM), why Theory Interactive build an entire engine instead of a indie game (Fri 3rd Aug 7PM) and how MiniVegas team uses game engines and C++ frameworks with traditional CG animation (Sat, 4th August 1PM). You'll also learn about 3D printing, building a arcade cabinet, Unity4, Adobe tools and so on.

Full program Thursday - Saturday - bring your sleeping bag with you! We have some presentations not to be missed :)!

IGDA Finland & Unity special

New year started with a Unity Special on 10th of January. We organized IGDA Finland Presentations event focusing on Unity and IGDA Finland Gathering at Cuba bar was sponsored by Unity and Umbra. We have had more and more people attending both IGDA Finland Gatherings and Presentations events. Thus we are looking for bigger venues for the events. If you attended IGDA Finland Presentations event in January and would like to share your opinion about the venue, we are all ears.

At the IGDA Finland Presentations: Unity Special! we had Unity Evangelist Carl Callewaert & Sales Director Nick Jovic giving a hands on presentation of Unity. Next speakers were Sampo Lappalainen and Thomas Puha from Umbra, Finnish company specializing in rendering optimization middleware. Their presentation discussed what Umbra's technology is and does and what kind benefits it offers. A version of Umbra's technology is integrated into Unity. Thomas and Sampo gave some best practice advice on how to best take advantage of Umbra's occlusion culling in Unity. Arto Koistinen from Dicework Games shared his tips and tricks and Damien Morello (Recoil Games / Colossal Order) shared lessons learned from Rochard project. Fantastic presentations! On top of all we had a special guest star Julie Heyde from Bandello. They focus on assisting independent developers from all corners of the video game industry, providing insight and know-how in the go-to-market process. If you are indie developer and need marketing help, talk to Julie.

Slides from the presentation session & Unity show reel:

Nick from Unity sent the showreel and this message - thanks to all IGDA Volunteers and everyone who attended (over 130 persons attended Presentations event!)!

"Unity would like to say a big thank you to Sonja for organising fantastic event and to everyone who attended the presentations and Cuba Bar! It was a great pleasure to present alongside, Recoil Games, Colossal Order and Dicework Games - thank you for providing such varied and inspiring content. The organisation and popularity of IGDA Finland is certainly impressive. I can't wait for our next visit and to see you all again!"

After Presentations event we headed to Cuba where Unity and Umbra sponsored drinks. Thanks for those 185 who attended, great night!

Other IGDA Finland events in January:

IGDA Finland Proudly Presents: Unity special on January 10th!

Happy New Year! IGDA Finland had a fantastic season 2010-2011 and we expect 2012 to be even better. We'll start the year with a bang! NOTE! IGDA Finland Presentations venue has changes: NEW VENUE Aalto University building called Chydenia. The address: Runeberginkatu 22-24.

The first IGDA Finland Presentations and Gathering is on January 10th. Unity Evangelist Carl Callewaert will talk about the latest from Unity. On top of that we'll hear presentations from Umbra, Recoil Games/Colossal Order and DiceWorks Games on utilizing Unity.

Sulake is sponsoring the IGDA Finland Presentations in 2012. The Presentations event will take place at: Lapuankatu 6. It is a bit further away from Cuba but you can either walk or take 3T tram from Kauppakorkeakoulu to Aleksanterinkatu stop.

The evening continues at the Cuba bar from 7PM onwards. Besides Carl, also Nick (Sales Director), Tomas (Unity XBox Lead Engineer) and Akouvi (Education licensing) from Unity will be joining us! Drinks will be offered by Unity & Umbra! Additionally Unity will have special program at Cuba. If you want to win a t-shirt and see something cool, better not to miss the party!

IGDA Finland January Presentations Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 5-7PM Kauppakorkea auditorium, Chydenia, Runeberginkatu 22-24, Helsinki Finland SIGN UP: Eventbrite

IGDA Finland January Gathering Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 7PM Cuba Bar, Erottaja 4, Helsinki Finland

Other IGDA Finland activities in January: YLE Teema "Pelinrakentajat" exclusive screening for IGDA Finland on 18th January. Andorra movie theatre, Eerikinkatu 11

Global Game Jam, various locations in Finland (Finnish Game Jam) 27th-29th January