IGDA Finland Turku Hub Gathering with Turku Game Startups

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The fall gatherings were kicked off in the flavour of Turku based game startups and boy, was it tasty! Bar Bryssel was once again filled with enthusiasm especially because this time we had a show from a total of 6 arising game development stars!

  • Kuutti Entertainment, who are bringing game classics back to life

  • Binary Cat Games, who are developing a rock-themed puzzle platform game for PC called Synesthesia

  • Team Enigmatic, who are developing Enigma Elevator, an eccentric point'n'click adventure where you play as the only teenager in the world

  • Vitali Kirpu, an indie dev who is working on Pixel Piracy, a side-scrolling 2d, pirate roguelike game

  • Indium Game Stories, who are developing Unhuman, where you play as a survivor in the city of the damned. Indium is also working on a cross-platform game engine

  • Brainboxing, who are developing Caligula Master, a game heavily inspired by the movie Cube

The night continued on with some special announcements. Turku’s very own Unity hero, Veli-Pekka Kokkonen, who has been really active in boosting the local gamedev community also treated us with live news about Unity2D from the Unite ‘13 conference. He’s been involved in creating the Unity2D framework and so the news were met with cheers and requests for demos and premium support!

Also, one of the longest running game companies in Turku, Treehouse was over to playtest one of the most ambitious games the Turku game scene had seen so far. Fierce battles were had between contestants with this highly competetive game, but we’ll get back with this awesome game a bit later...

Tatu Laine & IGDA Finland Turku Hub coordinators

IGDA Finland Gathering with Bitsquid

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The season has now officially started! We had a great crowd to see what was on Bitsquid's sleeve. Johan Strömberg gave us a brief rundown on Bitsquid as a company and Niklas Frykholm followed it with extensive Bitsquid engine demo.

In case you missed the Presentation part head to http://www.bitsquid.se/ and Bitsquid GDC 2013 Showreel to see what's the fuss is all about!

See you at the next Gathering!

IGDA Finland Oulu Hub August Gathering and Presentations

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The IGDA Finland Oulu Hub was officially launched on the 21st of August with presentations from Jyri Partanen (IGDA Finland) and Petri Nordlund (Unity). The event attracted a total of 36 game developers and game development hobbyists at the Business Kitchen premises.

Jyri Partanen The event started with Jyri telling the audience about IGDA, and more specifically about IGDA Finland, it’s mission and what IGDA is all about.

Petri Nordlund

Petri Nordlund from Unity Finland talked about Unity both as a company and a game engine, providing a compact but thorough presentation containing a lot of information that was new for many of the attendees.

After the presentations, the group of developers migrated to 45 Special where the evening was filled with cold beverages, socializing and discussion about game development. IGDA Finland Oulu Hub was also lucky to have Jyri “Jay” Ranki as a surprise guest at the gathering, who had many words of wisdom for the local game developers and the volunteers behind the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub.

Tony Manninen and Jay Ranki

The official launch of the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub marks the first steps on a long path in making the Oulu game development scene even bigger and better.

If you want to hear more about IGDA Finland Oulu Hub and the local game development scene, you can find us on Facebook.

‘Til we meet again!

- Antti Wilenius & the IGDA Finland Oulu Hub volunteers

IGDA picnic at TÀhtitorninmÀki

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Do we hear a hallel-ouya?

It's time to get your baskets and blankets ready because it's not a proper summer without the official IGDA picnic! As the fabled day approaches fill your mind with joyful things, game-related or not (we don't discriminate), that you can share with us. Much has happened since the last Gathering, and we wouldn't dream of robbing you of your best chance to rave about it all.

And what better place to do some summer-gazing than TÀhtitorninmÀki at the idyllic seaside of Helsinki! Be prepared for seagulls, cruise ships and a grassy downhill (although we can promise you only one of these).

Polish your shades and flip-flops. See you there!

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IGDA picnic 13.8.2013 at 7 pm TÀhtitorninmÀki

IGDA Finland June Gathering and Presentations

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Midsummer is right around the corner and there was just enough time for the season's last IGDA Finland Presentations and Gathering! IGDA Finland Presentations focused on several important aspects of game design. We had three presenters, the first one being Kai Rosenkranz from Nevigo. He showed us how Articy:Draft, the first professional game design tool, helps with the design process.

At this point the Presentations was hijacked by couple of guys from company called RILBITS who presented us with tools to create merchandise from our games.

Miikka Junnila from Aalto University gave us a lecture on the basics of game design, starting from the definition of a game.

And lastly we got some advanced curriculum from on free-to-play and its impact on game design process at Digital Chocolate.

After the two hour back-to-school we got drink tickets out and had a blast by the courtesy of our sponsor, Grand Cru. They showed us a cool trailer of their upcoming game Supernauts along side mansized logo!

Because this was our last Gathering of the seasons we had something special for the partiers, Oculus Rift and Leap Motion! These cool gadgets were on the floor for everybody to test and experience.

All good things come to and end, although for us this means just a two months rest before we kick off season 2013-2014. Check out the coming Gathering dates HERE!