Game Spring Oulu 2014 & IGDA Finland Oulu Hub After Party

On the 1st of April 2014 the Game Spring Oulu game development seminar was held for the third time at the campus of the Oulu University of Applied Sciences. This time the seminar was divided into two tracks, dev and biz, which attracted roughly 200 visitors from near and far. The main theme of this year was the future of gaming, especially in indie games. The speakers included people like Jay Ranki (Next Games), Fredrik Wester (Paradox Interactive), Andrew Walker (GameFounders) and many others.

After the official seminar programme it was time for the After Party, which was held at the Business Kitchen premises and was sponsored by Playraven and Fingersoft. The evening was all about mingling, networking and just having fun with fellow developers. The place was literally packed to the max with developers!

As a surprise program number a game related quiz was arranged. The battle was fierce, but luckily only egos were harmed during the competition.

Teams pondering the correct answer for a question during the quiz

Hamsterscape developers enjoying the evening.

A big thanks for all the participants, partners and sponsors of both the Game Spring seminar and the After Party. See you again next year!

Cheers, IGDA Finland Oulu Hub

IGDA Finland Tampere Hub March gathering with TEKES and Next Games

Once again game developers and game industry enthusiasts in the Tampere region gathered in Jack the Rooster on the 25th of March for another IGDA Finland Tampere Hub gathering. The event was also the after party for a Tekes event held earlier that day. We were also glad to get Next Games, which had just raised $6 million in its initial investment round with two games in development, to sponsor the event. Next Games provided attendees with drinking tickets and the opportunity to learn more about the company and its projects, including a game about the popular TV series The Walking Dead.

The event was a success yet again with around 80-100 attendees. It was kicked off by a presentation by Jay Ranki, the Head of Studio at Next Games. After a short introduction to the company, people once again went into networking mode.

Until next time, IGDA Finland Tampere Hub volunteers

Expa Game Lab & Expa Game Club & Expa Gathering

Last Tuesday was an eventful day, with the ending of Expa Game Lab, Expa Gathering and Expa Game Club on the same day. Expa Game Lab was a half year project with participants making game prototypes from ideas they had. In the beginning there was 13 game ideas, but they were ranked in two votes down to four. In the end, there were four teams making games. None of the games were finished in the limited time frame, but that wasn't a surprise to anyone. The games presented were: Buggers, COMA,CyberAfrica and Seth.

Probably the most positive outcome of the Expa Game Lab was the birth of a new game company, Zaibatsu Interactive, soon developing more games in Jyväskylä. You can find them on Twitter. Expa Game Club was a more focused project, with a group of first­timers making a small game in three weeks (plus polish) under the guidance of an experienced producers, our own Klaus Kääriäinen. Klaus' direction helped them limit the scope of the game to a product that can be finished in the time given. Their game, Back from Afar looks pretty impressive.

Our guest at the Expa Gathering was Jussi Autio from Oulu Game Lab and Viima Games. Oulu Game Lab is what sparked the inspiration for our own Expa Game Lab so we were eager to hear things were going in Oulu. Oulu Game Lab seemed to be a pretty autonomous part of Oulu University of Applied Sciences, with a multidisciplinary game education program teaching everything needed to make games, from programming to art. They've already managed to create seven new start­ups, with one more to come. They've helped make 16 game demos, got investors and millions of downloads for the games made there. Pretty impressive!

Expa doesn't have the institutional backing, but we'll our best to catch up next round, when we start a new Expa Game Lab later this year. We'll put everything we learned from the previous Game Lab and from Jussi to use and make the next one even better.

Stay tuned for next month, when we put the local talents on stage. Do you have game company or a team making games in Jyväskylä? If we haven't already contacted you, drop us a message and come show your projects at next months Expa Gathering.

EXPA & IGDA Finland Jyväskylä Hub Volunteers

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

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!