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