Slush and IGDA gaming event in November

In November we had the biggest IGDA event ever in Helsinki when IGDA Finland and Slush combined their event organization powers. This time the event sponsor was a well-known publisher company Tencent all the way from China.

Tencent gave a short presentation on stage to introduce their company and to show some of the most recent information about the game market in China and their share in it.

IGDA Finland’s chairman Jyri Partanen gave a short speech as well and announced a Lifetime Achievement Award for Sonja Ängeslevä for her amazing work for IGDA Finland since 2007.

There was a dedicated area for demos upstairs where developers were able to show their most recent game projects to many enthusiastic testers.

Later in the evening there was live music. First Pasi “The Epic Sax Guy” Ketola performed on stage as well as on the dance floor. Later the event participants were able to enjoy biomechanic pop music by Unzyme.

As usual, the evening continued with mingling, snacks and drinks. Thank you Slush and Tencent for partnering with us to make this awesome night happen!

IGDA Finland February Gathering with Viope

12.2.2013 something called an IGDA Gathering happened. Club Adams, the new meeting place of gaming community in Helsinki area, was baptized with style. The first one to steal the spotlight was Viope.

Viope served us a multitude of goods. Firstly, they sponsored the February Gathering and donated a fair amount of precious drink tickets. We are ever grateful!

Viope had reserved another seat at the sitting: the first show of the night was the award ceremony of Viope Game Programming Contest 2012. We heard a few words from one of the judges, Remedy’s Saku Lehtinen, and then the stage was taken over by Viope’s Kwame Afreh and Tram Nguyen, who had the honour of presenting the awards.

The nominees came all over the world, Saudi-Arabia, Macedonia and Singapore, to name a few. Eventually both the main award and the student award went to a Singaporean entry Kindly ever after by the team Ancora. Congratulations! Check out all the nominees from here.

The spotlight was occupied again later that night: it was time for the Finnish Game Jam award ceremony! This year there was no single winner, and the prizes were in fact Honorable Mentions designed to celebrate noteworthy gaming experiences. In the spirit of the Game Jam the categories were delightfully wonky, such as Beertasking and Multidrinking Award and Public Love Award. You can see a list of all the honored and nominated games from here.

So that was the February Gathering. People swarmed in like there was no tomorrow, and thanks to all of you we made a record: whopping 296 visitors! We are insanely happy! We also offer a big thank you to our host Club Adams.

See you next time!

IGDA Finland January Gathering

2013 is here!

It was good to meet you all after the Holidays! Surely many of you are still busy battling your way through the games you unwrapped in December, but we greatly appreciate the fact you put the adventure on pause to join us in Bar Cuba.

Our special guest was a gentleman, who visited an IGDA Finland Gathering for the first time: the mysterious WiiU himself. Our guest seemed to have a splendid time, since he did attract a lot of attention. We hope all of you who wanted to make his acquaintance had a chance to do so!

There were over a 100 visitors and twice as many interesting stories to tell. You guysalways know how to have a good time!

It is worth mentioning that we are going to have a change of scenery. The next Gathering will take place in a different venue. Let us embrace the new place and make it our own as we did with Cuba.

See you in February!

IGDA Finland January Gathering

Time to finish the ham! Hopefully you had time to spend some of your Christmas Holidays playing games. You are dying to get a chance to talk about them, aren’t you? Start developing a thirst, because the first IGDA Finland Gathering of 2013 is just around the corner.

This time our trick is too big to be hidden up our sleeves: Nintendo Finland will bring a Wii U and a couple of games for us to play during the evening. If you still haven’t had the opportunity to try out Nintendo’s latest, now’s your chance!

So come join us in Cuba Bar to raise a glass for friends, gaming and the year 2013 and whatever it may bring. See you there!

IGDA Finland January Gathering Time: 8.1.2013 at 19.00 Place: Cuba Bar, Erottaja 4, Helsinki Finland

December Gathering with Supercell

All’s well that ends well. The December Gathering was just as grandiose as it was supposed to be. We couldn’t have hoped for a better way to say goodbye to 2012. We extend a big thank you to December’s sponsor. Supercell was a patron of modest but nevertheless generous disposition. Drink tickets were only half of the fun: visitors were provided with a Christmasy drink and a Santa hat, both free of charge. Early arrivers even had a chance to grab themselves a tasty hamburger to soothe their souls.

The highlight of the evening came from Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen. We already know that the Finnish game industry and game community are full passion, creativity and commitment, you, dear visitors, keep proving it over and over again. Paananen revealed to us that our reputation precedes us: Finland’s game community is recognized even overseas. When it comes to making games, Finland is the place to be.

We were happy to see that some of you already flashed your new and shiny IGDA Finland membership cards. We were certainly happy! There were an astounding 273 visitors in Cuba. Thank you everyone! We are ready for 2013.

Have a most relaxing Christmas and a splendid New Year. See you in January 2013!