It is with heavy hearts that we are cancelling Jam Jam 2020 due to the Covid-19 crisis. We are truly disappointed that after a year’s worth of planning this year’s event, we won’t be able to bring together our fellow jammers, educators, partners, and invited guests.
Everyone who purchased a ticket will receive a full refund in Eventbrite in the near future. We will do our best to ensure that the refunding process goes as smoothly as possible.
We want to thank you all for your support. We believe that great things happen when the community comes together and connects all of us. Plans for Jam Jam 2021 next summer are in the works and additional details will be announced later.
If you have any questions regarding the Jam Jam 2020 cancelation please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Please take care of yourselves, your family and friends! During these uneasy times, we should unite now more than ever and fight the spread of Covid-19 together by washing hands and engaging in social distancing. Stay healthy!
The second speaker of Jam Jam Festival 2020 announced!
Thorsten Storno Wiedemann is the founder and artistic director of A MAZE. He produces and curates under the international label A MAZE. festivals, exhibitions, and workshops on the intersection of games, digital arts, and playful media. With “A MAZE. / Berlin” and “A MAZE. / Johannesburg (until 2017)” he created two annual festivals to present independent and alternative games culture and to connect Europe, Africa, and the world. He generates new controversial formats (e.g. A MAZE. Magazine, A MAZE. Pop-ups, A MAZE. Train Jam) and gives room for experimentation, collaboration and exchange. Thorsten established since 2012 the A MAZE. Awards, which goes to artistic and groundbreaking works in six categories. His focus is on the interdisciplinary and diverse discourse about art-forms of the 21. century.
He gains to fill the gaps between playful media, art and technology. Thorsten is also the first VR Naut and spent during his Disconnected performance 48hrs without break in virtual reality! He lives and works in Berlin. Don’t miss this talk, get your tickets to the festival in Eventbrite already now!
The first speaker of Jam Jam Festival 2020 announced!
Sos Sosowski is the legend behind the 0h Game Jam and he will be joining us in June 2020 revealing all the pain and joy of running the shortest game jam in the world for years. Will there be one in 2020? It depends on clocks… Don’t miss this talk, get your tickets to the festival in Eventbrite already now!
We are happy to announce that the 4th international Jam Jam Festival will be held on 13-15 June 2020! Jam Jam is a festival & retreat for jam organizers, jammers and jam lovers from all over the world. Get ready, registration in Eventbrite is already open!
Another FGJ has been completed! Thank you everyone for participated no matter what role!
Every year despite limited time, we are amazed what you jammers can do. This year in Finland we had 32 sites, more than 700 jammers who developed 238 games.
You can find all the games developed in Finland on the Global Game Jam page:
This year, GGJ had over 48,700 jammers attending 934 jam sites across the world in 118 countries, all coming together became the biggest jam ever! Once again GGJ has broken all of last year’s records and become the newly-crowned Biggest Game Jam Ever!
GGJ had 9 new countries take part for the first time ever: Albania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cyprus, Mauritius, Senegal, Sudan and Zimbabwe, adding 213 jammers and 35 new games to the mix. One of GGJ’s biggest aims is to be able to bring new emerging voices and talent into the game making space, and welcome these new site organisers and jammers to our big jam family.
The global theme for GGJ20 was repair and jammers incorporated this theme as a concept in their games in different ways: various states of repair, breaking and repairing buildings and pots, repairing relationships, and plants repairing themselves.
In Finland we were lucky to have amazing national and local sponsors this year as well. We want to extend a big thank you to all sponsors one more time, we could have made #FGJ20 this awesome without them.
#FGJ20 wouldn’t be possible without Futureplay Games as our national GOLD Sponsor for the event! A huge thanks to this inspiring company!
Thank you again everyone who attended or followed the action through our streams and social media, it was crazy but amazing weekend! Follow our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and see you all at the next jam!
#FGJ20 has just started, and it wouldn’t be possible without Futureplay Games as our national GOLD Sponsor for the event! A huge thanks to this inspiring company with no-nonsense approach to the industry!
Follow #FGJ20 LIVE and remember to post your awesome jamming pictures to discord!
The main event of the year is getting closer! Finnish Game Jam 2020 (#FGJ20) is arranged from January 31st to February 2nd, 2020 as a part of Global Game Jam.
It is again time to get jamming with the rest of the planet. Global Game Jam 2020 will be held throughout the entire world at the same time. Naturally, Finland will participate, now for the 11th time!
Hurry up and register in chosen location in Finland at FGJ20 eventbrite.
If your area is missing a site here is your chance to organize one yourself! Site applications can be made through Global Game Jam’s website. Site application is open until January 12th, but we recommend you act fast to be able to prepare for the jam.If you have questions about organizing a site or need help feel free to contact us.
IMPORTANT! Registration is open until January 23rd 11:59 PM.
On Friday December 13th we gathered together at Finnish Game Jam Awards to celebrate not only jam games but also all the great people in the community!
All of the awarded games have been made in different game jams organized by Finnish Game Jam during the 2019 season.
Home is a place that keeps us warm and safe. But what happens when you end up without a proper home and even your temporary dumpster gets taken away? Life Of John provides a unique and emotional experience while reminding us that helping others when they are at their lowest point might save humanity. Life Of John is a beautiful narrative experience with simple yet interesting gameplay. This immersive game essay created in a one-man team clearly stands out from the Finnish jam games of 2019.
What do you get when you combine hamsters, pears and awesome game technology from the ’80s? A game about pooping hamster with sweet Game Boy tunes. The Poopster is a very wholesome retro package of graphics, gameplay, and music. It was made during Assembly Game Jam 2019, at the best Finnish jamming place to explore commercially obsolete old hardware and to show to the world how the jammers don’t let the platforms of the past to be forgotten in silence.
Human Rescue Reversed Roles Award FGJ19 Next Games Helsinki
Pekka Kujansuu
Petri Räsänen
Who is the dog’s best friend? Human! Rescuing humans from the streets is the job of a truly virtuous dog! Human Rescue a simple jam game with great gameplay and polished cartoony visuals. The attraction of the game lies in its role-reversing core: In Human Rescue you are tasked to adopt humans and use them to adopt even more humans. Who would let humans roam around the streets aimlessly and without guardians anyway?
We know very well that winter in Finland can be tough – especially for the small birds! For our pleasure, the birds that do not migrate stay behind and delight our forests with their tweets, from their homes. Where The Birds Are is a very Finnish, minimalistic and calming piece of game art. In this game, you are tasked to set up birdhouses to trees and solve the puzzle while music grows as you advance and see where the birds are. Calming games are still a rarity and such pieces definitely stand out from the jam crowds!
Finnish appreciate games, coffee, technology, and sustainability – so why not games about barista robots with organic beans! In Mochabot Organic players receive the orders and brew the coffee with the help of a cute, relentless barista bot. This jam game is served with a minimalistic color palette and a great art style in a package of multiple minigames that soothe your caffeine-induced brains.
Sleeping Bunny Midwinter Dream Award FGJ19 Games Factory Helsinki
Arhi Makkonen
Henri Viitanen
Winter is here… and we all need to keep warm, bunnies too. Furthermore, what would be a better winter hobby than sleeping by the warmth of a fireplace? Sleeping Bunny takes the player on a wintery journey to save a bunny from cold and sleep deprivation. This jam game offers consistent and stylized art with simple and elegant gameplay – a jam game at its best! Simple yet surprisingly challenging gameplay of Sleeping Bunny lets the player unravel the goal on their own and minimalistic, as well as atmospheric audio space, supports the immersive narrative of the game. Playing a piece like this puts smiles on our faces and goodnight dreams in our heads.
Special Awards
Julius Jämsen Jamtivist Award
What would game jams be without music? And even more importantly, what would music be without jamming together? Julius Jämsen brought the jam-lovers together with a power of musical jamming at Jam Jam 2019. If there has ever been a sleazy song about game jamming, we are confident that it cannot beat the ooze of love that this international and multilingual eight-minute song has to offer. A true jamactivist act of bringing people together deserves an acknowledgment of the Jamtivist Award 2019!
IBM Future Award
Game jams use technologies from present and past, but how about the future? We have been told that the future is quantum and quantum is playable! Goes without saying that anything that we can use for play, we jammers, love! In February 2019, IBM provided the first-ever live access to and developer support for the quantum computers at the Quantum Wheel game jam. We were humbled by such privilege and now very eager to see what the quantum future will bring for us jammers. We believe that combining the power of future technologies and bravery of the jammers can take us far and let us have fun while doing it!
Outstanding Support Awards
Futureplay
Veikkaus Game Studio
Neogames
Finnish Game Jam organization would be nothing without the community. Every year and every jam is a joint effort of organizers, participants, jamtivists, jamthusiasts, jam friends and lovers – supporters of all sorts. This year our biggest supporters were Supercell, Veikkaus Game Studio, and Neogames.
Another FGJ great event is over. We want to thank all the winners and all the event participants. It would not happen without you! Thank you!
