Children were acting as both creators and the audience of games in the unique Pikku Kakkonen Game Jam. Kids had drawn and sent hundreds of game characters and their characteristics for the jammers, who got to select the drawings that inspired them and create games around them.

As suitable, the game jam was located in the Yle’s studio in Mediapolis, Tampere, from where the Pikku Kakkonen show is aired. The inspiring surroundings featured a life-size doll house and a visit from the famous and frightening Morso. On Sunday, a group of children arrived to the site as voice actors, and tested the games.

There were 23 jammers, who made in total 6 games during 48 hours. The game jam was organized by Finnish Game Jam and Finland’s national public broadcasting company Yle. See and download the games from the jam’s Itch page.

For the third time in a row, Finnish Game Jam brought game jamming to the mobile game conference Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki. The Pocket Jam is run at the heart of the conference, where many bite sized mobile games and other games are born. This time the theme for the games was “Chain Reaction”, from which 10 games were completed. See them all from here!

The games that were finished and uploaded according to the deadline participated in a competition, where Pocket Gamer awarded three games and gave one honorary mention. Here are the awarded games:

1st place: ExeCUTE

Mikko “Mishicu “Aaltio – Music & Sound Design
Matti Isotalo – UI, Graphics
Emppu Nurminen – Visual Artist
Henri Sarasvirta – Programming
Joel Setterberg – Programming

2nd place: Sculpt

Miikka Harjuntausta – Code
Krista Erkkilä – Art
Nam Nguyen – Music

3rd place: Stock Market Panic

Henri Niva – Programming, Game Design
Ville Talonpoika – Programming, Game Design
Francesco Fontana – UI Design, Game Design
Hannu Koivuranta – Environment Art, Game Design
Arttu Norrlin – Character Art, Game Design
Valtteri Bade – UI Art, Game Design
Elie Abraham – Music

Honorary mention: Chain Lightning

Paavo Kyppö – Programming
Ivan Rubin – Art
Jani Gröhn – Design & Music

Finnish Game Jam organized the already traditional game jam at the Assembly Summer. In the sixth ASM Game Jam, participants created 11 games around the theme “Hot Hot Hot”. Everyone at Assembly was welcomed to join the jamming also as voice actors and playtesters.

See the compilation video and gameplay videos below, and check all the game projects from https://itch.io/jam/asm-game-jam-2018!

Finnish Game Jam together with Veikkaus Game Studio will bring a game jam to the audiences of SuomiAreena on 19th July. This seven hour game jam will be placed at Kansalaistori at the heart of Pori at Veikkaus’ booth.

Anybody can join the jamming as voice actors at noon together with Finnish celebrities and politicians Aira Samulin, Kike Elomaa and Ilkka Kanerva. The finished games (if all goes well) will be available for play at 16:00.

Come talk about games and beat the score that Finnish YouTuber Herbalisti and Peter Vesterbacka will set for each game!

On June 29th, almost 70 game jam organizers from all over the world arrived into the middle of a Finnish forest in Sappee, Finland. Here the Finnish Game Jam organized the annual Jam Jam Festival. For three days, jam organizers and jammers discussed, networked and shared ideas.

Friday’s seminar was full with interesting talks, such as Sun Park talking about making weird games every month, Astrid Mie Refstrup about the obstacles for event organizing, and Arvi Teikari talking about the jam-born Baba is You game. The full list of the speeches included:

• Project.99 – Making Weird Games Every Month – Sun Park, Turtle Cream
• Event Organising – All the Obstacles to Look Out for – Astrid Mie Refstrup, Nordic Game Jam
• Finding Identity of Slavic Game Jam over the Years  – Kacper Domański, Slavic Game Jam
• Molesting the Match-3 Market and other Jammed Games – Petri Purho
• Baba is You – Arvi Teikari
• How I Tried to MAKE MUSIC 4 UR GAMES – Elie Abraham, Elie & Ian
• Jamming Across the World – Some Challenges of Jamming in Different
• Countries and Cultures – Jo Summers, Global Game Jam
• Why Game Jam – A Story about Personal and Communal Benefits  – Miikka Harjuntausta
• Jamming a Game while Cycling 600 km on a Tandem – Jonne Harja & Samuli Jääskeläinen

Saturday and Sunday consisted from more than 10 workshops, that anyone of the participants could organize. The workshops also including a 1h game jam, in which the participants created 8 games. In addition, the #JamBike duo Jonne Harja and Samuli Jääskeläinen arrived to the place with their tandem bike, coding a game as they cycled 60 km to the location. All participants were even given the possibility to try to ride and code with the bike.

In addition to the official program, a lot of sharing, discussing and creating new jam ideas happened in the 8 hot tubs and 9 saunas of the 8 cabins reserved for the festival. One of the saunas was even located in a bus that was driven from Kotka to Sappee just for the weekend.

IGDA Finland and some IGDA’s international guests convened in the Jam Jam as well, and the combination of game jam organizers and IGDA community was certainly a fruitful one.

Thanks to all participants for the successful event, and our sponsors Boozembly, Korulab and Futureplay Games and our supporter Neogames! Jam Jam will be back in 2019!

Finnish Game Jam is organizing the annual game jam retreat, Jam Jam, for game jam organizers and anyone interested in learning, discussing and sharing ideas on game jams.

The tickets are now available and will cover the rent of the cottages, Friday’s seminar, lunches, snacks and the bus rides from Helsinki and back. You can also buy a ticket only for the one-day seminar or volunteer as a help for the weekend. See more and get a ticket from Eventbrite.

Jam Jam 2018 is located in the middle of a Finnish forest, on top of a mountain called Sappeenvuori – about 2h car ride from Helsinki (see details from Sappee.fi). The Jam Jam 2018 is also supported by Neogames.

Teachers and game developers gathered together and created four new games at the first Edu Game Jam at ITK-konferenssi, Hämeenlinna. The jam was co-organized by Finnish Game Jam and the Growing Mind research project, and supported by Ministry of Education and Culture and Lenovo. Check out the games: Continue reading →

Finnish Game Jam and Growing Mind research project are organizing Edu Game Jam, an initiative to run game jams on educational content and contexts.

In the first Edu Game Jam at the ITK conference in Hämeenlinna 11.-13.4.2018, a small group of game professionals and students join together with teachers and educational scientists to create games – in a truck!

Everybody is free to come and visit the jam. Games will be available on Friday, 13.4. Find our truck outside the conference building and come play!

Finnish Game Jam will celebrate the 10th Global Game Jam in January with jamming locations all over Finland! We have now opened the registration for many new locations. #FGJX will include more than 20 locations, including sites focused on larp, VR and board games. Choose your favorite!

See all updates about #FGJX from our web page and from Facebook.