“Woah! What a weekend! Thanks to everyone who attended this year’s Jam Jam festival! We hope to see you back next year! The weather this time treated us well and the warmth wasn’t too unbearable. The food was tasty and not too much of it went to waste. The hot tubs were warm and only one terrace got broken. Overall we feel this was a huge success!
We’ll send the feedback form out to the participants really soon and we really want your thoughts and suggestions. We especially hope to hear from you if you are interested in organising or volunteering next year.
Finally, huge thanks to our volunteers who made the event possible. We couldn’t have done it without you!
Jam Jam is a two-day summer festival and retreat for game jam organizers and anyone interested in learning, discussing and sharing ideas on game jams.
Jam Jam 2022 consists of a workshop day and talks on game jams and jam games. During your visit you can decide what you work on – bring your jam organizing team and work with planning or debriefing your jams or come without an agenda and talk with all other jam organizers and jam-organizers-to-be, brainstorming new jams and sharing lessons on organizing events.
Retreat in a cozy cabin environment
The event is located in the middle of a Finnish forest, on top of a mountain called Sappeenvuori – about 2 hour car ride from Helsinki (see details from Sappee.fi). The venue consists of eight well-equipped cabins with saunas and hot tubs surrounded by the beauty of a Finnish forest and the power of the midnight sun of the Northern summer.
Join the team of volunteers
Right now we are looking for volunteers to make the event possible to organize. Please fill the forms below if you are interested to be involved in one of the greatest events in Finnish Jamming Summer!
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!
Third international Jam Jam Festival 2019 gathered jam organizers from all over the world to the forests of Sappee, Finland, to network, share ideas and relax in good company. This year was the biggest Jam Jam ever with almost 80 participants!
The Seminar Day offered talks from jammers and game jam organizers from all over the world: Finland, India, Romania, UK, Poland, Estonia, USA and Denmark.
Keynote speaker Yadu Rajiv from Bangalore, India,talked about the game jamming and game development communities and in India. Jupiter Hadley, the founder of indiegamejams.com, talked about her journey trying to play and document as many indie games as she can.
The full Seminar Day schedule was as follows:
Keynote: Yadu Rajiv: Game Jams in India – Our Story So Far
Kacper Domański: Game Jams of Poland
Mathias Jensen: More than a Jam: Nordic Game Jam’s Evolution
Chris Filip: Learning to Let Go
Johanna Summers: 47 to 47,000 – Managing Community Events on a Global Scale
Sebastian Laitila: Using Service Design in Hackathons and Game Jams
Licia Prehn: Jamming With Blind People and Being Nice
Jupiter Hadley: Trying To Document All the Game Jam Games
Julia Rässa: Love Is Tested… and Debugged!
Elie Abraham: How Jamming Saved/Ruined My Life
In addition to the seminars on Saturday, the Sunday was filled with workshops that any participant could organize. The workshop themes ranged from jam stories to making pancakes to jamming an entire song.
Naturally there was also a game jam! Henri Sarasvirta hosted a 1 hour game jam in one of the cottages. The theme world tries dilation was randomly generated. A total of 11 games were made! You can find and download all of them in itch.io: https://itch.io/jam/jam-jam-1h-jam-2
Thank you for an amazing event, and see you at Jam Jam Festival 2020!
It’s soon time for the third international Jam Jam Festival! The festival is held in the beginning of June in a cozy summer cottage environment. We are expecting more than 70 visitors this year!
Jam Jam is a festival and retreat for game jam organizers and anyone interested in learning, discussing and sharing ideas on game jams. Jam Jam 2019 is organized by the Finnish Game Jam and located in the middle of a Finnish forest, on a mountain called Sappeenvuori – only around 2h car ride from Helsinki.
The event consists of a one-day seminar with talks on game jams and jam games and one day of retreat. On the seminar day visitors can attend talks by many interesting game industry speakers. We have speakers from Finland, India, UK, Poland and Romania joining the Jam Jam this year!
On the retreat day you can decide what you work on – bring your jam organizing team and work with planning or debriefing your jams or come without an agenda and talk with all other jam organizers and jam-organizers-to-be, brainstorming new jams and sharing lessons on organizing events.
The venue is on top of the mountain Sappeenvuori, surrounded by beautiful Finnish nature and the power of the midnight sun of the Northern summer. The lodgings consist of eight well-equipped cabins with saunas and hot tubs.
Registration to the event is open! We have different ticket types, you can choose whichever best suits your needs. You can join for one day or the full weekend! Tickets are on sale in Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/jam-jam-2019-tickets-56827437395
The event website is open! You can visit it here: https://www.finnishgamejam.com/jamjam You can also follow us on social media to get the updates right away.
