Finnish Game Jam ry is proud to announce our third jam scholarship! This time we are going to send one jammer to Germany to the first ever game jam organized at the Gamescom! InnoGames Jam is a three-day game jam in Germany organized on August 17th-19th 2016. The best projects of the jam will have an opportunity to showcase their jam game at the world’s largest game convention.

Finnish Game Jam organization is awarding a ticket to the InnoGames Jam and a 500€ travel aid to a prominent jammer willing to represent Finnish game jamming scene and bringing back the lessons learned to the community. The candidate for the scholarship is selected based on the applications sent prior to Monday 1st of August 2016 16:00 (GMT +3). Apply now!

InnoGames Jam is organized by InnoGames.com, independent from Finnish Game Jam organization. Finnish Game Jam Scholarship Program is founded to improve the mobility of the Finnish jammers and further enhance the international collaboration of the global jamming scene.

What would Assembly be without rapid game development? Finnish Game Jam brings jamming to Assembly once again! ASM Game Jam is a lot like other game jams with an Assembly twist. This year ASM Game Jam is collaborating with FIVR, so we expect to see a lot of VR games – but you can always choose your own platform and technology.

You can participate by buying the special ASM Game Jammer ticket from Eventbrite or by purchasing a normal ticket directly from Assembly. The ASM Game Jammer ticket will include a computer place and all the normal access on Assembly area. If you already bought a ticket but would like to move to the jammer area please contact vesa@finnishgamejam.com. You can jam wherever you want during the Assembly Summer weekend as long as you are at the Assembly area.

Join our Facebook event page to get all the updates to the jam. If you have any further questions on ASM Game Jam 2016, please contact the main organizer: vesa@finnishgamejam.com

Finnish Game Jam run a second round of our scholarship program with the Scholarship for Castle Game Jam 2016 (SWE). The ticket for the scholarship came from a private donor, as Rachel Ponce was not able to participate to Castle Game Jam and wanted to hand out the ticket to our scholarship program. We thank of this opportunity! In addition to the ticket, Finnish Game Jam will offer a stipend of 300 euros to cover the travel expenses.

We decided to select Henri Sarasvirta from the applicants for his outstanding jamming background. He has participated in more than a dozen game jams and every Global Game Jam since the very first Finnish Game Jam in 2010. Henri sends his regards: “Jam jam jam! Castle jam sounds like an awesome possibility to take jamming one step further. Having one week to develop games means a total of 168 hours of active development time (Not…). Big thanks for FGJ for making this possible!”

We are happy to send Henri to represent the Finnish game jam scene, and look forward to hear how jamming in a castle feels like!

Castle Game Jam is organized by James Newnorth from Newnorth Technology. For more information, go to: http://www.castlegamejam.com/

Finnish Game Jam ry is proud to announce our second jam scholarship! This time we are going to send one jammer to Sweden to the amazing Castle Game Jam! Castle Game Jam is a week-long event in July 4th-10th, 2016 where jammers and game developers around the globe gather to create games and party together – in an actual castle!

Finnish Game Jam organization is awarding a ticket to the Castle Game Jam 2016 (http://www.castlegamejam.com/) and a 300 Eur travel aid to a prominent jammer willing to represent Finnish game jamming scene and bringing back the lessons learned to the community. The candidate for the scholarship is selected based on the applications sent prior to Sunday 13th June 2016 16:00 (GMT +3). Go and apply now!

Castle Game Jam is organized by Newnorth Technology, independent from Finnish Game Jam organization. Finnish Game Jam Scholarship Program is founded to improve the mobility of the Finnish jammers and further enhance the international collaboration of the global jamming scene.

Finnish Game Jam ry organizes the annual jam organizer get together, FGJ Jam Jam, at the Sappee ski resort during July 1st-3rd 2016. Sign up now!

This year, Finnish Game Jam ry gave awards to games from different jams organized by FGJ, including of course our biggest game jam, #FGJ16. Out of over 250 games from the 2015-2016 season, these nine games stood from the crowd in one way or another – and their awards are as special as the games themselves. Check them out, enjoy the jam, spread the message!

Brotality Award
Bro Fist Simulator, FGJ Otaniemi
Lauri Rustanius, Kim Valori, Juha Ylimäki

Bro Fist Simulator is an accurate description of the dangers of the bro code. Even when you’re in a danger of losing your fingers, you never leave a brother hanging. Under the surface of silliness the game contains a genuinely fun gameplay and imaginative use of the Global Game Jam 2016 theme.

Alternative Pants Award
Shaman of Rituals for working games, FGJ Kuopio
Tapio Väisänen, Pasi Saastamoinen, Matti Saarinen, Ville Turunen, Joni Pekkonen

What is the best thing you can do with your pants on? What is the best thing you can do with your smart pants on? Shaman of Rituals for working games is a simple, yet oddly compelling rhythm game which you can play with smart pants. As you work your shaman magic, you get surrounded by your strange villagers dancing around you. The game combines the persuasive powers of a digital game, the appeal of alt ctrl and the benefits of an exergame. What else do we need?

Rotary Dial Award
Luurin Luikaus, ASM FGJ ‘15
Salla Huttunen, Timo Korhonen, Janne Koski, Joona Pääkkönen, Riku Rajaniemi, Pyry Takkunen

Remember the time when there were TV games and you couldn’t participate because you didn’t have a modern phone at the house? Now you can experience why you were not allowed to call in. Luurin Luikaus feels like a true trip to the past with flowery wallpapers, CRT televisions and simple yet unapologetically hard-to-play games.

Don’t Cook and Drive Award
Gotta Have Pancake, FGJ Tampere
Mikko Lasonen

Sometimes you just Gotta Have Pancake. This game is for all of you who get the urge while travelling and are considering to cook and drive. This incredibly ingenious game concretizes the fact that cooking and driving significantly increases the possibility of traffic accidents. If your friends are considering cooking while driving, offer to cook for them. They’ll thank you later.

Ultimate Cultist Award
Casually Cultist, FGJ Tampere
Eric Hartin, Matti Isotalo, Miikka Lehtonen, Juuso Mattila, Tony Sundell

Casually Cultist excels both in style and in the interpretation of the Global Game Jam 2016 theme. It uses two of the frequently used topics of this year’s jam games – cults and everyday rituals – in an unexpected way. When the cult comes to an end and everyday life begins, how can a single cultist migrate and survive within the loneliness of mundane?

360 Elegance Award
Asteroids Redemption, Quantum Game Jam
Veli-Pekka Kokkonen, Timo Anttila, Atso Sariola, Boris Sokolov, Jaakko Vainio

Asteroids Redemption’s black-and-white, grainy graphics, distortion effects and simple arcade-like gameplay comprise an elegant game that you enjoy not only playing but also watching. Its true potential is released on the full dome projector. And this is not all: the game has a basis in the quantum physics, demonstrating the beauty of quantum tunnelling.

Survival Yogi Award
Ragdoll Yoga, FGJ Survival Mode
Jere Sanisalo, Antti Svenn

When the apocalypse begins and we start running out of power, it is soothing to know that game making will continue until the end of days. All you need is a couple of tablets and willing programmers. Amazingly awful graphics, mesmerizing soundscape and addictive as hell gameplay. With an odd interpretation of the theme “Ritual”, Ragdoll Yoga takes the player on a journey to the world of stretching.

Sinusoidal Oscillations Award
Come As You Are, FGJ Helsinki Art Museum
Perttu Hämäläinen, Ville Seppänen, Joonas Häll, Jeremia Kunnari, Bahadir Gürkan, Serdar Bingöl

This is what we suspect the ritual of a sound designer might look like. You don’t have to be a sound engineer to solve the addictive puzzles of this game, but that might help. With a philosophical backstory, eery atmosphere and simple yet inventive mechanics, Come As You Are stands out not only from the multitude of other ritual games, but from the Global Game Jam 2016 games altogether.

Sauna Award
Sauna Simulator 2016, FGJ Turku
Aapo Peltola, Aukusti Manninen, Jami Aho, Jaakko Susi, Taisto Suominen

If you give a theme of “ritual” to a Finn, you cannot avoid sauna games. After all, the sacred ritual of sauna is important to us all. The Sauna Simulator 2016 goes a step further: It wants to spread the sauna love to those without the luxury of it. Just put on your virtual reality goggles, get naked, grab your beer and throw water on the stove. It’s almost like you’re there.

In addition to the game awards, Finnish Game Jam awarded Samuli Jääskeläinen as the Superjammer of the Year 2015 for exemplary and courageous jamming, Remedy Entertainment as the Jamtivist of the Year 2015 for their remarkable and continuous support for the Finnish Game Jam, Anna Permala and Minna Eloranta for their outstanding contribution for the game jam organizing in the FGJ’s graphics team, and Meanfish, Viope, and PlayRaven for their outstanding support as the sponsors of the #FGJ16 event.

To promote Finnish jamming scene, Finnish Game Jam awarded a scholarship for one jammer to join the Train Jam 2016. From many excellent applicants, Samuli Jääskeläinen got selected to represent us Finns on the third annual Train Jam running through the USA. Samuli has returned from the journey with a ton of new experiences and shares them with us in his travel report: 

Jamming from Chicago to San Francisco

I took part in the annual Train Jam before GDC San Francisco this year. The jam ticket was sponsored by Finnish Game Jam and I am grateful for getting this chance to participate in one of the most well known jams around the world. Train Jam lasted for 52 hours, traveled through seven states and hosted 200 fabulous jammers around the world. I have been part of various international game jams, but this was the biggest non-internet jam I had ever landed my feet on. It was crazy to have ⅔ of a train to be dedicated for game development filled with professionals, indies, students, academics, press and other gamedev loving people.

My journey started one day before the jam, arriving into Chicago munching a Chicago style pizza and sleeping for 13 hours to eliminate any jet lag left from flights across the Atlantic ocean. There was a pre-party organized by local indies behind Bit Bash. I missed the party by being too tired, but the following day I bumped into the party organizer at the jam’s opening breakfast. Local indie scene seemed vibrant and lively, I would definitely recommend not missing on the pre-parties.

After the breakfast was over, team forming began and the theme was announced: Maximum Capacity. Theme reflected the overly crowded restaurant perfectly. I made my way through crowds looking for a perfect match. I met all kinds of fun people on the way and discussed about many crazy ideas. Game jams usually have a very nice and welcoming atmosphere, here it was even better and it only got better once we jumped onto the train.

There wasn’t a lot of time to form teams before the train left, so many, including me, waited for the train to form their final team. I already had a possible team in mind, but I wasn’t sure if the team’s game idea was interesting to build. As a jammer, for me, the making process of the game is way more important than the final product. Usually the best outcomes come from ideas that are enjoyable to work with. That said, just before I physically entered the train, I met my soon to be team on the line.

Ben Burbank and Emily Dillhunt were doing a narrative-driven first-person exploration game with puzzles in it. Ben’s coworker Sean Vanaman was doing the story, so I was excited. It is very rare to get dedicated storytellers in game jams, even more rare to get ones that have as much experience as the guys behind Firewatch. We divided tasks on the train: Sean was handling the story, Ben did majority of the code, Emily was responsible for art assets and I was patching everything together in Unity doing level & puzzle design and helping out Ben and Emily when more code or art was needed. Later we were shortly joined by Lindar Greenwood as well, on the audio department. Lindar did audio for various games on the train so we only borrowed them for a few hours.

We didn’t encounter any major setbacks. The game development went smoothly and the team worked together extremely efficiently. We ended up with a decent game called Discharge. You can read more about the actual design behind the game from Ben’s blog post.

There were three unique, train gamedev specific challenges that I encountered. Firstly, moving train makes accurate mouse movements hard. Using a drawing tablet is even more trickier. It was lucky that we went with art deco style so we could utilize vector-like art with Emily. Secondly, the sun glare at my screen during days was horrible for doing level design. We wanted dim lightning for the game, so I had to do most of my light placement during nights or short tunnels. Thirdly, there was no internet or connection was spotty. At one point I had to open up Substance Designer from Steam, but I had forgotten to enable offline mode for the program, so I had to quickly hijack a public wifi during one of the stops to log in.

After 51 hours we arrived to the final destination. Yes, you read it right, 51, not 52, the train was one hour early. You can imagine the last minute development panic that happened when everyone lost an hour of critical polish time. Games were publicly playable at the GDC, now you access them from itch.io. 200 jammers resulting 63 games, team size averaging at 3. The jam was success in numbers and those statistics don’t lie, it was the best non-internet based jam I have had the pleasure to take part in. The gorgeous views definitely didn’t hurt either.

Samuli Jääskeläinen

Thank you, Samuli, for bringing back valuable experiences and promoting the Finnish game jam scene! The Train Jam had a good representation of Finnish jammers, as Annakaisa Kultima and Timo Nummenmaa from Finnish Game Jam ry participated in the event as well. 

Finnish Game Jam launched its scholarship program with FGJ Train Jam 2016 (US) Scholarship. We got 12 applications, and with many excellent applicants the selection process was a hard one. We emphasized the jamming experiences of the candidates when making the selection.

Samuli Jääskeläinen was selected for having an exquisite jamming background. He has been involved in the Global Game Jam since 2012, and has participated not only in the Finnish sites, but traveled across the world to jam in different surroundings. With already a couple of dozen jam games in his portfolio, he’s not afraid of taking risks and experimenting when jamming. Samuli says he is “excited to get dizzy programming on a moving train, meet lots of people and see the beautiful rural landscapes of Northern America!”  We are proud to send Samuli to the Train Jam 2016 to represent the Finnish jamming scene, and can’t wait to hear his experiences from the trip!

Finnish Game Jam organization is launching a scholarship program to promote Finnish jamming scene and to provide further learning opportunities for the jammers of Finnish jamming community. The first scholarship in line is supporting one jammer’s participation to the Train Jam 2016 (United States).

Finnish Game Jam organization is awarding a ticket to the legendary Train Jam (http://trainjam.com/) and a 300 Eur travel aid to a prominent jammer willing to represent Finnish game jamming scene in the United States and bringing back the lessons learned to the community. The candidate for the scholarship is selected based on the applications sent prior to Sunday 21st February 2016 16:00 (GMT +2). A great applicant has participated to at least one FGJ game jam between 2010-2016 and has a broad experience on game jams in Finland (and/or elsewhere) as well as an interesting portfolio of game jam projects.

Train Jam is a great opportunity to network with international game jam community and to spend an amazing trip from Chicago to San Francisco right before GDC (http://gdconf.com) week. Train Jam 2016 is the 3rd organized annual event of 52h game jam taking place in a moving train. The jam is organized by Adriel Wallick, independent from Finnish Game Jam organization. Finnish Game Jam Scholarship Program is founded to improve the mobility of the Finnish jammers and further enhance the international collaboration of the global jamming scene.

See all the details and apply for the scholarship from here.