In January 2018, Finland is celebrating the 10th Global Game Jam with various #FGJX locations!

The registration for the first 11 #FGJX sites has now opened at http://finnishgamejam.eventbrite.com! Each location has their own registration. If you cannot find your favorite location yet, do not despair, as we will still be adding new locations!

For the second time, Finnish Game Jam in collaboration with Pocket Gamer organized a game jam in the midst of the Pocket Gamer Connects conference in Helsinki. In less than 30 hours, 11 games were made by 40 participants.

Pocket Gamer picked three winning games from the batch: Fate in Humanity (1st place), Bardhalla (2nd place) and Plan Love from Outer Space (3rd place). The winners get to showcase their games at Pocket Gamer Connects London. We also teamed up with Nordic Game Jam, and will send the Fate in Humanity team to Nordic Game Jam 2018.

Check out all the games from our itch.io page and watch the gameplay videos below:

In collaboration with Pocket Gamer, Finnish Game Jam ry brings jamming to the mobile game conference Pocket Gamer Connects Helsinki 2017 on September 19th-20th! The Pocket Jam is run now for the second time at the heart of the conference. We expect to see a lot of bite sized mobile games – but you can always choose your own platform and technology.

The participants will receive full access to the conference program, expo and networking events plus all the other benefits that come with the conference ticket and a seat to jam.

Register now before the tickets run out!
See more information on the Facebook event page.

ASM Game Jam was once again successfully held in the heart of the Assembly Computer Festival, Assembly Summer 2017. Thank you to all participants and of course to Assembly for having us!

The theme for the jam was “25” to celebrate the 25th summer event of Assembly. Altogether 29 participants created 13 games – see the compilation video below, and check all the game projects from https://itch.io/jam/asm-game-jam-2017!

As Assembly Summer approaches, so does ASM Game Jam!

ASM Game Jam will be arranged already for the fifth time this year. Happening at the core of one of the biggest demoscene events, the jammers have the possibility to create games in great company while enjoying the unique atmosphere and program of the 25th Assembly Summer event!

Jammer tickets are still available today, so act fast if you want to join! If you already have a ticket to Assembly Summer 2017, you can register for free to relocate to the jam table. Buy your ticket on Eventbrite and follow the latest updates on the Facebook event page.

As a part of our scholarship program, Finnish Game Jam sent Ludwig Sandbacka and Elie Abraham to the Lyst Game Jam (DK) to represent the Finnish jamming scene. Here is Ludwig’s report about the wonderful jam.

I’ve never written a jam report before. To be honest I feel rather strange trying to recount a sequence of events, as if that is the grand explanation of the fantastic experience that is or was Lyst. However, I will try, but I also feel that I need to preach a little bit along the way about the need for more of this kind of thing in the games industry. So fair warning and here we go! Continue reading →

As a part of our scholarship program, Finnish Game Jam sent Elie Abraham and Ludwig Sandbacka to the Lyst Game Jam (DK) to represent the Finnish jamming scene. Here is Elie’s report about the wonderful jam.

What an intense experience I had at Lyst this year. For those unaware, you must realize that the Lyst Summit focuses on sex, love, and romance in video games. I’ve never previously attended such an intimate game event. From the talks to the game jam to the after party, this summit is a personal experience. You cannot engage the topics and themes of Lyst without preparing to share an intimate space with the other participants. Here’s how it went down (with pictures by Gemma Thomson!): Continue reading →

Jam Jam 2017 is a jam for jamming jams, and all jam organizers and organizers-to-be are invited!

Finnish Game Jam organization is offering a place for all the amazing game jam organizers around the globe to come together, work on their jam preparations, share lessons and problems of jam organizing as well as develop new jams together. The annual get-together is located at the Sappee ski resort during June 30th – July 2nd 2017.

Anybody with a jam idea or any jam organizing team can participate! You can choose which jams you will work with or if you want to come up with completely new jams.

See all the details and register on Eventbrite and follow the updates on the Facebook event page.

Finnish Game Jam’s fifth scholarship is for the Lyst Game Jam in Denmark. This time we decided to select two candidates to receive the scholarship. We are proud to send Elie Abraham and Ludwig Sandbacka to represent our jamming scene! Have a blast, both of you, and bring back the lessons learnt! Here are Elie’s and Ludwig’s feelings before the exciting trip:

Elie Abraham

After reading the same old “We had many strong applications this year…” e-mail intro, I was absolutely not expecting the sentence to end in congratulations. My reputation in the game dev community is probably most heavily centered around game jams and even my friends outside of the scene know how much I love to jam! So, it’s no secret that I am beyond excited to hear the news that I’ll be receiving the support to travel for another jam.

But Lyst isn’t just any jam. When you open the site for the Lyst Summit, you see *Romance, Love and Sex in Games *loud and clear staring right at you. With talks from “Queering the Controller” to “Playing with Pride,” one can imagine how enthusiastic I am to be sent as a queer game developer to interact, work, and share good times with others at this kind of symposium.

As with any game jam I go to, I hope to be a part of as many games as I can possibly make myself stay awake to work on, but more importantly: I look forward to making new friends, as connecting to others is truly what I want most out of any jam.

Feel free to keep updated on my journey and game happenings via my twitter (@elieabraham64) and thank you SO much, FGJ, for making this possible for me!

Elie Abraham

Ludwig Sandbacka

I’m quite new to the game jam scene. I went to my first game jam two years ago. It was an eyeopening experience to say the least. The creativity, the pressure, the people – it is insane to try to make a game in 48 hours and still after 20 cups of coffee and no sleep you stand there with a game and a shared experience of having pushed through, having made something that others can hopefully enjoy. Something that didn’t exist 2 days before.

I’ve been wanting to go to Lyst since I fist heard about it. Romance, sex and sexuality are rather provocative subjects in our society as a whole and even more so in games. In an interactive medium such as games, the player is both the audience and the performer. It allows us to have experiences and take actions that would otherwise be far removed from our everyday life and possibly our comfort zone. That in itself is exciting and mixing in some lust, desire and things that are perhaps a bit taboo… well it’s a new frontier.

At the most, I’m hoping to see some boundaries being pushed at Lyst and possibly some really weird ideas being realised. At the least, there will be good people, interesting conversations and lots of coffee.

Thank you FGJ for this opportunity! I’m going on an adventure.

Ludwig Sandbacka