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.

Global Game Jam, the main game jam event of the year, will be on 29-31.1.2016. Finnish Game Jam will be again a big part of the global event with multiple locations all over Finland.

The registration for FGJ16 will open at 12pm (noon) on 11th of December on Eventbrite. Follow our event page for more detailed information and updates.

Finnish Game Jam is co-organizing Mediapolis Game Jam on 20.-22.11.2015 at Mediapolis Yle Studio 1, Tampere. This is a unique opportunity, so register now!

Have you ever used professional equipment designed for movie production? Have you ever thought about creating games to be played with it? Well, here’s your chance. Mediapolis Game Jam is the place where you develop games for equipment designed to be used on television and movie production and special effects. This is the event where you get your hands on location-tracked cameras, green screen and virtual studio. We are also working on adding a robotic dolly and motion capture system to the selection; more on that later. Mark your calendars and get ready to let the movie industry know what it means to think outside the box.

Mediapolis Gam Jam is organized by Finnish Game Jam and Yle in co-operation with Technopolis and Tampere University of Applied Sciences, with professional guidance provided by Angel Films Ltd.

This year, Finnish Game Jam was awarded the Sensation of the Year Award! There’s no doubt that we’ll be building the event even bigger in scope and size.

We’re now calling out all jammers looking into organizing a game jam site in Finland at 29-31.01.2016 for the Global Game Jam. It’ll be a piece of cake and will reward you and your community in many ways. The guys & girls from the Finnish Game Jam Association will help you on your way to arrange an unforgettable game jam. At the bare minimum, you will need a space for the weekend and someone in charge for the whole 48h jam + a whole lotta creativity and energy! If you have any questions, you can contact tatu@finnishgamejam.com for further details.

Follow these steps to join us!

1. Go to www.globalgamejam.org
2. Click Start A Jam Site
3. Jam site name: FGJ (site name)
4. Fill out the address details
5. Fill out the other details
6. Assign the responsible organizer
7. Read all the organizer responsibilities stuff
8. Click Save! (don’t worry, you’ll be able to edit the site later if you want to add more detail etc.)
9. Wait for the friendly Finnish Game Jam President Annakaisa Kultima to contact you and go through the practicalities!

See you soon!

Finnish Game Jam is co-organizing the Quantum Game Jam, a game jam that brings together scientists and game makers to create games that help solve scientific problems and build intuition of quantum phenomena. The first Quantum Game Jam was organized in Tuorla Observatory, Finland in 2014, while this year the jam is global with its main site in Heureka, Finland and satellite sites at least in Australia and Denmark. In addition, it is possible to jam from anywhere through online participation.

The registration is now open for Finland, Australia and online participation, so go to http://www.quantumgamejam.com/ for more information and register now!

During the summer, the active organizers of Finnish Game Jam convened for the already traditional weekend to plan the future, organize the forthcoming events, and select a new board for the association.

Annakaisa Kultima was selected to continue as the president, while the new vice president is Kosti Rytkönen. Maiju Suutari continues as the treasurer and Kati Alha as the secretary for the board. Other selected members are Tatu Laine, Vesa Raudasoja and Mikko Karsisto.

The board is enthusiastic about the future of jamming and looks forward to work hard to advance game culture, creativity, experimentation and sense of community in game development hobby.

Finnish Game Jam brought game jamming to Assembly once again and the success was guaranteed this year as well! During the weekend we saw 10 teams put together 10 games in the middle of Assembly shenanigans. The theme of the game jam was “Oldskool” in honor of Amiga’s 30th anniversary.

In a typical game jam fashion the teams were driven by limited time and unlimited creativity. Despite the unusual setting game jam is at home at Assembly. Both events have to do with creativity, passionate community and challenging oneself. All of these elements were present this year as well, as demonstrated by the collection of games each more surprising than the other.

See all the games from here.

Finnish Game Jam ry is organizing a game jam event at Assembly Summer. ASM JAM ’15 is open to everyone participating in Assembly Summer 2015. Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/673752432769635/

How to participate:

• If you need a computer place: We have special jammer tickets available at the price of 40 euros which can be purchased from the Finnish Game Jam webshop (https://holvi.com/shop/FinnishGameJam/product/c9af13c992a596d8c623008529f9a901/).
• The Finnish Game Jam Association grants limited scholarships to the most enthusiastic jammers. Tell us why should you get a free place at ASM Jam and thine wish might just come true! Let us know by sending email to vesa.raudasoja@finnishgamejam.com at latest on July 14th.
• If you already have a computer place: It is possible to jam anywhere on the Assembly site. Just come to the ASM JAM info desk before the registration time ends, register your team and start jamming! If you want to be relocated to the jamming area let us know.

Teams are formed on site but you can come with a team. Game jams are about teamwork, meeting new friends and exploring new idea as well as an excellent opportunity to network with like-minded people.

Program:

The theme is announced on Thursday at 18.00 and jamming starts 19.00. You can start/join jamming until Friday 21.00. Game submitting deadline is on Sunday 09.00. The timetable is subject to change.

Got questions? Ask freely: vesa.raudasoja@finnishgamejam.com

Finnish Game Awards has awarded Finnish Game Jam ry as the Sensation of the Year 2014. FGJ ry was praised for its importance in promoting the hobby scene in the game development ecosystem. In 2014, the amount of both locations and jammers increased substantially, and the FGJ Bus was an interesting addition to the whole.

Other nominees in the category was eSports/SEUL and Pelitaito.fi.

We want to thank all the volunteers organizing the events as well as all the jammers participating in them. A special thanks both to the national and local sponsors making it possible to keep the events mostly free of charge. Finnish Game Jam would not be possible without you all.

Love and jam on!

Annakaisa Kultima, Vesa Raudasoja, Kosti Rytkönen and Tatu Laine from Finnish Game Jam ry were present at the Finnish Game Awards gala.

Finnish Game Jam to hold the online awards show for the first time

Finnish Game Jam 2015 was organized in January 23rd-25th 2015 as a part of the Global Game Jam 2015. World wide, the event gathered more than 20 000 game makers for one weekend to create games together from the scratch. Finland hosted the event in 15 different locations with almost 700 participants. This resulted in 175 games.

Although Finnish Game Jam is not a competition, Finnish Game Jam ry wants to praise creativity and give recognition to the games that show courage of creating something divergent for the world of games. Therefore FGJ ry will give out a few honorable mentions, which will be revealed in the awards ceremony.

The award ceremony will be an online gala, and everyone’s invited to participate!

• announcements of the Honorable Mentions of FGJ 2015
• special game developer guests playing this year’s FGJ games
• interviews with jammers, organizers and Charlie the Unicorn, the mascot of Finnish Game Jam.

You can follow the Twitch broadcast from http://www.twitch.tv/finnishgamejam, starting at 20:00 on Friday, 20th of March.

Dress code for the event (also at your home!): “black tie” or your creative choice. Take a picture of your attire and post it to twitter with hashtag #FGJAwards.

If you are interested in hosting a public screening of the gala at your hometown (list of screening events will be at https://www.facebook.com/FinnishGameJam/events) or have any other inquiries, please contact:
Annakaisa Kultima, aakoo@finnishgamejam.fi