Just a few days ago, 9 people pioneered a new form of a game jam, happening in the beautiful landscape in Koli. ProtoKoli combines the magic of Finnish nature with game making, all organized around the sense of community. Although originally envisioned as an event for game industry professionals and game dev educators, in the spirit of game jamming ProtoKoli is open for everyone.

The first edition of the jam took place between 16^th and 21^st of August, combined with the GMTK game jam which was going on at the same time. This gave an added spice to the event, with the jam theme becoming “Built to scale”, in addition to Koli’s nature inspired ideation. Overall, one game has been published, however, ProtoKoli brought a lot more.

So why was all this so special? Let’s break it down. We had:

• 1 cottage with sauna, mixed with
• 1 pure water lake with warm water, hosting
• 1 game jam lasting for 4 days and 6 nights, in
• Awesome amounts of warm atmosphere, for
• 9 people (which of 7 at the same time), releasing
• 1 game, additionally making
• 5+ prototypes, and also
• 148 pixel art sprites, with
• 62,312 lovingly handcrafted pixels, that required
• Kilos of delicious food to feed hungry jammers, including
• 46 eggs in 4 days and 6 nights of cooking, with surprisingly only
• 2 packets of coffee consumed, because we also achieved
• 7 km hiked up a hill (vaara), though we did have
• 1 morning runner, with
• 3 late night devs, and
• at least 3 not-so-morning-people, ending in
• 11 AM as the average breakfast time.

Although the jam theme “Built to Scale” felt uninspiring for some, the sauna did its healing work, as the overall spirit of We’re here to have fun! loosened up the atmosphere and got the creative juices flowing. When one participant decided to make a retro Zelda-like game with a mysterious forest as the main environment, the sauna brought a team together – reunited after 10 years, two jammers hijacked the sauna chatted endlessly, setting the base for their collaboration on what ended up becoming a published game.

(To play Legends of The Goblin Shore 2, click or tap here.)

However, if by reading all this you thought that four days is a really long time, you are sort of correct. But then, do you know how awesome Koli is?

To follow and combine the two themes of the event, on Saturday we scaled (= climbed) the vaara of Käränkä, during a hill-climbing forest walk. We testify – the berries are tastier high up in the mountains!

On Sunday, we went on to climb the most iconic mountain of Koli, right at the national landscapes. Some of our attendants had to leave early, so climbing Ukko-Koli was in a way ending the first part of the game jam.

We also got to enjoy some amazingly tasty food (that we made all by ourselves – special love goes out to our food preppers <3)!

…And we also visited the Veistospuisto in Koli, which even had unicorns! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ

We can speak about this forever, but truly, this is one of those experiences that you just need to live it to feel it.

Sounds like your kind of jam? Keep an eye out for the next edition coming your way in 2025!

ProtoKoli was organized by Finnish Game Jam and Osuuskunta Vedenhaltijat with financial support from Usmin Fysioterapiapalvelu Oy, Jestercraft, Kooders and Boom Corp.

Special thanks to Riikka Lotta-Pehkonen for all the hard work in bringing everyone together, and all the jammers: Kiri Kälkäjä, Miikka Harjuntausta, Nevena Sicevic, Klaus Kääriäinen, Miikka Kostian, Harri Karhu, Antti Piironen and Olli-Matti Rautiainen.