Program

10:15 | Opening Words

Annakaisa Kultima

10:30 | Fireside Chat with Tim Schafer - Back to the Land of the Indies

Tim Schafer & Annakaisa Kultima

13:30 | The Polar Darkness - Making and Marketing a Horror Game Set in Finland

Juho Kuorikoski

13:30 | 3D Pixel Art Techniques of Reconfigure

Antti Tiihonen

14:45 | Drawing together Story and Puzzle in Fortune Fragments

Anna Kangaspuoskari & Oli Arthurs

14:45 | PAPERHEAD - Collaborating with Indie Developers

Joonas Turner

10:15 | Your Engine Is My Engine Now - Taking Over Minecraft to Build a New Game

Mariana Graham Ramirez

11:30 | Your Guide to New New York - Developing the Quest Log for CONTROL Resonant

Bri Williams

13:00 | AI in Game Development - Past, Present, and Future

Perttu Hämäläinen

13:00 | Legal Tools For Protecting Games: Patents and Beyond

Mikko Piironen

14:30 | Beyond the Ranked Grind - Competitive Smash with Lancelot

Hugo "Lancelot" Hujala

14:30 | Wings of the Architect - A look into Housemarques' VFX pipeline

Robbert Groenendijk

10:00 - 12:00 | Polishing your Portfolio! (2B)

What makes a game portfolio effective and appealing to game studios in Finland? Talent and recruitment professionals from Finnish game companies will share what they look for when hiring for jobs and internships. The session begins with a short introduction to portfolio basics, then moves into Q&A and feedback on example portfolios. Students can submit a portfolio in advance or share a link during the session.

10:15 - 11:15 | Pitching to Game Investors: Understanding the Funding Landscape (2C)

What does the game investment landscape look like today, and how can developers prepare for future funding opportunities? In this one-hour workshop, Samuli Syvähuoko, Founding Partner at Sisu Game Ventures, shares insights into investor expectations, current funding challenges, and practical advice for preparing a compelling pitch. This workshop will include an open Q&A.

11:30 - 12:30 | Game Makers Unite! Why and How to Join a Union (2D)

What can a trade union offer game developers in Finland? In this one-hour workshop, Wilma Ramona Ikäheimonen, Chair of Game Makers of Finland, introduces union membership, benefits, and support available to students and professionals, including international developers. Learn how to join, understand your rights, and ask questions in an open Q&A.

13:30 - 14:30 | How to Join the IGDA Finland Community (2E)

What is IGDA Finland, and how can you become part of its community? In this one-hour workshop, Jonne Taivassalo and Daria Bokovaya introduce the organisation, explain how it works, and share what you can gain from taking part in its events. They’ll also talk about how to get involved as a volunteer, what volunteering can involve, and how to find a role that suits you. There will be time for questions and discussion.

10:15 | Ants Took My Eyeball: From Pixels to Players

Rama Hannula

10:15 | Beyond the D20 - How New Tabletop RPGs Are Innovating and Gaining Popularity

Henrique Moraes

13:30 | Cozy Games on RedNote: How Indie Games Become Lifestyle Communities in China

Lucia Tang

13:30 | An Overview of Handcrafted Games and How to Build Your Own

Helena Mongim

14:45 | Leadership in Multicultural Game Teams: The HAND-ling method

Nathaly Kalantar

14:45 | Why the PSX Aesthetic is Reshaping Indie Horror

Osman Gelmez

10:00 - 17:00 | Pracademics – Making Games/Research (3B)

We study games, we make games—but how often do we bring these ways of knowing together? Much of what we know about game making rests on personal experience, scattered accounts and assumptions that rarely get examined. We need more research into how games are actually made, and more academic knowledge into game making.

09:30 - 10:00 | Make Your First Game! - Game Design Basics for Game Jams (4B)

Have a game idea but don’t know where to start? This beginner-friendly workshop introduces the basic principles of game design through quick explanations and hands-on activities. Participants will explore what makes a game engaging, learn how to turn a theme into a playable concept, and experiment with rapid prototyping using simple materials. The session also covers practical tools and approaches that can help during a Game Jam, followed by a short playtesting activity to see how ideas evolve through feedback.

10:15 - 11:15 | Game Art 101: From Story and Mood to Animated Sprites (4C)

What makes game art work? It starts long before the first sprite, with story and mood. In this one-hour hands-on workshop, we’ll look at what game art is and why it begins with feeling rather than polish. Then we’ll get practical. You’ll design characters using shape language, silhouette and colour, and set the mood of an environment with colour, light and composition. Next, you’ll bring a character to life with simple frame-by-frame animation in Photoshop, such as an idle loop and a walk cycle. Finally, you’ll export your animation as a sprite sheet that’s ready for a game engine. We’ll use Adobe Photoshop, but the ideas carry over to any tool or production pipeline.

11:30 - 12:30 | Godot 101: From Zero to Game Engine Basics (4D)

Curious about making your own games, but don’t know where to start? This beginner-friendly workshop introduces Godot, a free and open-source game engine, and walks participants through the basics of getting started with game development. Participants will learn how to download Godot, create a project, navigate the editor interface, import assets, write simple code and export a playable build. By the end of the session, they will have a better understanding of the basic game development workflow and the tools needed to start experimenting with their own ideas.

13:30 - 14:30 | Playable Politics: Re-imagining Games for Social Impact (4E)

How do we link real-world sociopolitical issues directly to game mechanics? This hands-on workshop will explore how games can move beyond raising awareness and become active change-makers. Through practical design exercises, participants of this workshop will be able to take familiar games and modify their core rules to model specific, real-life sociopolitical issues. Together, we will actively experiment with how to translate complex civic realities into playable mechanics, exploring what it takes to turn a standard game into a sharp political commentary. A brief analysis on how titles like This War of Mine and Molleindustria’s portfolio organically generate civic meaning through play will also be covered.

13:30 - 14:30 | Improv-ing Your Stories: An Improv Training Workshop (4F)

Duration: 1 hour

Focus: Using improvisation techniques to improve storytelling and narrative

Format: Active, physical participation.