Score Game Jam 2010 created games in 42 hours!

Score Game Jam. Photo by Tuuli Saarinen

Game Development Club Score decided to end the summer season with Score Game Jam 2010 event. This game development marathon, held in Demola, had 13 eager jammers and a handful of organizers. The point of the event was to brainstorm, team up and create a game in just 42 hours! In addition to the time constraint, all the games had implement the common theme. This time the theme was "Everything is different", which gave a very free reign to the designers.

The Friday night started with the revealing of the theme and team formation. Of the 13 jammers, four teams of three were made. The single audio designer was left out of the teams, as he promised to help all of the teams equally. The teams had a fresh mix of new and old students of TTVO as well as the members of the game development club Load, who had come all the way from Turku for this event. The Friday continued with ideation and project starting, which continue late in the night. The most hardy didn't go to sleep until five, but the first were up at 8AM to continue the work.

As Saturday was starting to change into Sunday, the games began to be playable, though some were still unfinished and one team had even changed their whole game idea. Nevertheless, motivation stayed high even though tiredness started to show through. After a couple of hours' of sleep the teams had to polish and prepare their games for presentation before the final presentation. As the clock struck 12PM on Sunday, Demola saw the presentation of five completely unique and different games.

Five completely different Games

From "How Was Your Day"

Each of the teams had interpreted the theme differently and thus created a completely different games. "How Was Your Day?" dealt through a series of minigames how, for some, a day filled with routines can still be completely different. The experimental puzzle-platformer "Cubo" put the player on the surface of a large cube, the maze of which could only be solves by understanding that the sides of the cube were different depending on the orientation of the cube. The half-finished "Coma" the player tried to steer a person in coma toward their memories, which they could detect in the complete darkness only by the sound. The other game of the same team focused on collecting apples. "Karma" challenged normal platformers by forcing the player to think when they should die, so that you could be reborn and advance towards enlightenment.

Examining the games and the atmosphere at the jamming site it is easy to say that the first Score Game Jam was a success. We were a couple of people short of the expected number of attendees, but that didn't affect the event - at least, not negatively. The point of the event was also to rehearse for the upcoming Global Game Jam, which we will hope to be the biggest game jam ever! Now it is easy for Score to move on to the autumn season and towards new adventures!

Story by Janne Jaakkola

Score
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Part 1: Pirkkala photography exhibition by Douglas Symon is now open!

Photographs that move
Photography Exhibition by Douglas Symon
Part 1: Pirkkala
30th August - 11th September
Metso Library, Pirkankatu 2 Tampere
Opening times:
Mon - Fri 10am - 8pm
Sat 10am - 4pm


The art of making pictures with light is on show at the Tampere Main Library Metso for the next two weeks.  Having just started the Degree Programme in Media at TAMK my project Photographs that move can be seen between today, Monday 30th August, and Saturday 11th September.  The exhibition focuses on work from 2009 documenting my current home town Pirkkala.

One of the most striking aspects is the 7.5 metre panorama on display, something you probably won’t stumble upon every day of the week.  As well as other points to see the technique used is not one typically suitable for documentary photography and as a result may cross a line into art.  I have combined between 2 and 5 bracketed exposures into each image.  In the case of the panorama even more.  Hopefully you can get along to see the prints and find it interesting.  Let me know what you think!!


Story and photos: Douglas Symon

More information about the project
A book of the work is available here or directly from Douglas Symon
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The Game Design Summer School starts today

New Zealander Paul Pivec and Slovenian Maja Pivec are the main organisers of the Summer School

Demola will this week be the venue for the Engage Game Design Summer School. The  international Summer School will tackle issues related to game design as well as how to embed curricular topics in the game design.

It will give designers and creative students insights and knowledge of educational game design e.g. creating educational games for the target group, embedding curricular topics and stealth learning, providing accurate information, consulting on one hand teachers and on the other hand the target group; asking the right questions and embedding these answers into the game.

The Game Design Summer School is organised by the Engage Learning Network and coordinated by Joanneum UAS in Graz, Austria and hosted by the Degree Programme in Media of Tampere UAS (TAMK) and Demola.


Engage Summer School home
Engage Learning Project
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Cai Melakoski is the staff person of the year

The Students' Union of Tampere University of Applied Sciences (Tamko) has chosen Cai Melakoski, the Head of Degree Programme in Media, as the staff person of the academic year 2009 - 2010.

“This is the biggest honor you can get at TAMK”, said Cai Melakoski after he found out he was chosen the staff person of the year. Melakoski started working as the Head of the Degree Programme in Media in autumn 2009, but he has worked at TAMK Art and Media for nearly 20 years. His work has included teaching, R&D and marketing. The latest “thing” for Cai has been TAMK’s blogs. He has helped to create not only the Art and Media blog, but also other TAMK blogs - including the one you’re reading right how!

“Blogs let you into the everyday life of students, which is often absent in TAMK’s official publications. The blogs show a more open TAMK which looks like its students.”

Students appreciate Melakoski's efforts to collect feedback from students and put the feedback in use. During the first year of students’ studies, the Head of the Degree programme has organised regular meetings and personal discussions with each student.

In addition to listening to his students, another important reason for selecting Melakoski as the staff person of the year is his hard work in the international field. He has used his extensive international network in e.g. organising the international week in connection with the Tampere Art Factory Event.

Cai Melakoski is the TAMK staff person of the year because he...

• has made sure that there were teachers, students and members from the field of media designing the Degree Programme in Media.
• has systematically collected feedback from the students since the launching of the degree programme.
• posts actively to TAMK Art and Media blogs
  
• is involved in organising the international week and Tampere Art Factory at the Finlayson campus.
• has developed the co-operation between TAMK and Demola.
• is helpful and interested in the students’ projects.
• uses his international network to benefit TAMK and his students.
• has actively improved the collaboration and discussions between the students and the teachers.

The Students’ Union has been nominating the person of the year in TAMK since academic year 2004-2005. The recognition is given to a person who has remarkably developed education, study environment and TAMK community. With the recognition Tamko wants to encourage good practices and motivate the staff of TAMK to continue their good work.



The previous recognitions have been granted to:

• senior lecturer Peter Heath (2004 - 2005)
• principal lecturer Matti Lähteenmäki (2005 - 2006)
• senior lecturer Kirsti Kallio (2006 - 2007)
• co-ordinating study advisor Anne Mustonen (2007 - 2008)
• special skilled worker Timo Niemi (2008 - 2009)

IMP: First week, first report

New IMPs marking their home towns on the map

The second edition of Degree Programme in Media, IMP, started last week. Below the impressions of the first week by one of the new students, Tia Tuovinen:

With Austrian, Estonian, Russian, French, British, and Norwegian twist we are a lot more than just a regular group of students. Our colorful IMP-team has worked well for the first 4 days including all the extracurricular activities. Hopefully we will become more friends than rivals. Many of us share the same goals and future career ideals which may lead to competition and comparing ourselves to others in an unhealthy way.
 
On the first week of our journey to media professionals we got several codes, passwords and access keys. We got to know for example the TAMK online portal, study areas and some site that loans students equipment ranging from cameras to bicycles.

We were handed badges to enable access to school any time we want – it is clear that people actually want to spend time there off study-hours! The game club Score’s room will probably attract many of our future game designers. Even some of the not so enthusiastic players have joined the club after seeing many the temptations the club has to offer.

Even though we study for ourselves and for our own future, a lot of teamwork is included in the program. Therefore it is convenient that the classmates are people worth hanging around with even outside of school. Once we get to know our surroundings, our classmates and even ourselves a little better who knows what will come out of TAMK!
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Blue Sea Film Festival shows seven TAMK films

The Blue Sea Film Festival celebrated this weekend has invited seven films made by our students to compete in the 17th edition of the Baltic Herring short film competition. The Blue Sea Film Festival shows films from the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea.

Below the TAMK films at the festival. The Chainsaw Poet competes in the open category and the rest in the category for students from audiovisual schools.

• Aarnipuu / The Chainsaw Poet, director Lauri-Matti Parppei
• Helvetin hyvää työtä / Whistle While You Work, Jussi Sandhu & Ville Hakonen
• Korpin Laulu / Raven's Song, Aino Suni
• Oman onnensa leipuri / The Lucky Baker, Markus Aaltonen
• Perhepotretti / Family Portrait, Minna Korhonen and Nalle Mielonen
• Sleep Of Reason, Aino Suni
• Niin paljon sinua halusin / All That I Wanted, Aino Suni

Blue Sea Film Festival
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Anna is the IMP Mölkky champion 2010

Champion Anna in the centre with the Mölkky and pin number 1

The traditional IMP Mölkky Open Championship 2010 was arranged today with the new group of international media programme students, their tutors and teachers. This year the award came to Finland, IMP tutor Anna Tikkanen won the game.

Mölkky is a popular Finnish throwing game.
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More stories about IMPs
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The 2010 edition of the Degree Programme in Media started last Tuesday. The next application round for Finnish University of Applied Sciences BA degree programmes is January 3 to February 15 2011. You can apply to be one of the next IMPs then and if you are lucky, be the next Mölkky champ!

The Chainsaw Poet hits festivals

Shot by first year students of Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Aarnipuu is a short film about Mikko - a full-time poet and an occasional lumberjack. He meets an activist girl underneath a big old tree he's supposed to chop off. Two different persons try to understand each other and are not so different after all.

Aarnipuu was shot in February to March 2010 using Canon 5D mk II. Written and directed by Lauri-Matti Parppei, produced by Marja Pihlaja and with Mikko Parttimaa's cinematography, the movie was finished in May 2010. The crew spent three days in the snowy woods.

After its completion Aarnipuu has been invited to Blue Sea Film Festival, Reikäreuna Film Festival and St. Petersburg International Student Film Festival Beginning.

Text: Lauri-Matti Parppei & Marja Pihlaja
Photo: Lauri-Matti Parppei
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This is the second edition of our Media students

The new Media, Fine Art and Film&Television degree students arrived today.

On the Wordle tag cloud above you see an illustration of the Media Programme students, the 10IMPs. All students told their main study field of interest, predicted their work title after eight years and named their main hobbies. Wordle did the rest.


Look at the 09IMP Wordle
Read more about the IMP students

The Small Ones - the official Tampere summer work of art

PIENET - The SMALL ONES
Resin, plastic animals
June 1 - August 31
By Laura Laukkanen and Fanni Maliniemi, the official City of Tampere summer artists 2010
Pedestrian street between the Academic Bookstore and Stockmann

 Tampere Museum of Ciontemporary Art chooses every year the Summer Artist of the year, who then creates an exhibition on the granite pedestal on Tuomiokirkonkatu. This year Laura Laukkanen and Fanni Maliniemi, students of TAMK Degree Programme in Fine Art, are the summer artists.

You can see the sculpture until end of August.
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Art and science meet in Tulevaisuuskuvia (Views of the Future) -exhibition

• What is left after the icecaps melt down?
• Do security cameras bring security?
• Will a floating summer cottage save you?

Tulevaisuuskuvia exhibition brings together various fields of science and art in order to further explore the pressing questions that will affect our common future. The exhibition has been formed through a collaboration of artists from the Pirkanmaa region and of future studies experts.

In September it's possible to find the pieces of art in surprising places throughout central Tampere: apart from the main library, art can also be found from the K-Market grocery store in Tullintori as well as from the trees in Kalevan puistotie -street.

Tampere University of Applied Sciences is one of the producers of the exhibition.

The exhibition is open 28.8.-30.9.2010. The opening will take place on 28. August as a guided tour at 13.00-16.30 through central Tampere.
The tour will start from the main library Metso. The exhibition and the opening tour are free of charge.


Story: Essi Santala
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Tulevaisuuskuvia home (in Finnish)
Read the previous story about the exhibition
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Internationalisation: We welcome students from 23 countries

TAMK Finlayson Campus from back

Finlayson Campus is more international than ever this autumn. New nationalities are present among Degree Programme in Media students, we welcome 21 exchange students (new record), and MA in Screenwriting hosts five international students.

Our first international event will be the Engage Learning Games Summer School August 30 to September 3.

We are expecting guest lecturers and other specialists from the UK, Denmark and Greece. A new international project, "European Virtual Academy" will start.

The international atmosphere will continue in the spring term: we expect 50 international visitors to our International Week April 11-15.

The academic supply for international students will also grow; a new study module for international students, "Future Film Studies", is under construction and is scheduled to kick off in January.

A high number of our students and staff will go abroad as well. All second year students of Degree Programme in Media will participate in EUROPRIX Multimedia Festival in Graz in November, and a group of fine art students participate in the Culture Capital of Europe programme with their exhibition Promoting Changes, to give two examples.

From Assembly with Love, epilogue

Just a final report from the Assembly team. All of the equipment has been returned intact to their rightful places, but unfortunately we managed to get a parking ticket for our minibus. So the trip back wasn't a complete success, but almost.

We also have some statistics from Assembly, though only regarding the games we showed. The students from TiKo aimed at achieving certain goals in their games, and boy did they . In the space shooter Swarms they managed to kill 500 000 aliens during one session, while Miekka, the 3D dueling game which borrows heavily from Finnish history and mythology, went through over 1000 battles during Assembly. And the School of Art, Music and Media wasn't without epic success either. Overboard and Overtower had its fair share of fans, and I do remember noting at one point that someone had over 100 wins on Overtower (which would probably mean around 300-400 rounds overall). In addition, one brave visitors played Elder Strolls: Dungeons of Dementia to its planned (but unfortunately unfinished) end with all the stats at max (100!).




Thanks to Emilia Ala-Rami for this amazing feat!

And good news, everyone! Our ArtTech seminar is now available at: http://vimeo.com/14069673. On the right side you can also browse through all the other seminars, so if you missed Assembly this year, be sure to check out those videos.

Text: Eevi Korhonen
Photo: Juho Hartikainen / Emilia Ala-Rami
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Assembly Summer 2010 
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From Assembly with Love, vol. 4

(Sorry for the late post, I thought I'd already posted this. So confusing with two blogs and too little sleep...)

The fourth day dawned with a sad feeling, and it was time to start packing and heading home. The Sunday mentality started to take over the Arena, but the most cunnign had already started to disassemble their computer places in order to avoid the post-closing-ceremonyt rush. The people from TiKo had decided to join them, and since they'd been staying awake almost throughout whole Assembly, I think it was the right option.


The emptied booth

Assembly might be over, but the work continues! We must still drive all the way to Tampere and return all the stuff to their rightful places plus write the reports.


Sunday and the beanbags. Pictured from left to right Riku Heino (Media), Joni Rissanen (Media) and Paavo Marttila (Music from the campus in Virrat)

We alredy spoke to the other schools that we liked our co-operation and the booth so much that we already booked the same place for ourselves for next year. So keep your eye on this blog next summer too as a new bunch of students will take over Assembly!

Text and photos: Eevi Korhonen, 09IMP student
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Assembly Summer 2010 
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From Assembly with Love, vol. 3

Third and the second last day at Assembly, so I thought that this would be a good time to shed some light over the culture of Assembly to the readers of this blog. Today we'll have the highlight of the whole event i.e. democompos (compos = competitions). Demos mean in this context audiovisual workds created through computre code, and these are the foundation of the whole Assembly event. Demos are the historical core of the event, and even though Assembly has expanded into other territories, demos are still a very important day of the modern Assembly. Demo teams compete in different categories e.g. oldskool (only demos that run on platforms released before 1993 are allowed) and 4k (the whole file must not exceed 4 kilobytes). The winners of the democompos are real showcases of programming, which require the coordinated effort of several people.



Picture from yesterday's air guitar competition. The competition song was Lordi's ""Hard Rock Hallelujah"

There are several other types of competitions at Assembly. Unlike you might think, Assembly encourages its visitors to exercise by organizing basket- and floorball competitions. The computer lovers might be more at home with less demanding sports like disk and CD throwing. You can also compete more passively like decorating your computer or your computer place.


Here's an example of an interesting decoration of a computer case

Our booth still stands even though we've run out of sweets and other giveouts. The games have been popular (at least the people working at the booth have been playing a lot). The students from TiKo have shown their bravery and relentlessness (or madness and consumption of energy drinks) by stayng awake and watching over the booth on both nights. Spares us the bother of having to tear down and build up the stand every morning to keep our valuable equipment safe.

Tomorrow it's time to go so check the blog for the final report.

Text and photos: Eevi Korhonen, 09IMP student
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Assembly Summer 2010 
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From Assembly with Love, vol. 2

Eevi explains about the ArtTech seminar:

Today's big event for us was the ArtTech seinar we held together with the other schools titled"Game Development Education, Clubs, and Cooperative Organizations in Finland". Each school had 10 minutes to showcase their programmes and game projects and we finished with a shared 15 min panel on the schools' co-operatives and cooperation. I was represented our school on both occasions (though I didn't mean to). In the 10 min slot I told about our 5D2 project, even though as an afterthought it would've been good to spend couple of minutes going over the Media programme, too. But I think our marketing will speak for itself anyway (today I've dropped off about a hundred leaflets all over the Areena).

So, I accidentally participated in the co-operative panel too, even though my original plan was to quietly exit the stage after my talk. At the end of my part I just couldn't figure out a way to do that gracefully and there were four chairs at the stage (meant for the speakers while they were waiting their turn), and on top of it all, the vent was being streamed live to thousands of people over the Internet and at the Areena. I managed to get through the questions with anyone noticing my lack of real expertise in the area (the correct panelist for Tampere would've been the guy who was tasked with running the panel, so he couldn't both ask and answer the questions without it looking bit silly).

By the way, you can follow the Assembly live over the net throughAssemblyTV. I probably should've mentioned this yestreday, so you could've followed the aforementioned seminar, but I genuinely forgot that also those were being streamed on the AssemblyTV. But no worries, for according to my knowledge those recordings will be later put on their own Vimeo channel. So just be patient, you'll be able to see it sometime later.

Tero tells what's been happening at the booth:

People have been stopping by our booth throughout the day, playing games and asking questions about our programme. The Score games seem to be constantly popular, drawing in players and interested crowds (perhaps due to the comfy bean bags?). Some of the 5D2 games have also turned out quite popular, Elder Scrolls being the game of choice for many of the players.

We managed to kind of fix the touchscreen, or at least figure out why it wouldn't co-operate with our little interactive tour of TTVO. It seems the display doesn't quite interpret clicking and holding down the mouse button the same way it handles touching the screen and holding your finger in place. As a quick fix we noticed that touching the screen and dragging your finger does work, so although a bit tedious to use, the tour is now somewhat functional.


Text: Tero Koskela and Eevi Korhonen, 09IMP students

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Assembly Summer 2010 
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From Assembly with Love, vol. 1

Greetings from Assembly!

Finally I have enough time to blog about the first day's events, and because pictures equal a thousand words, I've used them quite a lot in this entry. Day started slowly, as we left off an hour later than planned, which was not surprising. We had to make a detour to our driver's home and pick up some gas before finally heading towards Helsinki. We made it to Hartwall Areena without further incident, and so we could start building the booth.

Our van was pretty full as the picture shows. We had e.g. four bean bags, a fridge and a projector creen.


We could not avoid small problems at this point: there weren't enough long LAN cables, we had to move our stuff away from the fire post, cables and backbags littered the floor and on top of it all, our original layout for the whole booth area had to be redone. Everything was sorted out eventually, and the booth is (and has been for several hours now) in full Assembly mode.



The highlight of our stand is the 42-inch TV the people from TiKo have brought. It's used to run their very own Swarms game for Xbox360.

And it is my pleasure to announce that the TTVO interactive tour has been released. Unfortunately we could not release it hear yet, as we didn't get our hands on the touchscreen until today, so we had no chance to test our little show before today. We found out that the movement didn't work as we intended, so we have to fix it before we can run it on the touchscreen. But I hope we get it fixed, because it would be so awesome!


This is the ASUS-sponsored touchscreen which will hopefully run the interactive tour tomorrow. Meanwhile it is showing the TAMK slideshow, which is not bad either..

Text and photos: Eevi Korhonen, 09IMP student
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Assembly Summer 2010 
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Strong TAMK presence at Reikäreuna Film Festival

The sixth Reikäreuna Film Festival will take place from September 9-12 2010 in Orivesi, Finland.
The Film Competition received 104 entries, out of which 19 domestic short films were presented to the jury. A selection of the other entries will be presented at four thematically organised screenings.

Eight of the films and animations picked up for nomination are made by present or previous students of TAMK fine art or film&television students: (links refer to introductions in English of the films in this blog)

• Asepussi / Gunbag, director Jukka Hautajärvi
• Haluatko tietää, Outi Tienhaara
• Syyslaulu /Autumn-song, Mari Aaltonen
• Perhepotretti / The Family Portrait, Minna Korhonen, Nalle Mielonen
• Oman onnensa leipuri /The Lucky Baker, Markus Aaltonen
• Inadequacy of existence, Sanni Rajapolvi
• Niele pelkosi / Swallow Your Fears, Laura Rytkönen
• Helvetin hyvää työtä / Whistle While You Work, Ville Hakonen & Jussi Sandhu

The thematically organised screenings of the festival show the following films and animations by present and graduated TAMK fine art and film&television students:

• Korpin laulu /Raven's Song, director Aino Suni
• A Small Study of Woe (Woe is me), Karoliina Paappa
• Sleep of Reason, Aino Suni
• Fragments of Life, Anastasia Lobkovski
• Huomisen muisto / Memory of Tomorrow, Pekka Saari
• Niin paljon sinua halusin / All that I Wanted, Aino Suni
• Romka-97, Anastasia Lobkovski
• Piilo / Alone, Aleksi Närvä

Additionally the programme includes many special screenings like the best of Tampere International Short Film Festival, and the show of Steam of Life (Miesten vuoro), the documentary awarded on several international film festivals. Stem of Life is written and directed by Joonas Berghäll & Mika Hotakainen, the former TAMK graduate.
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Reikäreuna Film Festival
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From Assembly with Love, prologue

There's only one day between us and the Assembly. We'll be leaving early on Thursday morning to be at the site building our booth before the hordes of nerds overtake the Arena. We'll be blogging all the way to Sunday, so this announces our at least four-chapter-long tale of booth watching, computers and gallons of energy drink. So stay tuned to this blog!

The preparations for this weekend's event are almost complete! We have finished our masterpiece: The Interactive Tour of TTVO! It's the website/fictional tour we made with Flash to showcase what's it like studying here in TTVO (from the viewpoint of a Media student). Beware, there might be some heavy caricatures and we also had to condense the campus into a single hallway, so your experience will be more of a metaphor than an actual virtual tour.

Below a screenshot as a little taste of what's to come. The website will have its Grand Opening at Assembly, so you'll have to wait a little longer to try it out yourself.



Text: Eevi Korhonen, 09IMP student

Assembly Summer 2010 
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