AudioDraft is hosting two challenges supporting Finnish Game Jam 2012 teams. You can check out the projects and listen the tune candidates for the games here:
Ring of Snake (Tampere)
An unfortunate fellow stuck on top of the Grindstone of Time (Helsinki)
Now when all the time zones are jamming, it’s time to reveal the theme for GGJ 2012!
I bet not that many saw this coming when they were guessing the theme for GGJ2012. It’s not a word, it’s not a phrase, but a picture! And to be more precise, it’s this picture here. Have fun with it!
Is your game lacking music? No audio designer in your team?
Don’t worry, AudioDraft is here to help you!
AudioDraft is hosting TWO sprint competitions for the Finnish Game Jammers! This means that two teams from the applicants can be selected to get free sprint contests on AudioDraft. In the contests they can ask the designers to make the most suitable music for their game projects.
AudioDraft helps companies crowdsource their audio productions from a global community of artists AudioDraft has over 15,000 sound designers and musicians in more than 90 countries.
With AudioDraft you can get custom made music and sound design whether you need theme music for your game, background track for your TV commercial, or an audio logo for your brand, product, or company.
If you want your Global Game Jam game to have cool music (your team picks one track from the competition), please apply as soon as you have your concept set here:
https://elomake3.uta.fi/lomakkeet/6760/lomake.html
Deadline for the applications is 27th of January 23:00 Finnish time.
It’s time! People are coming in and we are all so excited! If you are not here or you want to see what other locations are doing, you can follow us in many ways. At least Tampere and Helsinki are currently streaming live video from their sites. Check the LIVE page for the links to the streams. There’s also an IRC channel and Twitter hashtags, and we’ll be uploading some videos to YouTube as well.
Nokia and Microsoft are organizing a Windows Phone 7 competition, which all FGJ jammers can participate in. If you decide to participate, your group should:
The group with the best game will win Nokia Lumia phones! In addition, the best games will be promoted on the Marketplace.
There are some pretty nice promotions offered for the jammers this year! Currently AutoDesk, YoYo Games, Brass Monkey, and Unity are all offering some goodies, which include for instance free limited-time versions of Unity or GameMaker: HTML5! To get GameMaker: HTML5, you will need a code from your local organizer, just ask!
Be sure to check the promotions out and use them: http://globalgamejam.org/sponsors/promotions
As during the last couple of years, this year’s Global Game Jam will have a group of “diversifiers” for the groups to choose from. The diversifiers are voluntary goals the developed game should reach, such as “Eyes wide shut”, where the game has no graphics at all or “Good vibrations”, where the game has to include haptic feedback.
More information and the full list of diversifiers can be found here. The actual theme for the game jam will be revealed on Friday.
See how the game jam is anticipated all over the world! You might see some familiar faces in the middle of the video. 
About 20 people gathered to Demola, Tampere on Friday evening as a start-up to next week’s grand event. During the evening, Emma Kiiski talked about the local game club Score, which also offered the pre-event’s snacks. Juho Hartikainen and Maiju Suutari explained the principles of High Score, which is co-organizer of the game jam in Tampere. Suvi Latva talked about Manse Games and New Factory, while Annakaisa Kultima opened up the game jam event itself. Henri Sarasvirta, Juho Korhonen, and Jussi Salonen, all senior jammers themselves participating already the third time this year, shared their experiences and tips.
In case you weren’t there, here are some of the tips: If you can’t see what the game is about in the early phase, start over. Don’t be afraid to fail! Remember to have fun! Try to have a vision behind the game. Make the game fun! Sleep at least a few hours. And perhaps bring some apples.
Thanks for the speakers and everyone who participated! The Ustream recordings of the evening are available in http://www.ustream.tv/user/FGJTampere.
Henri sharing some pro-tips for successful game jamming
Follow Tampere’s pre-event from Demola currently live in Ustream:
http://www.ustream.tv/embed/10214911
Live broadcast by Ustream
