Otaniemi Game Jam: Students created new games

Teachers from the upper secondary schools Otaniemen lukio, Espoonlahden lukio and Espoon yhteislyseo became interested in the Game Jam after attending the kick-off event of the Pelillisyyttä lukioon project. At the event, Riikka Aurava from Tampere University gave a presentation on the game jam sessions that Aurava has studied. The Otaniemi Game Jam was part of the project. Last year, Otaniemi organised the jam by itself, but this year others contributed to the project as well. Of the teachers participating in the Game Jam, Milla Unkuri and Aki Saariaho are from the Otaniemen lukio upper secondary school, Tom Gladh from the Espoon yhteislyseo upper secondary school and Sanna Alho  from the Espoonlahden lukio upper secondary school.

So what is Game Jam? In general, game jam sessions are about being together in a relaxed setting and creating different kinds of games. They are usually digital games, but other projects are also an option. It is rare to complete a whole project at a game jam – the point is to have fun, like in music jam sessions.

This year’s theme for the Otaniemi Game Jam was water. “It was selected as the theme because it was also the theme of last autumn's matriculation exams,” says Kaisa Koivunen, a final-year student from Otaniemi, who participated in the organisation of the game jam session. There were no rules for how to include water in the game created: a glass of water on a table somewhere in the game was enough, for example.

There were different ways to prepare for the jam session. At the Otaniemen lukio upper secondary school, students can study game creation and sound design. The Espoon yhteislyseo upper secondary school has a course on game creation. At Espoonlahden lukio upper secondary school, Riikka Aurava held a couple of coding workshops. However, previous knowledge of creating or coding games was not required.

Around 50 students (attendance peaked at 70 students) participated in the Otaniemi Game Jam during the weekend. The games were made in different groups; mostly the groups had about 7 members, but some people made games by themselves. A couple of students worked for several groups. “It was really fun. I used artificial intelligence to create graphics,” Kaisa says.

The game jam session was open to participants at the upper secondary school from 09:00 to 22:00, but some participant’s enthusiasm exceeded the allotted time. “We had a sleepover at one of our team member’s house from Saturday to Sunday to work on the game, and I only slept a couple of hours that night,” says second-year student Luka Eronen from the Otaniemen lukio upper secondary school.

While students received 1 credit for participating in the event, the things they learned were not limited to how to create games. “My time management and teamwork skills improved,” says Kaisa. “My stress tolerance improved too; I had to be able to work with my teammates in a friendly way even though we were all tired,” Luka says. Teacher Sanna Alho from the Espoonlahden lukio upper secondary school was impressed by the young people’s teamwork skills.

As many as 13 games were made during the weekend:

• 3 board games,
• 8 digital games,
• 1 mobile game and
• 1 VR game.

“Our board game was made with a 3D printer, which meant that we had to schedule our project to have enough time for printing,” Luka says. The game that Luka’s team made is a battle royale-style game with a board consisting of hexagons. Kaisa’s team made a digital horror came called The Lighthouse in which the player has to keep the lighthouse light going and the basement empty of water. At the same time, a monster is trying to kill the player.

The other games involved things such as saving cats from bodies of water and moving from one place to another (the player has to take into account traffic jams and metro schedules). “Creating games requires a range of different skills: graphic skills, creative writing, etc. Nobody has to be able to do everything,” the teachers say. “In the future, work will be similar, and you need to be able to get along with different people.”

When the students were working on their games, they could ask the teachers questions in order to achieve as realistic an effect as possible. “For example, I was asked about biology, about how water flows or how muscles move in cold conditions. In terms of geography, the questions were about scale and map symbols,” Sanna Alho says.

Aarni Aspi, leader of the youth team of the Finnish Game Jam, and other operators of Finnish game jam session culture as well as people from the game industry contributed to the game jam session and they also gave presentations on game jam sessions at the event. Representatives from FGJ also evaluated the projects. Finnish Game Jam (FGJ) is a non-profit organisation supporting the game making hobby and organising game jam events in Finland. “I think it was a great event and it was nice to see talented young people interested in the topic,” says Aarni Aspi.

Within the framework of the relevant EU project, the esports organisation RoundsGG supplied the event with 10 game tables. The tables were a powerful tool for implementing things such as VR games.

For the students, the jam session was a positive experience. “I would participate in a game jam session again. Creating games will not become my future profession, but this is a way of connecting with your creativity,” Luka says. Kaisa, on the other hand, has practised coding before, and knows what she wants from the future: ”I will continue in the industry. I want to develop artificial intelligence in the future.”

“The best thing about the event was seeing the enthusiasm and excitement of the young people – the atmosphere at the event was exceptionally great. If I get the opportunity, I will definitely be involved in this type of events in the future!” Sanna Alho says.

“I, too, will definitely be there next year! I also thought it was great to see how like-minded students networked across years and even different schools. It was great to see the students working in an encouraging atmosphere towards a common goal,” Milla Unkuri says. “This was an opportunity to showcase the skills that you might not be able to use in lessons. I was astonished by how much talent we had under one roof this weekend!”