Story: Emma Kiiski
TAMK participated in the biggest game party in the country with few enthusiastic students from both Teiskontie and Finlayson. We got our stuff in the Hartwall arena and had a stand for everyone to come to ask about TAMK and what we are studying and look what we have been doing (game projects etc). For me personally this was the first time in Assembly so everything was new and exciting!
Assembly is a great way to connect with students from other schools and some interesting people from the industry. It’s also an event to share knowledge, experiences, ideas, new technology and most importantly; having fun with all this!

Leaving from TAMK

The sea of computer screens in the arena looked wonderful in the evening when the lights were turned off and many of the gamers continued playing the whole night. Fortunately there was also a possibility to take a few hours sleep on the hallway to gather some energy. There was a band playing in the main stage before midnight and before that some very interesting game developing compo videos were shown in the big screen. Everyone in the event could vote for their favorite games in the compo. Some school projects had been shown as well as hobbyist game demos. It was really interesting to see that a university of applied sciences in Kajaani (KAJAK) was really actively presenting their projects and they had something to be proud about. It’s a shame there were no games in the compo from TAMK but let’s see if next year brings any new good games to be showed in Assembly!

TAMK's awesome stand

There were many interesting seminars about new online game development. For example Mozilla was presented in browser-based developing. It’s already quite amazing what you can create with only the browser’s 2D (Canvas) and 3D (WebGL) tools.
There was a presentation from Supercell (a game company) where they presented new and light game technology with a quite old tool Flash. The game looked pretty good and was light to run with the browser. In amount the seminars were really interesting and inspiring. It wasn’t all about game development; some of the topics covered for example game music. There was a lot to choose from for everyone.

The event has offered graphic contests and game tournaments which are a fun way to spend time in between of playing in the middle of the sea of computers.

Angry Birds - live version

At some point a former students from TAMK’s international business programme came to talk to us. He works now in Rovio with Angry Birds and was really positive about TAMK students to get to work over there too. That would be a really good chance for internship. It was nice to notice that TAMK is a good school to jump from into the industry.

I left in the Saturday evening so I wasn’t able to join the fun on Sunday. But next year I will for sure participate in the event and promote TAMK and our awesome game projects! It was a really great trip and taught me a lot; I hope the others enjoyed too!

The author is student of Degree Programme in Media
Read more stories from/about IMPs, the Media students
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Assembly Summer 2011