Scene Lounge Seminars

Scene Lounge – Stage in Hall 6 offers several seminars on Friday and Saturday, August 4-5, during the Assembly Summer 2023 event. Come and listen to industry professionals presenting topics they are passionate about and learn from their expertise.

The seminar content is provided by IGDA Finland, which stands for the International Game Developers Association.

All seminars will be conducted in English.

Speakers

John Lloyd

John has been supporting UGC communities and aspiring game makers by teaching UGC tools & techniques since 2010, currently with HypeHype inc.

At HypeHype John creates learning resources for aspiring creators of all skill levels. Making game creation more accessible than ever before is something that John is very passionate about.

Currently, in early access, HypeHype offers all the essential features and tools for making modern games and takes game creation from months of complex PC editing to just hours of visual editing on the go. HypeHype Inc. is a game tech and platform company, previously known as Frogmind, developer of the award-winning BADLAND and Rumble Stars. Our mission is to empower everyone to become a game maker through simple and free tools on mobile devices.

Presentation Topic: Live Demo, creating games using HypeHype’s mobile game creation platform

Emma Varjo

Emma Varjo is the UX Lead and co-founder of Roleverse, a game startup aiming to make everyone a game creator with their upcoming platform built on emerging technologies. A believer in sharing knowledge, she is an active member of the GRUX SIG community and a founding member and one of the main organizers of the GRUX Finland community. She also runs the ExpQuest Instagram account where she shares her knowledge on processes and methods which help create the impactful and lasting game experiences.

Presentation topic: What is game UX? Introduction to the mindset

Natasha Skult

Natasha Skult is the CEO & Creative Director of MiTale, a game development company from Finland focusing on narrative-driven experiences and gamification. She is an active member of the Finnish and international games industry as a Chair-Emeritus of IGDA. Besides industry work, she is active in academic research on interactive storytelling with quantum computing and teaches courses in game design and game (digital) art production at University of Turku.

Seminaarin aihe: UI/UX Design Challenged in Game Development Using Quantum Computing

Joni Leiponen

Joni Leiponen is a long-time computer enthusiast who has been coding since he got his first IBM PC 8086 computer in the third grade. He has focused extensively on real-time graphics and has been actively involved in the PC demo scene, releasing over 40 demos with his demo group, adapt. Throughout his career, Joni has worked as a software developer in various areas, including core/engine, user interface, and backend development – and now, he is proudly involved in developing the real-time Notch visualization tool.

Seminaarin aihe: Just Demo It

Dina Ramse

Dina Ramse is passionate about helping indie game companies successfully crowdfund their games. They help with all sorts of the aspects of bringing a game to life, such as social media and marketing.

Presentation topic: What is indie marketing really?

Oleg Paliy

Oleg is leading Games Factory Talents, a talent attraction agency and event organizer for the games industry helping game development studios from Europe find the best global talent and make great games. As a team they combine their love of games and love of people. Twice a year, in April and October, they organize the gamedev-focused hybrid Games Job Fairs, where leading European games studios and talents gather for 3 days of talks & panels, networking, brand & talent showcasing, career growth, and fun activities.

Presentation topic: Game Jams and Challenges: A Portfolio Gamechanger

Inari Bornholm

Inari Bornholm is senior systems designer at FISHLABS GmbH, an Embracer game studio focused on AA+ game experiences. She joined the video games industry as a freelancer and indie designer before joining Ubisoft, where she worked on two soon-to-be-released titles, The Crew Motorfest and Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, as a narrative designer.

Presentation topic: Get sh*t done first, get sh*t good second

Kostas Patardis

“I am the man with no name, but in the demoscene I am Navis of ASD – programmer by day and a dreamer by night. I first landed at Assembly 20 years ago and ever since I haven’t escaped the call of the big demo stage.”

Presentation topic: The Definitive Guide to Your Next Megademo

Taina Myöhänen

Taina Myöhänen is a doctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University, studying diversity in the Finnish game industry. Prior to research, Myöhänen had over 15 years of experience in the game industry in different management positions. Myöhänen was a co-founder and the first chair of We in Games Finland, an organisation promoting diversity and inclusion in the Finnish game industry, and a member of the Task Force preventing sexual harassment in the Finnish game industry ecosystem.

Presentation topic: Diversity in the Finnish Game Industry

Terhi Marttila & Luciana Lima

Terhi Marttila holds a PhD in digital media from the University of Porto, Portugal. She is a postdoctoral fellow in the eGames Lab research project, a member of the GAGE (Game art and gender equity) project and a researcher at the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS). Terhi creates playful transmedia art based for the browser based on her own poetry, texts and voice: her own voice, the voice of others and computer voices. Her work has been published in the Electronic Literature Collection 4, the New River Journal, nokturno.fi, raum.pt and shared at ELO, ACM SIGGRAPH SPARKS, Consciousness Reframed, Videojogos, among others.

Luciana Lima holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Porto, Portugal, and is currently a researcher at the Interactive Technologies Institute (ITI/LARSyS). Luciana Lima is the co-creator of the Game Arts and Gender Equity (GAGE) project which aims to map the evolution of female participation and integration in the Portuguese digital games industry. Her main research interests are gender equity in the technology industries, diversity and inclusion in the digital games industry, and games as interactive, technological and artistic cultural products. In 2023, she published the book: “Thinking Gender through Digital Games”.

Presentation topic: Feminist poiesis – multidisciplinary creation and collaborative research in digital art and games in Portugal