Northern Game Summit 2013 & how to pitch a game

Full house!

Northern Game Summit was held second time last week, and we thought this would be a perfect time to share our experiences.

Kajaani is quite a remote place to hold a gaming conference at, but NGS was still very populated event. (And the only one to date that has started with karaoke!?) All in all the event was pretty excellent, we had a chance to meet lots of new people and keep in touch with old friends. The lectures we're interesting too, even after some technical difficulties.

Afterparty was a big part of the event as usual. The organizers came up with an interesting combination as the stands you would expect to see in most gaming events we're actually part of the party. Worked very nicely!

Ever played Alan Wake on 300" screen?

This time we took part in the pitching contest, which was probably the most important single event throughout the summit. While the pitching didn't go as well as it could have with proper preparation, it was well worth the trouble. Pitching an idea in front of real business people is an excellent way to get some free EXP, something we definitely recommend to any game developer. Since it's possible to learn from anyone, not only from the best, check out this short list of what we gathered:

-Prepare early. This provides you a chance to go through your presentation multiple times and in different mindsets, and gives you more time to...

-Practice. This one should be obvious, but it might still be just a little bit too easy to trick yourself into believing you know your idea/project well enough to present it spontaneously. Do this in front of someone not familiar with you as well, if you have a chance. There a second layer to practice as well: In addition to practicing every single pitch, you should practice pitching in general as often as possible.

-Gather your team, or at least consider doing so. Preparing a game pitch is something you can do alone, but it's almost always better if you can prepare it with your team or even a couple of friends. This helps you to cover multiple points of view, get more feedback and root out some hitches that might have gone unnoticed.

-Back it up. Do some research that prepares you for difficult questions about your target audience, competition, sales estimates, even tech. Including those things in your pitch in a simple format gives a feeling that you know what you're doing, as long as they are facts.

-Make it look good. Having some cool concept art can definitely help you get the point across. Mockups or bullshots are better, and if you have a chance to include a short section of gameplay video, you're all set!

In the process of preparing for a pitch one time too little.

PS. We haven't completely forgotten about Interplanetary either. The development effort is back on track and running smoothly now that we have settled in our new premises. More on that later!

Logos are not built in a day

Hello dear readers, it's Jukka here to serve you another post, this time on the subject of Interplanetary's logo and what went into the process of designing it.

Why do we need a logo?

The idea behind a logo is to provide people with something to recognize the product by. Having just a name for a product isn't quite enough, as there can be other things going with the same name (as long as it's not a similar product/entity etc).

A logo provides the name a unique and recognizable aesthetic. It's a building block of a brand. Brand is something that is born instantly, it's the sum of people’s thoughts and opinions of the matter at hand and those things can take time to form. A logo can give people something to base their thoughts and opinions on, when they first encounter a new brand and also a way to recognize it when they see it again somewhere.

Personally though, I feel that game logos don't need to be as thought out as traditional corporate logos and other product logos, as games have better ways of introducing themselves to new audiences, for instance trailers.

Design process

To start off, you need a name and, lucky us, we already had one. Both I and Tarita, our artist, started by sketching our own ideas.
The name “Interplanetary” was originally just a working title, but as it hadn't been used for a game yet and it did a good job in describing the game, we stuck with it (there's a scifi movie by the same name that came out in 2008).
I like to start logo designs by sketching straight in Illustrator. I combine shapes and use the pathfinder tools to cut out and merge them, looking for interesting results.

Some of the first sketches and their variants.

The world of scifi-themed logos is filled with planet shapes and crescent moons, blocky typography and carbon fiber textures. While I tried to come up with something a bit more original I also wanted to include the idea about shooting at planets... Which at first resulted in designs that mostly remind you of things you learn about animal reproduction in biology class. So in the end I made some compromises and didn't come up with the most original of designs, but rather ones I felt conveyed the idea best.

After a while we gathered up the sketches and chose four we liked most and put together a simple survey to ask for opinions and feedback from our friends in facebook. The survey provided us with good feedback and strengthened our own opinion on which design to choose.

The four candidates we chose for the survey.

After posting the survey I moved on to make a short teaser to show at the upcoming Nordic Game Conference, which ended up taking all my time. As a short time remedy we used a plain white version of the logo that was most favored. This way we had a logo, which would be pretty close to it's final form and most probably wouldn't change so much that it would be unrecognizable.

After the NGC, I postponed working on the logo for some time, while I concentrated on honing the teaser and its idea bit further. The teaser is still a work in progress, but I did finally take the time to put the finishing touches on the logo.

Final version of the logo.

And that sums it up. Hope to see again next time.

The second most popular gaming conference in the north

Networking ®, the Trading Card Game

Hello! Now that our bearded scout squadron (with glasses) is back from Sweden and recharged, it's time to write a couple of lines about our trip to Nordic Game Conference, Unite Nordic and some related events.

For us the trip went very well. People seemed to like the idea behind Interplanetary a lot, and Hedgehop, one of the games we still very much hope to finish at some point, was very well received by the few people I had a chance to show it.

We thought about writing a longer post mortem and a more detailed description of the events, but there are plenty of those around at this point, and you can always watch some of the presentations online. So, instead, here are some things you should keep in mind when it's your time to travel to NGC. (Majority of these points apply for most games industry events.)


Nordic Game Conference tips for the newcomers:

Plan ahead.
Make it clear to yourself what you require from the trip and plan your actions accordingly. Is there someone you want to talk with? A company you want to connect to? Are you looking for a training place? Do you want to find a publisher for your game, or are you there for advice?

If you travel with a group, discuss your goals beforehand. This way you can keep on the lookout for your friends as well: If someone spots a person you want to talk with, they can give you a call.

Cutting out your 150 fliers manually is very indie.

Prepare some material for your game or team.
Think of the message you wish to deliver to your target audience, and what that target audience will be. Prepare the materials early. You may also want to prepare an elevator pitch for your company, team and/or your game.

Make reservations as early as possible.
This allows you to find cheaper flights and accommodations. Comfort Hotel Malmö is a good choice, it's located right next to the Slagthuset where the conference is held.

Pack light.
You'll end up needing only 1/3 of what you have in most cases. Linens and a towel are usually not needed, even if you stay in the cheapest possible hostel.

Wear good shoes.
Your trip is likely to involve lots of walking and standing, and it'll be a lot harder to focus on important things when you have blistered feet.

Be aware that the price level in Sweden is very high.
This is true even from a Finnish perspective. You can expect a McDonalds meal to be around 10€, a beer in a bar around 8€ and drinks around 12€. There's a good China Box at Gustav Adolfs torg which is not exactly cheap, but it's a good alternative to the other fast food places.

Data roaming is around 0,8€ / MB and wifi access in the conference area is pretty unreliable, so you might want to consider Swedish prepaid for the event.

Conferences offer lots of quality content for social media.
You can post interesting things often, and if you tag the people or companies you meet, there's a chance you will get retweets/shares etc.

Travelling in good company is optional but recommended.

You don't need to attend every talk.
Though the talks may appear to be the main thing, most of the information you will get is something you can find by googling. The real value lies in stuff that you can learn when discussing face to face with the professionals. Attending their talk may be a good way to earn a chance to speak with the person later, though.

Have some business cards with you.
It's so much easier for the people to remember you afterwards if you give them one. Offering yours is also a less awkward way to get one.

It may be a good idea to wear clothing with your team/studio/game logo.
This makes you more recognizable and memorable. It also makes it easier for people that know your game to recognize you and start a conversation.

Make use of your previous contacts.
Game industry people are usually friendly and eager to help- it's usually ok to ask them to introduce you to someone they already know.

Go to the afterparties every day, even if you don't drink.
There is a good chance you will get your most important contacts there. And if you do drink...

Don't drink too much.
Most of the evening parties offer free drinks, but you'll get more out of them if you stay reasonable.

Most importantly, talk to people.
This is the core of everything. Only by socializing you'll end up getting new contacts and strengthening the existing bonds.


So there you have a couple of points to keep in mind, some of which we have learned the hard way. Hopefully now you can avoid them and have even more fun and productive conference experience!

All in all, the trip to Malmö, Sweden, was very, very worthwhile. Thanks to Neogames, Wooga and Kavio Cluster for making it possible!

Kajaani Pelaa!

Coming to the most awesome bookstores soon!

This week's blog post has a little less to do with Interplanetary, but it's great news nonetheless! 

”Art Unknown: Raw Diamonds from the Frozen Wastelands” is finally released. Created by Marita Paldanius, Marko Keronen and Aki Savolainen with support from Kavio Cluster, the book contains game art of the young and talented game developers of Kainuu region. (That includes us, yay!)

From our part in “Art Unknown” you can find art from some of our earlier projects, such as Spiritual and Ouroboring Life, as well as some the earlier concept art from the upcoming Interplanetary. (There’s plenty of more to come as well.) Though Interplanetary has developed dramatically both as a concept and in practice since the material for the book was gathered, Jukka Kivijärvi's illustrations have stood the test of time very well. There are even a couple of never before released concept images from our adorable mobile game concept Hedge Hop,  by Tarita Tammela. 

The release and the press conference with the books authors took place last Wednesday, April 24th, at the Kajaani Pelaa!- event in Kajaani. The event also included presentations of some of the games created by the Kainuu developers, BeaverKarts tournament (which was a lot of fun, thanks Rust0) and the screening of short movie The North, which is to be shown at the upcoming Cannes Festival. 

By the way, there will be some fresh graphics from Interplanetary tomorrow at the Screenshot Saturday. Don't miss it.

Maybe we'll stick to indie marketing for now.

So, we made an expedition into the swamp of online advertising the other day. Boring statistics reveal that a) paying for online ads isn't all that effective for a small WP7 developer, or b) we are doing something very wrong. Maybe both, back to the lab!

This week we have been dabbling with SQL and PHP again, programming an online highscore funtionality for another Kajak team. This has been a great opportunity (read: pretext) to rewrite some messy code from earlier, making it easier for us to apply online highscore functionality in our future games as well.

Speaking of which, if things go all right, we will publish a fun little game for WP7 soon! Beyond all the fun the game is also an experiment to see how we can affect the downloads of another WP game by releasing a promotional minigame. We will go into more detail about it in a later post.