The beginning of the week was really hectic with testing and bughunting. On wednesday we packed our boots and skis and headed to Helsinki by car. I took my Haiku laptop with me to use with the monitor (and to show off haiku a bit =). Janne contacted us that he has got a nice thick rug and a few baggy chairs for us to use. We drove to Vihti to pick up the items and met Janne's friend, mr Manninen who is this cool roleplaying dude, discussed about our game with him and headed to Hartwall Areena to set up the booth.
The areena was buzzing already. The staff were busy building the stage and various big things, we were totally knackered so we just threw our stuff at our spot next to the Skrolli magazine and went to our accommodation. There was definite excitement in the air!
Thursday came and me and Zerkus headed to the areena with our computers and things. Getting to the venue was interesting, there was a huge queue of people with their computers and monitors waiting to get in. We got past the queues with our sponsor status, rock star status didn't hurt at all =)
Setting up the booth, we pulled the rug, the bean bag chairs and things. As there was no time, I hand painted a few signs and things that we taped on the monitor and the tables. The tables were really ghetto so we covered them with maps of Tornio, a fun little detail nobody took any notice of. I found this sparkling hippie scarf at the accommodation and we used it as a tablecloth. The Osuuskunta Hastur booth looked like a piece of Camp Hastur (some people commented like that after seeing it) and we sat down to promote and demo the game.
It was a lot of hassle trying to pass the build on with bluetooth. We had to opt to sending the build as email which also was a hassle. Distributing unsigned alpha builds takes a bit of time. However we had a nice stream of people all the way to come and talk to us and download the Assembly edition.
Towards the evening Mr Miku came to hang out with us. Miku the youth councellor dude was attending a gaming seminar in Helsinki and assembly was a part of that experience. On the bag chair he sat and we pushed along. It felt really nice to have somebody of our friends to come over. We did a 13 hour day and headed to the airport to pick up Basim who'd flown in from England.
Everything was really smooth, Bazzer brought us a huge bottle of Jägermeister to celebrate his first ever trip to Finland. Miku had bought two sacks of meatballs and into the oven they went. Reggae was played and the meatballs and fries and especially the Jägermeister disappeared quickly. I noticed the nights down south are way darker than in Tornio as we were chatting away on the balcony. A total conking out happened.
Friday came and went. Basim was really impressed about the event, 4000+ people gaming, coding and doing seminars and things. We timed our shifts at the booth so everybody could go to see a compo or a seminar. Me and Baz went to see this presentation called 'Want to start a game studio? Prepare to be f'd!'. Could't agree more with that one, there were two different studios and I could totally relate to their experiences. rust0 had made this little game called Beaver Karts that we immediately liked =)
We experienced the tron dimension of the world with z-vector and oculus rift, really trippy. Made me feel that oculus rift is going to change the game, amazing stuff I tell you. There were a lot of demos and intros and it was a lot of fun to observe the swarm of thousands of screens yelling and bellowing when the 'kill all lights' video was shown on the big screen. Really cool to see the demos on the huge screen with kick ass sound, well worth experiencing.
Of course we made a few new friends, the Polish team behind Createrria were super nice hippies and me and Baz ended up going to the shadow event Boozembly with those dudes. There is a small forest nearby with kids swimming pools full of beer, sound system and all manner of lights and things. And of course people selling all kind of refreshments. We staggered back to the accommodation at 3am, it was really cool to take a long walk in Helsinki, the night was warm and we had a very nice conversation with Basim about where to head next. I realized I have to get to England pretty soon and spend some time there presenting and planning.
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| three winged hussars! |
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| Zergius' custom made space invader party socks |
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| Osuuskunta Hastur hardcore |
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| blessed trippyness with Z-vector! Amazing! |
The Assembly was really great for us. We got to talk to so many people, I raved on about Parallella and Haiku-OS to a number of geeks and hackers and they were well excited. People tested our game and we got great feedback and ideas. Our team felt a big surge of energy, friendship and motivation to steer the game towards the launch date. I'd definitely recommend attending Assembly whether you're a gamer or a game developer. Good stuff!
We came back home last night, it was really nice and serene at Camp Hastur. I put some candles on and played the Amazing's first album (the one with the white cover, it's amazing) and just chilled out after all the hustle and bustle. Z fell asleep immediately. It was good to be home. We've got some nice stuff coming out soon so please keep an eye on Osuuskunta Hastur!
Sami
Hastur
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