European Union, European Regional Development Fund Regional Council Kymenlaakso

Xamk Game Studios

The goal of the project was to develop an innovative game industry centre in Kymenlaakso and Southern Savonia, which binds the South-Eastern Finland Universitys and the stakeholders’ game industry knowledge from Kotka, Kouvola and Mikkeli.

The project is finished.

Through the Xamk Game Studios facilities, which will be formed on the three campuses, the goal is to develop national and international expertise in the gaming industry by colliding the gaming students with local entrepreneurs and other service sector organizations. The core of Xamk Game Studios’ operations is closely linked to the following degree programs: Game Design Kouvola, Game Programming Kotka and Information Technology Mikkeli. In addition, the project measures will also integrate students from other fields such as service design, social work, community pedagogy, logistics and marine technology, business and well-being into multidisciplinary student teams. By colliding the students from various fields of the University with RDI experts and entrepreneurs, new and innovative business and research activities will be created in the region which will open up new jobs, new businesses and new companies in the area. The aim is to make Kymenlaakso a national and international brand in the gaming industry through innovation incubators, which will attract game industry experts into the region.

Work packages for the Xamk Game Studios project in brief

  1. Xamk Game Studios Co-innovation Workspaces – space and hardware solutions that strengthen interoperability
  2. Conception of game education and gamification RDI as Xamk Game Studios -concept
  3. Experimental development and commercialization of Xamk Game Studios products and services in a corporate interface
  4. Strengthening international educational and RDI partnerships for gamification

Work package 5 implements the project’s measures for Southern Savonia. The measures of the work package will be combined with work packages 1-4 so that the corresponding measures of Southern Savonia will be implemented in measures 5.1 to 5.4 of work package 5.

The project also includes an investment section.

Students

Do you want to develop your game industry skills? Get involved in Xamk Game Studios activities. Xamk Game Studios offers students interesting projects related to the gaming industry.

For companies

Is your organization interested in learning about new technologies? Consider, for example, the possibilities of augmented reality AR and virtual reality VR? Are you interested in developing gamified solutions to use in your business? Contact us and we will tell you more about the activities of Xamk Game Studios.

Events

23.8.2023

XGS Final demo day
Kouvola

29.5.2023

Venture Hub summer editions 2023
Mikkeli

22.9.2021

Cup of Coffee with baltic explorers

21.6.2021

Road to *ship accelerator

Current

Now you will know more about the interns’ projects. Some teams worked on them even before the internship, some just started. Let’s take a closer look at the work of each team.

The Tech Pilote team is working on two projects. The first one is ShowRoom AR, where you will be able to show and see any kind of art samples or objects using AR. It will be a mobile application made with Unity engine. The ShowRoom will have two types of users: a normal user and an event admin. They will have different rights to use it. The admin will be able to create their own event with just a small help of Xamk Tech Pilot team.

The Yoga Studio is new project of the Tech Pilote team. The idea is to create short videos about 5-10 minutes each to engage children from 7-12 in yoga to calm down their minds before the next lesson or any kind of task they will have. Lessons will be recorded with 3d characters that will do yoga and kids will repeat them. The app is intended for teachers’ usage, not the individual one, and is supposed to be on own webpage, where everyone will have access.

Next team is the “Cops and Robbers” Team. Guys are developing a game that is supposed to be for children from 6-10 years old. The main idea is to do daily exercises and to have some community to play with family and friends. General tasks which will be in the game do not demand intensive physical activity. As for the concept, It will be a nice game to play for children to get prepared before going back to school. In their project, Cops and Robbers team will use GPS so the kids can walk around the city they will find “Heists/ Robbery”, each “Heists” children will perform some multiple-choice tasks to stop the robbery. Tasks will be physical, multiple-choice, basic maths tasks. Also, despite heists created by the team, users will be able to create them themselves too.

Also, you should now about the “Endless Neon” team. Their game is started as a XAMK game jam project. ” Endless Neon” is an Endless runner with a focus on atmosphere rather than gameplay.
A core feature of the game is an audio-visual evolution as a player progressing in the game.
As for the team, Tero Jyri is responsible for the management, designing levels, gameplay, writing documents. All soundtracks are written by Otto Asikainen. 3D modeling and concept art are done by Elizaveta Kisko, and the coding part by Sami Ahonen.

Superraketti team is working on PvP multiplayer game. It should be played with other players.
“Superraketti” can be played locally in “Create game and play” or online in “Join remote game” with a maximum of four players. It currently has three public lobbies located in Amsterdam (4 players per server). The game currently has a “Death match” type game mode. The goal is to shoot as may opponents as possible in the match, and the match is won by the player who destroys the most players.

The last team is Urajärvi that is working on a short mobile game which will help the museum to attract more younger visitors. Urajärven Kartano Museo is one of the oldest in Finland. As for game, it is a hidden object mobile game inside the museum premises with 6 levels.

All in all, each team has already come a long way with their projects and has done a great job. We wish them the best in reaching goals!

For further interest

  • Virtuaalielämyksillä kohti parempaa asiakaskokemusta
  • Baltic explorers – Boosting Games to New Markets
  • ESGE – E-Sports Game Ecosystem
  • Digiverstas
  • Xamk Proto Studio
  • Digiasema (Dih Kymenlaakso)
Project name:

Xamk Game Studios

Project duration: 1.4.2020–31.12.2022

Info

Lead partner: South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences
Focus area: Digital economy

Budget

Financier and main source of funding: Regional council of Kymenlaakso, EAKR funding
Total budget: EUR 526 609

More information

Laura Häkkinen
Project manager
Kotka
 050 468 8082
firstname.lastname@xamk.fi

Tuomas Hellsten
RDI-advisor
Mikkeli
firstname.lastname@xamk.fi

Samuli Karevaara
Research manager, RDI-advisor
Kouvola
firstname.lastname@xamk.fi

Henri Riissanen
Software designer
Mikkeli
firstname.lastname@xamk.fi

Timo Partala
Research manager, RDI-advisor
Mikkeli
firstname.lastname@xamk.fi

Jani Ruotsalainen
IT-specialist
Kotka
firstname.lastname@xamk.fi