Aakoo

"We built up systems and then we removed them to find better systems." #GDC #Pixeljunk

Dear game scholars, make sure that you are submitting your GAME DEV papers to the FDG 2026 conference. The deadline is 15 Dec and this is a hard-deadline. Me and @rillakhaled are chairing "Game Design, Studio Practices, & Novel Experiences Track" track! fdg2026.org/call-for-paper…

@0jenzee0 What do we have to do to get you to Finland? 0:) 🙏

Games Now! is live now! Two days of talks! Open for everyone! twitch.tv/gamesnowaaltofi

@TheJanePerry @suomenpelimuseo The pleasure was all mine (and museum's). I hope you had safe travel to home and will return to Finland soon!

@aakoo @suomenpelimuseo Thank you and sooo nice to meet you. 😊

#CHIPLAY24 started yesterday. Incredibly inspirational talk last night at @suomenpelimuseo by Bafta winning @TheJanePerry. We need to understand also the process of voice actors in games in order to make better games (or just basically understanding games). #chi #chiplay #tampere

omg omg omg fdg2025.org is finally online!!! we are so excited to host the @FDGconf 2024 in Vienna (@univienna) and Graz (@tugraz)!!!! the topic will be "accessible worlds, united through play" SAVE THE DATE April 15-18 2025 and we are looking forward to seeing your latest games research here in Austria :-) @faresK @katta_spiel @enibolas @TheJimWhitehead

@RiotRMD Ah, sad to hear - but great you tried it out!

This started out a few years ago as a very low scale (me and one external person to help) attempt to see how running a merch store would be. All the issues I listed before we kicked this off, we pretty much hit head on. Its near impossible to make merch breakeven unless you have large volume and order from China. So as we dont have time to work on this, we have to focus on the games and all the other work at the studio, I decided to shut the store down. Our business is making games, not merch. I would love to have more merch for the fans, dont get me wrong, but it has to be at the quality that we want. While people think we are leaving money on the table, we really arent. You need massive volumes for this to work. For now the way is to find great partners to collaborate with like Airam and Makia and not having us worrying about stock, shipping logistics, customer service, etc, etc. People think merch is easy, it is not, I had no illusions about that.

@jeanette_falk You hacker now? :D

If you participate in DIS in Copenhagen, make sure to try out Hacc-Man! Preprint here: arxiv.org/abs/2405.15902

@togelius Idea & team matters?

This Dutch study finds that finds that panelists make the same allocations of research fundings even if they don't get to read the actual proposals, just abstracts and CVs. This result *should* have a large impact on science funding policy. (h/t Thore Husfeldt)

Aalto University ranked number one in Finland in QS rankings! This year, our global ranking is 113th. 🎓 #AaltoUniversity #QSranking bit.ly/4e8BJSG

GN! Exhibition Week (28th May - 6th June 2024) is showcasing 6 games from our 2 game jams of this academic year! Join us at Kumma Gallery, Kankurinkatu 5, Helsinki! Open for public daily 15:00-20:00, last day of gameplay on 6th June!

I came to browse Twitter today because Facebook showed me 40 adverts and group posts (only one group I followed) between two real person. So wild.

The deadline for submissions is coming up on June 19! You can submit to four different tracks: full and short paper, event reports and interactive demos. There is something for everyone! 🥳 Event reports and demos are especially suited for hackathon and game jam practitioners

"Transfluct" refers to a phenomenon in gaming where the experience isn't constructed in a linear fashion based on how elements appear to us in real-time. Instead, it occurs in parallel and interconnected "trans-fluctuations." In this context, the game's elements influence our experience in a dynamic, fluctuating manner rather than following predetermined or linear patterns.

@oulasvirta Fantastic! Also @SolipPark @perttu_h and I, got an honorable mention on Solip's comic method! Go @AaltoUniversity #CHI2024 programs.sigchi.org/chi/2024/progr…

The #chi2024 paper recognitions were announced today. Happy that three of our papers got a Best Paper Honorable Mention.🙏 All of them are on computational rationality. Congrats too all awardees!

@nielsen_holly History of science (part of my masters education) has been trad. separating humanities from science. Latter meaning natural sciences and former including also Arts. In Finnish language, such difference does not exist. But there is arts (taiteet) and science (tieteet) divide.

@RiotRMD GDC has become diverse. It used to be so much more homogenous. Now everyone gets a little bit of love and a little bit of hate. So many tastes and likes. However, I only heard positive on AW2 and Returnal - loads of love to Finland.

I’ve been coming to GDC for 20 years on and off? It’s ufortunate that there’s this negative vibe towards AAA devs and publishers. You feel it in the air, it’s weird. We are just focused on making the best possible games and trying to ensure we get to make more of them.

I did not expect the @playdate #GDC24 talk would be the one making me cry this year. I am so happy I made the decision to order it to my hotel before the trip! Let me know if you need someone to run an amazing Playdate game jam up at Northern Finland with northern lights researchers and international game design students and I am game!

ICGJ 2024 is going to take place in Copenhagen this year, check out more info here: icgj24.gameconf.org We look forward to seeing your papers on hackathons and game jams 🤩 June 19: Paper submission deadline October 10-11: pre-conference event and conference

Day 4 of #GDC24. Had 10 free Game Design Praxiology books with me and just handed out the last one! It is 3pm, but I am NOW ready to party. I am also ready to go early to bed. :D