Developers Get On Survival Mode In The Wilderness Of Lapland

    Who needs daylight for developing anyway?


    You can follow the event on social media through using hashtag #FGJ16. Photo: Shutterstock

    Seems like Finland is one of the hot spots globally for organizing crazy game jams – where creating a complete game during a weekend isn’t enough of a challenge.

    Now one of the largest game development events, Finnish Game Jam Goes Survival Mode, gathers together 20 developers from all over the world to the wilderness of Lapland on January 29th–31st.

    The concept of the event is to stay in a cabin in the middle of nowhere for 48 hours with no running water, no steady supply of electricity or Internet. With the remedies of sauna, a bit over three hours of daylight per day, swimming in “avanto” (that tempting icy water) and Finnish “sisu” (the Finnish strength) – their goal is to create a game.

    The event is organized as a part of the Global Game Jam, the biggest game development event of the world. During the Global Game Jam, approximately 30 000 game creators from hobbyists to professionals will take part in game creation in 87 countries.

    In Finnish Game Jam alone as many as 22 events are organized around the country.

    Nevertheless there’s plenty of perks of going to Lapland for a ‘Survival Mode’ weekend. If it’s gonna be over –25 degrees Celsius, it’s going to be pretty easy to stay in for the whole weekend.


    The temperature of the water is around +4 degrees Celsius in Finnish lakes during the winter. Photo: Shutterstock.