Games Finland — a new game dev Slack for mentoring and knowledge sharing
tl;dr We created a new Slack community called Games Finland for all the game professionals in Finland with a focus on mentoring and knowledge sharing. Need help with your art portfolio or pitch deck? Have a tricky game UI problem or slow production pipeline to solve? This is the right place to ask those questions.
Click this invitation link and join the discussion: Join Games Finland Slack
Edit on October 13th 2019: We have already 400+ members and dozens have been joining daily after our launch on October 7th!
Where did this come from?
I had a discussion with Karoliina Korppoo after the Mentor Café at the IGDA Leadership Day in Helsinki on September 30th 2019. The mentoring sessions during the morning had been really inspirational for us mentors too. So we had the idea of setting up a Slack server to be a similar “Digital Mentor Café”, where game devs can seek sparring and help for their daily work.
We hope that this new digital cafeteria would connect mentors with people who seek mentoring regarding their specific work-related questions or their career path choices. The Slack server could also become a safe environment for game developers to to ask tips and guidance for their day-to-day game dev work — whether they are juniors or seniors.
Let’s see what happens!
What are the goals?
- To gather all the people who either are in the Finnish game industry or are interested in the Finnish game industry into one big Slack community
- To match mentors and industry seniors with junior devs, game dev students and those who would like to join the game dev scene in Finland
- To share knowledge and build connections between game devs, match industry pros with those who are starting new teams or companies, etc.
Why should I consider joining?
- The community is focused on mentoring and knowledge sharing
- Slack is easy to access since many of us use it daily at work
- We use real names and positions instead of nicks
- The range of topics cover all the areas of game development
- The community is open for everyone
What else should I know?
- Discussion is in English, and we can set up channels for non-English talk if needed.
- We emphasise the use of real names, roles, companies and profile photos to make networking easier.
- Games Finland Slack follows the Finnish Game Industry Code of Conduct and by joining you agree to the terms.
- This community is meant for all skill levels from students and juniors to professionals and senior specialists.
- You don’t have to be a game dev or Finnish national or live in Finland to join. It’s enough that you’re interested in the Finnish game industry.
Community rules
We have a zero tolerance for:
- Racism
- Homophobia
- Misogyny
- Xenophobia
- Harassment
- Ableism
- Disrespect of any kind because of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or ability
These rules apply in both public and private discussions.
In other words:
- Be kind towards each other
How can I join?
Click this invitation link and join the discussion: Join Games Finland Slack
See you soon!
With best regards, your community admins:
- Jenni Ahlapuro — Project Manager at Netprofile, Board member and Head of PR of Women in Games Finland
- Teemu Kokkonen — Programmer at Worker Bee Inc., Vice President of Finnish Game Jam
- Karoliina Korppoo — Founder and Creative Director at 10th Muse, Game Producer at Veikkaus
- Johannes Koski — UX Director and Coach at Housemarque, Founder of Safepoint anti-bullying gaming community
- Taina Myöhänen — COO of Secret Exit Ltd, President of Women in Games Finland
- Nguyen Dinh Nam — Associate Producer at Unicorn Pirates Studio
- Felicia Prehn — Accessibility Consultant, Production Manager at Nopia
- Tuomas Roininen — Chairman of Peliosuuskunta Expa, Member of the board and Hubs Lead at IGDA Finland, Member of the board at Neogames
- Natasha Skult — Chairperson & Public Relations Lead of IGDA Finland, Chairperson at Turku Game Hub, Vice Chair Board Of Directors at Snowfall Ltd.
- Henri Viitanen — Game Programmer at Supercell
P.S. Do check out these two awesome Finnish game dev Discords too:
- gamedevsfromfinland (mostly Finnish discussion): https://discord.gg/UH4AB4T
- Finnish Game Dev (English discussion): https://discord.gg/aCfTY6E
