Thesis project

I made a virtual reality game for the first Oculus Rift developer kit when it was released as part of my thesis.

The thesis and game concentrated on various topics regarding immersion. My main claim was that realistic visuals are not a necessity and that features like world building and atmosphere play a much bigger role.

VR Rally

This was a rally game I built while I was working as a researcher at a geospatial institute. The game was born during studies around topics of 3d modeling with remote sensing data and virtual reality user experience experimentation.

The game functioned as a platform for experimenting with early hand tracking input devices in combination with VR headsets. In addition, it featured a custom pipeline for constructing the game world from mobile laser scanning data and a variety of procedural generation methods.

Time Atlas

This was a board game prototype I built as part of my application for a Game Design masters programme.

It was about two time travellers passing through a time vortex, both knowing that only one can survive the trip to the other side. The players had to use their wits and cunning to foresee what their opponent would do and manipulate the vortex with their time machine's special powers to turn the clock in their favor.

The game features a rotating disc as part of the game board, some action cards and other bits. Overall the game is quite simple and minimalistic, but also surprisingly deep and multifaceted if you dive into the mind games aspect of it. I made it a long time ago, but am still quite fond of it. Perhaps I'll work on in more one day..

Game Jams

I've made bunch of games in the game jam format, usually limited to 48 hours. Some have been for public jams (Ludum Dare) and others more private.

I've always considered the time limitations of the format to be a very good way to push yourself into unusual head space, which often leads into whacky and fun ideas. It's also great practice for fighting feature creep and slaying your darlings. The concept of interpreting a theme and trying to come up with an interesting take on it is also something I enjoy.

The rest of the page features some of the games I've made during game jams.

Turtle Tumble

Inspired by such classics as QWOP AND CLOP, Turtle Tumble is all about mastering tricky controls and painful physics. You control four limbs and the head of a turtle rolling around in a platformer world.

Five keys on your keyboard each push or pull the associated limb/head of the turtle, either helping you roll towards the goal or pushing you into the traps some turtle-hating mad man has left lying around.

Zoo Stack

A game about stacking Tetromino shapes made out of zoo animals. The goal was to build a tower high enough to reach the hot air balloon in the sky, the only way for the animals to escape the evil zoo.

Another game made ridiculously hard by physics.

Matin ja Simon Suuret Seikkailut

Single player game where you control two characters, Matti and Simo. Matti is a flying jellyfish with a platform like head and Simo is a frog attempting to ride on top of Matti. The goal was to combine the different movement methods of the two characters to reach the goal of each level.

Sheepuree

A game about herding sheep into a giant vacuum connected to a cannon. The cannon fires the sheep into a giant blender and the sheep get blown up into fluffy colorful balls. Yes, it's pure evil.

The game jam theme was "You are the Villain".

Random screenshots from the archives

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