Here comes a summary with some of the highlights of this year. 2024 wrapped.
January – February
One of the first thing we did this year was to move in to The Great Journey's brand new game development hub in Karlstad Innovation Park together with 25 developers working on their own games.
The Great Internship - internship at The Great Journey as an indie studio
In January, we welcomed 24 students doing their internship (LIA) with us at TGJ for 6-8 months. The students came from Futuregames Game Artist, Game Programming and Game designer programs in Karlstad, Stockholm and Boden and the participants worked on their own indie game projects as indie studios. They received coaching from our Game and Business Developers and five teams pitched their games at The Great Summer pitch event held in May. Two of the teams started their own companies and we are looking forward to their game releases.
Global Game Jam
The Global Game Jam is the world’s largest game creation event, bringing together tens of thousands of participants (known as jammers) across hundreds of physical and virtual locations in over 100 countries. In January 2024, the event saw more than 35,000 jammers at 796 sites in 102 countries, who created nearly 10,000 games in just 48 hours, all centered around the theme “Make Me Laugh!” A game jam is similar to a hackathon, where individuals collaborate over a short period of time to develop games based on a central theme revealed at the start. Robin from TGJ coordinated the game jam in Karlstad during the weekend Jan 26th-28th. Some awesome games were made during event.
March
Visit at Campus Gotland
In March, TGJ visited Uppsala University at Campus Gotland in Visby for the Game Cluster Days. There were workshops and good discussions with teachers and professors at the campus on how to collaborate and build thriving game development communities.
April
New mentorship program for female game entrepreneurs
TGJ together with Sweden Game Arena (Science Park Skövde) started a Female Game Entrepreneur Mentorship Program aimed to support female founders and CEOs in the games industry. As part of the kick-off they visited Karlstad for mentoring sessions and a visit to the Embracer Games Archive.
“Being part of a mentorship program is an opportunity to not only create new contacts but also to learn from other women and non-binary people in the industry. It's important that we support each other to strengthen our voices and presence in the industry, where we can share both positive and negative experiences," says Tilla Segerstedt, CEO of Aurora Arts.
Yrkes-SM
The Great Journey exhibited at Yrkes-SM in Karlstad together with Future Games, Dataspelsbranschen and Embracer Games Archive. The visitors, mainly kids, teachers and parents, got the chance to learn how it's like to work with game development and how to become a game developer.
Astronaut Marcus Wandt visit
April 13th astronaut Marcus Wandt (who went to college in Karlstad) visited Embracer Groups Headquarters and we got the chance to talk about the games industry in Värmland and what we do to support it. Fun fact is that Marcus actually developed a simple game that was used for getting fighting jet test pilots to train more in the flight simulator.
May – June
Nordic Game Conference
May 20th-23rd, The Great Journey brought the studios Nine Lives, Forgebyte and Ancient Well Entertainment to Nordic Game Conference in Malmö, the biggest game industry conference in the Nordics. The studios got the chance to demo and pitch their games and there was a big interest in playing the games in our showcase both in collaboration with Sweden Game Arena.
The Great Summer Pitch
On May 30th, The Great Journey arranged The Great Summer Pitch for the fifth time. The event was held at Elite Stadshotellet in Karlstad and there was a record big interest to attend with over 150 guests from Malmö to Boden.
Nine studios and teams pitched their projects and here are all the lucky winners:
🥇 (100 000 SEK) - Find or be Found by Studio Downstairs
🥈 (40 000 SEK) - Sandara; City of a Thousand Eclipses by Studio Malosi
🥉 (25 000 SEK) - Aria; Rhythm of Resistance by NetherMoon Game Studio
🎮 Best game prototype / demo (10 000 SEK)- Seagulls; Crappy situation by Nine Lives.
The experienced pitch panel consisted of Elisabeth Bergqvist from Raw Fury, Adriian De Ruijter from TTK Games, Johan Hermerén from Three Friends, Bibbi Wikman from Aurora Punks, and the industry panel that picked the best demo/prototype consisted of Viktor Israelsson from Hazelight Studios, Simon Röjder from Mirage Game Studios, Henrik Jonsson from Radgivery, Lars Håhus from Llama Lane, and Anton Skog from E Games Invest.
July
New game releases!
Two new games developed in Karlstad was released on Early Access in July, Space for Sale by Mirage Game Studios and FlipScapes by Omniscape Interactive.
The studio Skildra also released their VR experience Munkfors Bruk VR in July.
August
Fasttrack Accelerator Program
In August, TGJ kicked of the fourth edition of our accelerator program Fasttrack in collaboration with Kristinehamns Folkhögskola. We welcomed 16 new participants, all eager to start their journey in building a game studio. The first few weeks of the program the developers focused on creating games in UEFN (Unreal Engine for Fortnite) and to kick-off the project we invited Heather Storm from Epic Games and Robin Andersson and Robin Skog from The Gang to present the platform and how they work with UEFN.
The participants managed to develop 31 games, one of which had over 1400 concurrent players (top 150 Fortnite creator in the world at peak). We are proud of our new developers and their innovative creations, and we look forward to continuing to support them and following their progress. Here are some of the Fortnite games made during the project:
The Great Catapult
In August, TGJ also launched a new type of accelerator program; The Great Catapult. It is a program tailored for experienced and driven game entrepreneurs who want and have the opportunity to dedicate 12 months to developing and releasing a game. Two studios from Karlstad are participating in the program: NetherMoon Game Studio and Nine Lives Games Studio. More info about The Great Catapult will be added on our website.
Gamescom
August 21st - 24th, The Great Journey and the game studios NetherMoon, Mirage, Nine Lives and Forgebyte from Värmland went to Gamescom in Cologne to showcase their games in development, network with the industry, and meet players. Gamescom is the world's largest gaming event, attracting around 360,000 visitors from all over the world this year. We traveled with a joint delegation from Sweden Game Arena and had a shared booth that received many visitors.
September
GGX in Gothenburg
The Great Journey supported the game studios Mirage and Nine Lives from Karlstad with a showcase booth at the new video game fair GGX, Gothenburg Gaming Experience at Ringön in Gothenburg. The studios showcased their games Space for Sale and Seagulls – Crappy Situation to the players.
October
Sweden Game Conference
For this year’s conference in Skövde we brought the studio NetherMoon who showcased the game Rhythm of Resistance. We also attended the industry day, with interesting talks and discussions.
For Devs
October 24th, we brought ten developers from the community to Stockholm and the event For Devs, arranged by Dataspelsbranschen. A full-day event dedicated for the real stars of the game industry: the game developers.
November
Halloween Game Jam
The weekend starting Nov 1st we arranged a Halloween themed Game Jam, a couple of really cool games was made and Albin Johansson from Studio Downstairs was awarded the price "Best Game" for developing an experience where you work as a corrupt brooker, selling houses in the worst condition.
Comic Con
The two game studios Mirage and Nine Lives from Karlstad went to Comic Con in Stockholm Nov 1-3rd to promote their games Space for Sale and Seagull - Crappy Situation. The players gave them a lot of love.
The Great TING
The Great TING was arranged in Karlstad Nov 13 in collaboration with Futuregames. At this event game studios have the opportunity to meet and find an intern from Futuregames pool of talented students.
December
Visit to the Swedish Riksdag
Patrick and Jesper from The Great Journey attended a gaming seminar arranged by the Committee on Cultural Affairs (Kulturutskottet) where we listened and talked to many passionate industry colleagues as well as politicians from left to right.
December
The Great Winter Pitch
December 13th The Great Journey arranged The Great Winter Pitch at Karlstad Innovation Park. Eleven teams pitched their games and Rickard Paulsson (Ricpau Studio) won first price and a ticket to Nordic Game.
The pitch jury with Henrik Jonsson from Radgivery, Nora Mattsson from Studio Downstairs (also winner of the Great Summer pitch event in May) and Christopher Rakkestad from Futuregames and Ancient Well Entertainment gave the pitching teams valuable feedback and picked the winner. We were all impressed by the quality of the pitches and are looking forward to the next event.
New game companies started in Karlstad and Säffle this year (Aktiebolag)
New game related educations
Applied Games Development - 15.0 ECTS Credits (summer course in collaboration with The Great Journey and Karlstad Innovation Park)
Narrative in video games: A historical overview 7.5 ECTS Credits (this course includes several study visits to the Embracer Games Archive
Looking Ahead
We are committed to nurturing talent and fostering collaboration within our community. As we move forward, The Great Journey will continue to support our studios and developers, providing resources and opportunities to help them succeed in the games industry.
Thank you to everyone who participates in building the industry in our region and extra thanks to our financiers Embracer Group, Region Värmland and EU.
Keep an eye out for more updates and exciting news from The Great Journey.
Best regards,
Team TGJ
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