Photo: "Designing games is an interesting combination of creativity, artistry and technology", reveal game designer Jani Immonen and production manager Jarno Kettunen.
Jani Immonen, 30, has opted for the most challenging sector of the software programming industry. He designs computer and mobile games. The young designer's dream is to create a game with a strong storyline and loveable characters.
This year Jani Immonen could celebrate his twentieth anniversary as an artist, since he designed his first computer game at the age of ten. His first effort, a darts match, has been followed by over twenty more PC and mobile games.
The games business is still a young division of entertainment, but appreciation for games has clearly grown at the same time as the whole branch has moved forward. Nowadays programming games is considered to be the most demanding area of the whole programming industry.
In addition to the challenges involved Immonen is captivated by the multifaceted nature of game design. "Designing games is a fascinating combination of creativity, artistry and technology. If one of those areas is not up to par, the finished product is mediocre at best."
The journey from an idea to a finished game is a long one. According to Immonen a newcomer to the branch often has difficulty in finding funding for his work. "Making games is expensive. Just one poor game that doesn't sell can pull the financial rug from under a company's feet - for this reason financiers are cautious."
The fast pace of the gaming world favours the game designers. A novelty can be sold for around a year. There is always some favourite or other in the bunch which becomes a longer-lasting hit product. Immonen has a success story of this kind in his back pocket. "About eight years ago I designed a game called Kapseli, which is still popular. I get constant feedback about it."
Immonen says that it is almost impossible to guess which game will be a blockbuster. On the basis of feedback Kapseli's secret has been the fact that girls are hooked on it. "Men have written to say that because of this game their wife or girlfriend has started to use the computer."
Immonen graduated two years ago from Jyväskylä Polytechnic with a degree in software engineering. During his studies he suggested that the polytechnic could also make game programming part of the curriculum. Nowadays he teaches a complete module of his own design, the only one of its kind in Finland.
The starting point of teaching is very technical, but Immonen wants to convey to students his own design principles as well. "I've wanted to communicate that violence in a game is an unnecessarily simple means of achieving drama. I've had a good look at Japanese games, for example, which contain really a lot of inventiveness. These are based rather on solving problems."
The young designer has dreams of producing a game that has a deep-going story and strong characters, ones that players can become attached to, even fall for. At the moment the manuscript for a space soap opera game is nearing completion - with a length of almost 400 pages. The scriptwriter states calmly, "could be that the game never gets finished, but it feels good to get the ideas out of my head and into print".
Jyväskylä-based 3D Arts Ltd is currently Immonen's employer. The technical director's area of responsibility is the development of mobile games.
The design of games to be incorporated in mobile phones differs quite radically from the PC world. A phone's memory is limited and the screen small. In which direction will games develop and is their popularity set to rise? These are still unanswered questions.
"We are now in a period of transition. In the near future we'll see whether there's business on the mobile game side or not. A lot depends on whether the prices of phones that support game playing fall, and whether people buy them."
By Pia Tervoja Photos by Petteri Kivimäki