Free City of Games, the event showcasing games and game culture is being held in Kouvola, Finland for the second time in November 2.-19.11.2023. This year I'm participating the exhibition with an interactive playable installation created together with a long-time fellow coder and friend mr. Pasanen. Our work is called "Avaruuspuhelin" (Space Phone in English), and it's basically a seriously tweaked old rotary phone which you can use to solve a little extra terrestial mystery in sort of escape room fashion. So if you happen to reside, or feel like travelling to Kouvola, Finland, feel free to visit the event. It's all free, and features a diverse selection of games and game art to play and experience.
Setting things up and attending to the opening consisted of such a rich and fun days of travelling life and game culture as follows.
This is the Space Phone environment and set up. The table & bench combination is an authentic old furniture used for making rotary dial phone calls back in the day.
Playtesting is important.
It's old phone on the outside, but has a got a digital heart and fresh code inside.
Even when travelling, it's good to have indoors and outdoors life in balance. One beautiful morning there was time to take a few hour hike at the nearby nature reserve area.
And then became the opening day.
There's a diverse set of computer games created in game jams by coder students...
...and there is this playable sculpture, along with the VR workshop in the background...
During the opening the Space Phone was proven to bring up joy and amazement in people so the mission was happily completed.
