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Finnish game jam JamBike gives two developers a week to make a game while riding a tandem bike

Game to be showcased at Nordic Game Conference 2017

Finnish game jam JamBike gives two developers a week to make a game while riding a tandem bike

Two Finnish game developers are attempting to develop a game in a week while riding a tandem bike from Helsinki to Malmö.

Dubbed JamBike 2017, the experimental game jam will have one developer steering the bike while the other codes on a laptop on the back. Power will be generated through solar panels and a dynamo on the bike to produce clean energy to keep the PC charged.

Taking part this year are hardcore game jammer and Mindfield gameplay programmer Samuli Jääskeläinen, and IGDA Finland's co-ordinator Jonne Harja. Their game will be shown off at Nordic Game Conference at the end of their journey.

Saddle sore

The idea is said to have started as a joke made during an Indie Beer meetup in Helsinki in 2016. Now it is a fully-fledged plan with backing from Finnish Game Jam, Fingersoft, Frogmind and Mindfield Games.

The duo's journey will be catalogued by a small media team following them in a campervan. Updates will appear on the JamBike Twitter account, along with videos uploaded to its YouTube channel.

Finland is known for its wonderfully bizarre game jams. This is the same country that held Survival Mode, a weekend-long jam in a cabin in the woods with no running water and inconsistent electricity, with the aim to make a game before either going insane or dying from hypothermia.


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Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.