2021 was a great year for Gamecan, we grew our team size by 25, landed the awesome Maximum Football project, kickstarted educational programs in Pärnu, launched Gamedev Estonia NPO and more!
Gamecan team
At the beginning of 2020, we had 8 people on the team and now we’re at 50! It’s been an exciting experience to welcome so many talented people to the team and an enriching one as well – we now have 16 different nationalities represented.
The plan is to grow our team even more this year and welcome more team members to Pärnu at the same time.
Online Game jam: Can You JAM
We organized our very first own successful online game jam in March. We had carefully selected mentors who made sure to teach our participants how to speed up their processes while keeping a good balance on gameplay and visuals when making a game within 48 hours. The chosen theme for the Jam was “It’s a feature, not a bug!” and if you’d like to see the games created, check here.
Pärnu Games Incubator
In July we started the Pärnu Games Incubator in Pärnu where people from all around the world could sign up. One of the major tools offered in the incubator was the help and guidance from talented mentors from the Nordics, Baltics and the USA. All mentors are specialists in the industry ranging from production, marketing, business development, etc.
For summer 2022, we are planning to bring the incubator to an even higher level with more teams, more mentors and sponsors.
Huge thanks to all of our sponsors, mentioned here: https://parnu.games/
Maximum Football
Gamecan partnered with Modus Games and Fun Labs, to create the next entry in the Maximum Football franchise with enhanced features for a completely rebuilt gaming experience. The new entry will show off fresh graphics and visuals, with all character models, stadiums and more recreated from the ground up, as well as improved on-field gameplay.
We are beyond excited to have been given this opportunity to work on Maximum Football!
Keep up with the project on discord.
Open Country
We were hired to work on the wilderness simulator game Open Country. We were responsible for developing elements for the AI, gameplay, consoles compatibility and integration with Epic store.
Open Country launched on 10th of July so go check it out!
Gamecan Summer Retreat
We had a well-deserved company retreat at a beautiful island called Hiiumaa in August. We had a bike tour on the island, trekked on the old military grounds, enjoyed an authentic Argentinian grill, played Capture-the-Flag IRL, danced in the rain and celebrated our team with Gamecan Awards.
It was awesome meeting everyone and spend such great time bonding together!
Nordic Games
Nordic Games is an annual event dedicated to recruitment and career-building in the games industry. Our CEO Marten held two talks on the main stage, one about our company and second was about the Estonian games industry. We also had an online booth which was one of the most popular ones on the event!
Game development course in Pärnu College
We started a game development fundamentals course at the University of Tartu Pärnu College last November, with our own talented team members as lecturers. The students are working on their first game and at the end of the course they will pitch the prototype to a wider audience.
Gamedev Estonia NPO
Gamecan, together with Placeholder Gameworks and the founder of LVLup! video game museum, founded an NPO called Gamedev Estonia. The NPO was created to grow and support the Estonian game development ecosystem.
The organization is hard at work with gathering information on Estonian game studios and developers, organizing talks and we’ve already gotten interest in the project by Estonian national TV!
Gamecan office
With welcoming more and more team members to Pärnu we knew that soon we’ll need a bigger office space. Awesome news is that we’re getting a tailor-made office floor in a newly developed building in the Pärnu city center for Gamecan. Everyone couldn’t be more excited to move to the new office space (100m away) and stretch their legs even further.
We are hoping to move in during the summer.
Gamecan Christmas Party
Where can you try traditional holiday meals from all over the world all at once?
At Gamecan’s Christmas Party!
Building the team with people from all around the globe has great benefits, we got to try a broad selection of traditional Christmas meals from different cuisines. Besides eating, we had a fun Christmas evening playing games and sharing gifts our team members previously prepared with the help from the Secret Santa.
Exposure from the local media
Our CEO Marten gave an interview to an Estonian news site Geenius last August, where he talked about our company’s rapid growth and future plans. You can read it here. (In Estonian)
The Estonian National Television visited our office in December and we talked about Gamecan’s growth, developing a gamedev company in Estonia, our international team and the Gamedev Estonia NPO we helped to establish. See the news clip here. (In Estonian)
Our CEO Marten was invited to our National TV’s morning show Terevisioon to talk about the games industry, our company, the Gamedev Estonia NPO and the Estonian game development scene.