On Sunday, the day after SGA and Play, it was time for Yokaj Studio to exhibit our works again! This time we went to the beautiful HÃ¥gelby park in Botkyrka, where Botkyrka Byggen held a festival to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Visitors could try their hand on circus, various sports-activities, dancing and movie-making. The weather gods gave us lots of sun but unfortunately lots of wind as well.

Yosh during a how-to-draw lesson

We at Yokaj Studio, as usual, put our books and illustrations for showing and selling. Due to the strong winds we were unable to have the frames standing (they’d just fall down and make a mess!). Yosh hurried away to begin the first of two mangalessons of the day, while Kajfa and Soya stayed by the table to talk and help customers.

The Yokaj table was quite popular!

Kids and their parents came to the HÃ¥gelby park to have fun in the summer heat. Our table was a popular stop, being close to the grass field and situated right beside the live-scene. Yosh’ lessons were well-received and many kids wanted to have their portraits done by her!

Sandra, Elin and Susanna with their portraits.

Kajfas with our regular customers!

Even Dogge himself had his portrait done by Yosh!

Thanks

Thanks go to Botkyrka Byggen, and especially Lotta and Ursula, our contact persons. Also, thanks to all the kind and cheerful staff who helped us with our tables! And lastly, thanks go to Delicato for sponsoring us with Delicatoballs and punschrolls!

Last weekend (June 2-3) has been a very busy one for us at Yokaj Studio! We were invited by SGA (Swedish Game Awards) to show our game Sumo at their fair, which was held on Saturday.

We arrived at Kulturhuset, where the fair and award ceremony were held, at 10:30 in the morning. Hey, pretty well on time we thought, waking up early was worth it! But when we got inside we soon noticed that the other exhibitors had pretty much finished setting up their tables. No sooner than 20 minutes after that, the first sumoplayers of the day were ready to finger-mash each other!

The first sumoplayers of the day.

Quite a number of sumomatches were settled during the day, with the finger and knocking battles taking a break only when trailers of this year’s contributions to SGA where shown on the big screen next to our table.

Busy busy by the sumo-table!

Sumo Color Crash!

The fair ended in the afternoon and the exhibition hall was closed down to undergo a face-change before the award ceremony. Tables were put away and rows and rows of chairs were put out. Sure enough, when the hall opened again it soon became filled with anticipating contestants and enthusiastic audience.

Orvar announcing the winners. In the background we see one of the presentation-screens made by Yokaj Studio for SGA!

Orvar Sävström held an inspiring speech which gave a good perspective on games and culture. The excitement was building up and the winners were finally going to be announced! Best PC-game was won by Puzzlegeddon, while best game concept (which Sumo was awarded with last year) went to Fret Nice. (For the entire list of winners, check www.sga.to!) This year saw a couple of new, extra awards, among them the Young Talent Award which went to the team behind Raven Tale. (Raven Tale’s programmer Lucas helped us with the flash version of Sumo!) Congratulations!

MindGuiders on stage receiving their award for Raven Tale.

Outside Konserthuset.

After the award ceremony Yokaj Studio hurried to Konserthuset to see Play! A Video Game Symphony for the second time in two years! Special guest for this concert was Yamaoka Akira (composer of the music in the Silent Hill-series), the obvious highlight of tonight’s show! This year’s concert was a little bit of a disappointment for us, despite the nice and enthusiastic audience. But we rather focus on the positive aspects of it all, it’s always nice to hear and see game music played by an orchestra!

Thanks

We want to thank SGA and its project leader John Philip for inviting us to their fair! It’s been great fun to be a part of another year of SGA, and to see all the talents in game-Sweden!