The Nordic Game Day event expands to a full week in 2017!

Nordic Game Week is a collaborative annual event hosted by partners in the Nordic countries. Although colleagues in Finland act as the primary facilitator of the event, all of the Nordic countries are represented via local public libraries and organisations. In Denmark, for example, 25 local libraries and one coffee shop participated in the event. Previously, the game event has taken place on a single day but, this year, participants contributed more resources to keep the event going for a full week.

Date 2017-12-07 Author Danish Safer Internet Centre
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The Nordic Game Week as a shared community
The Nordic Game Week, this year taking place 30 October - 5 November 2017, is an event themed around game culture. The purpose of the week is to have organisations, as well as public libraries, from the Nordic countries to focus on gaming in general. This means that both digital gaming (such as computer gaming) as well as traditional, analogue gaming (such as board games and playing cards) is in focus. A key aspect of the week is that all participating organisations and libraries plan their own activities; participants will therefore experience different games, settings and themes depending on which public events they visit.

Although the participating organisations and libraries in all Nordic countries define their own settings, they all participate in one main competition which, this year, was the "Big Bang Legends Speedrun Challenge". "Big Bang Legends" is a particle physics inspired game which aims to teach players about atoms and other physics while having fun with gaming. The player must collect atom heroes and solve puzzles and mazes during the game, along with beating atom villains. Thus, the game's learning content includes basic hierarchies of particle physics, culminating in an understanding of the Periodic Table of Elements. The mission is to make learning engaging and accessible to everybody in the world, including children and young people. "Big Bang Legends" is a casual game for mobile which is free to download and play for all Android and iOS devices – it's therefore accessible to most people which makes it convenient for those participating in the Nordic Game Week. The game is developed by the Finnish learning game studio, Lightneer, who also sponsored the prizes for the Nordic Game Week's winners. During the game week, thousands of players brought their smartphones and/or tablets to local events and participated in the competition.

Bridging and gaming in one
In Denmark, the aim with the event is to promote game literacy and positive aspects of the gaming culture. Furthermore, the ambition is to provide a bridge between the younger generation whose gaming culture predominantly takes place in the digital gaming universe and the generation of parents and grandparents whose starting point of gaming is quite different and, typically, more analogue. In this regard, public libraries play a key role. Danish public libraries offer all kinds of games as well as IT equipment to use and borrow for free which makes it easier for children, as well as adults, to meet in this universe of gaming since they do not need to own this equipment themselves. Thanks to the libraries and local organisations participating in Nordic Game Week, children and adults can meet via gaming and inform each other about new trends. Thus, the Danish libraries and other local organisations participating in Nordic Game Week help develop the gaming community across generations and ages.


Find out more about the work of the Danish Safer Internet Centre, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline and youth participation services.

Find out more about Nordic Game Week.

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