General Info
The Republic of Finland is a country situated in Northern Europe. It borders with Sweden to the west, Norway to the north and with Russia to the east.
Finland has population of around 5.4 million and most of them live in the southern part of the country. It is the eight largest country in Europe in term of area and official languages are Finnish and Swedish. Swedish is only spoken as a main language for a small minority, Sami is also recognized on a local basis.
Finland used to be part of Sweden and later Russia. They declared their independence from Russia in 1917 . Finland joined the UN in '55 and the EU in the 1995. Like most of the members of EU, they use Euro as they official currency.
Interesting facts :
- Finland has been ranked the second most stable country in the world in a survey based on social, economic, political and military indicators.
- Finland is the only country in Scandinavia without a monarchy.
- Despite what the above fact sais, Finland is not part of Scandinavia proper. Fenno-Scandinavia is the proper term if you want to include Finland with the rest of the Scandinavian countries.
- Finnish people really like salmiakki aka salty liquorice.
- There are no reports of polar bears in Finland. Finland is considered a free zone after the great Polar Bear vs. Russian Bear war of 1921 to create a buffer between the two great factions.
When it comes to video games, Finland appeared in games like FIFA series, NHL,Hearts of Iron 3 etc. In addition, the Star Wars martial art and the video game named after it Star Wars: Masters of Teräs Käsi is Finnish for Steel Hand. The Finnish developed Cities in Motion contains a scenario set in Helsinki
Finnish Developers
Linux
Linux was originally developed by Linus Torvalds and the personal computer has historically been very strong in Finland.
Founded in 2000, they are most famous for the Flatout games
Responsible 3D mark benchmarking tool 3D Mark and recently made Shattered Horizon, their first game release.
Made Death Rally in 1995 before creating the Max Payne Series in 2001. They then went on to make their debut on consoles, the originally 360-exclusive Alan Wake. It was since released on the PC along with it's follow-up stand-alone DLC Alan Wake's American Nightmare.
Started out making games for Nokia's ill fated N-Gage system. Lately they made Trials 2 and Trials HD.
Supercell
The developers of Clash of Clans and Clash Royale are located in Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Two Japanese companies, SoftBank and GungHO now own a majority share of the company.
Formed from the merger of two amiga developers Terramarque and Bloodhouse which had made the first Super Stardust game. After creating Supreme Snowboarding and Transworld Snowboarding, the are most famous today for Super Stardust HD and Dead Nation for PSN
Founded in 2003, Rovio is a Finnish mobile developer most known as the developers behind Angry Birds.
Made the public transportation simulator Cities in Motion. They were founded in 2009.
Others
There are also various smaller companies that make indie games and mobile phone games. One of the Indie developers 10ton made Crimsonland. Nitro Games, developers of Commander: Conquest of the Americas is also from Finland.
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