Thank you ✨✨✨

Welehola on Steam Step into the shoes of a wizard student to learn the arcane arts in a magical academy! What sort of witching student life would you live?

It’s a big milestone on our journey and as good a reason as any to dance with us in the comments! ⬇️

And while we work hard on the demo, make sure to wishlist us on Steam by following the link! 👉 store.steampowered.com/app/4193630/...

#AVEKtukee

The demo will flesh out the core gameplay of the game and hopefully impress folks enough to fund the project further🤞

We are first and foremost so grateful for the kind help we have received and continue to receive from our supporters here in Rovaniemi, Finland and all around the world!💜

What a magical day indeed! A great wind of relief blows from the South! 🌬️ ✨

CozyNest is thrilled to announce that we will indeed receive the @avekfi.bsky.social DigiDemo grant from Kopiosto to work on the next demo for Boreal Academy of Welehola! 🪩 💃 👯 🕺 ✨

Steam page is here!! ✨🕺 💃 🌟

We are hard at work putting together the next demo, and while the magic is brewing, the best thing YOU, the fan can do is head on over to Steam and wishlist Welehola! ✨🙏 ✨

💜 store.steampowered.com/app/4193630/...

#wishlistonsteam #wforwelehola #welehola #cozynestgames

Special outfits? 🎩Magical pets?🦄Secret passages to some castle rooms VIP only? 👑 Anything is possible, remember to wish for it out loud 🤓

🤔 We’re starting to explore the idea of crowdfunding — if you’d be interested in supporting Welehola in exchange for extra goodies and exclusive content, write a comment below✨🪄✨What kind of perks would you love to see?

We drafted plan of the school grounds, ideated on main locations and talked about physics of the world we are building🤓

Do you use Lego or other tools for quick ideation and prototyping?

🟥🟧🟨🟩🟦 Level design mayhem in progress XD
Best solutions come with play! 👾 Lego and other modelling tools help quickly visualise complex ideas and share it with team members so we can develop it collaboratively👯

#prototyping #lego #indiegame #gamedesign #leveldesign

The afterparties? Wild in the best way💃👯🕺Next year: Maraoke with the whole crew, mark our words! 🎤🎶 We dream even bigger: a Welehola booth at Nordic Game 2026, with a fresh playable demo for all wizards to try! 🧙How exciting that would be!?🔥🔥🔥

We walked, well, flew away with fresh ideas not just for design, but the way we could approach the whole business end of indie development✈️✨

Huge kudos to the organizers for keeping everyone well-fed and hydrated. No one went hungry — and we mean it. Top-notch hospitality! 🍕🍻

It was amazing to meet both old and new friends — game enthusiasts, fellow devs, publishers — and a lot of insightful convos with specialists from marketing, playtesting and sound design! 🤩 Game dev is an open sea of opportunity and at the same time a winding river with unexpected twists and turns🌊

🧐 Aight, serious biz at the Nordic Game Conference 2025 in Malmö……😁

Let’s just say… it was an adventure from the get-go! 🔥Aleksi and Joel stormed straight off the train and dove headfirst into the deep end of the conference🐠

We're dusting the broomsticks after winter and heading over to @nordicgame.com 2025 in Malmö 20th to 23rd of May! Aleksi and Joel are going to pitch Welehola and find key contacts to make our crazy ideas into magical reality!

#indiedev #nordicgame2025

We didin't win, but we sure did meet a lot of cool people down at the big city and got a ton of feedback so it's again time to sink our hands in clay! Thank you for the opportunity Bit1 !

Congrats to the Spaceship Scavenger team!

Table with pens and people are filling character sheets

If you are interested to join similar workshop, let us know in the comments or send us a message 💕

#gamedesign #indiegamedev #gamedesignworkshop #characterdesign #queercharacter

A person talking and projection of a character sheet is on the background

It was exciting to see characters taking forms and hear your insights ❤️‍🔥 We thank all the participants for their interest and input on character creation and queer relationships💜

People by table smiling and laughing

Recently we had a workshop during ArcticPride week, we invited participants to envision their own characters in the Welehola universe and explore the possible ways they could be interacting with other characters through dialog prompts.

Group of people in a classroom looking at the presentation on a canvas

In CozyNest we strive to make games that are not only exciting but also inclusive. And for that we need to explore multiple perspectives✨✨✨

oops, brainfart :D, cool game tho so genuine shoutout!

Title of image reads: Welehola is in Bit1 2025 finals! There is Bit1 company logo in the center and at the bottom of the picture is a little bird saying "See you in Helsinki!"

Welehola got into the Bit1 finals along with @lizco-hq.bsky.social !

"Bit1 is a game development competition where students get to showcase their games to an industry jury that will choose best student game of the year for the eighth time now!"

See you at the big church!!!

#finnishgamedev #bit1

Welehola storytelling and character design workshop 19.3.2025 17:00-19:00, University of Lapland, faculty of Art and Design, F2079 Team of the Welehola game, a life sim set in magical academia, presents their project and invites you to try your hand at character design and learn about the world of Welehola! We want to hear your i...

Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

We want to hear your insights on identity and fictional romance, to make the game inclusive and exciting for all kinds of players💜 ✨

+ There will also be an opportunity to test an early prototype of Welehola game at the end of the workshop👌👾

At the workshop you will learn how characters for Welehola are conceptualized, you’ll come up with your own character/creature using paper character sheets and envision how they interact with other characters while brainstorming dialogue🔥

🏳️‍🌈Welehola storytelling and character design workshop during Arctic Pride week 19.3.2025 17:00-19:00, University of Lapland, faculty of Art and Design, F2079.

In Finland Valentine’s Day is called ”Ystävänpäivä” which means “Friend’s day” 💜✨We wish you all a great day and weekend of friendship to enjoy🥳

#ystävänpäivä #valentinesday #friends #friendship

Three men seated by a table, viewed from behind, look over the teaser trailer of Welehola on a laptop

We got a definite north star now 🌟 and updates will follow so keep an eye on our socials (Insta & here mostly) and stay tuned!

Thank you to Heikki Tikkanen from the LeveLappi project for providing us with this opportunity!

#gamedev #indiedev #welehola

Photos: H. Tikkanen (1,3,4) J. Koutonen (2)

Aleksi and an event volunteer test out the Welehola demo on a laptop

Our pitch was a massive success all together and we met with some very nice people from all walks of the industry. We got a taste of the doom and gloom, as things are rough out there currently in more ways than one, but cool heads will prevail! ❄️😤

Ben Vehling advices Aleksi from CozyNest on the Welehola pitch deck.

This was the first time we got to really show our vision to actual publishers, and so it was a day of firsts all around. What's amazing about the game industry is that knowledge and practices are shared freely. Some very kind individuals gave us valuable advice at the best possible time.✌️

Aleksi wearing a wizard hat presents the design pillars of Welehola to a audience.

Last week we attended the #arcticgamedev2025 conference in Umeå, Sweden, and pitched our game! We drew the lot for the first pitch of the day, and although nervewracking, it was also a huge relief; we got our pitch out first to a fresh audience, and the rest of was smooth sailing! ⛵