Hi Resolution 2021 - Two Days of Teamwork, Collaboration and Bonding
Picture this: It’s a rather early morning. You should be getting ready to do your first stand-up but instead, you are standing by Nybrokajen, in Stockholm ready to take the boat out to our venue for our first in-person Hi Resolution off-site since the pandemic started. The boat is chartered, and our Project Manager David, Operations Manager Emma, and People & Culture Intern Anita are welcoming you onto the boat. Once inside the boat, there is breakfast waiting and lots of faces you are excited to see again. Not to mention, since we almost doubled since the start of the pandemic, there will be lots of faces you are seeing for the very first time. If you are like me, you like meeting people, new and old faces but it can also be a bit nerve-wracking so you feel happy when you finally get to sit down in a smaller group, enjoying your breakfast and the water outside. Then the boat starts to move and you are on your way to Djurönäset in the Stockholm archipelago for two days of workshopping and a bit of fun.
The choice of a water-centric venue was obvious. Stockholm is situated on fourteen islands so the space and openness that the archipelago could offer seemed like the only right choice.
This year’s event was different in many ways. Not only had we seen exponential growth since the last time we met but we also had to take extra precautions to make the event as safe as possible, including everything from Covid testing to face masks and doing as much as possible outdoors.
At Resolution Games, we try to come together as often as we can but as a minimum, we have at least one Hi Resolution off-site every year. That is when we’re not in a pandemic, of course. This time around it had been almost two years since the last one, not counting our mini Hi Resolution held virtually.
The general idea of the event is to gather everyone including interns and contractors to collectively work on what we do and how we do it. We appreciate working in our small and autonomous teams but every once in a while we find that coming together as a whole group helps to share new light and perspectives to our everyday tasks. We’re not only in this to make great games. We are in this to create the next level of gaming experiences. We believe that VR and AR aren’t just add-ons for gaming; they are the next logical steps for games. As players and game developers alike, we’ve always dreamed of this day - the day when we can be IN the games we love. But our passion for new standards doesn’t come without its own sets of complex challenges. So this year’s event was focused on a number of different areas. All crowdsourced from the people who make Resolution Games the place it is.
Day one included a few company-wide sessions and learnings from our past six years including the history of XR (all the way back Sir Charles Wheatstone, who was the first to describe stereopsis) and where we see our priorities lie in the near future.
After this we broke down into smaller groups for our first workshop of the day, focusing on our strengths and opportunities. A nice and easy start before we dove into lunch on the balcony of the venue. The afternoon was filled with workshops in some of our key areas, company values, games design, Tom 'n' Mat's Wacky Team Challenge, defining what our most successful project’s ingredients were, the code of advertising, and a tournament of one of the games.
We of course didn’t just cut out time for work. We also made sure to make use of the picture-perfect weather and spent time outside at the sauna and other spa facilities at the venue. Several of us even skipped the pool for a dip in the Baltic sea.
Dinner was spent in “Folkparken” with a delicious BBQ dinner, some carnival games before we had a surprise gig by our own CTO Martin Vilcans and his band on the stage.
The next day some of our colleagues woke up early and took a quick dip in the pool before our first session with one of our board members, Mike Booth. Mike has a great background from Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, and more. It was great to chat with him about his learnings from his career.
This day was also focused on more breakout sessions. We chose sessions from a curated list focusing on everything from storytelling, esports, and diversity, and belonging.
We ended the day with the finals of our tournament. Having the whole company cheering for the winners was a blast. We then recapped what we had done over the last two days and participated in a Q&A with our CEO about what’s to come for Resolution.
After that we loaded onto busses and ventured back to Stockholm. We had an amazing off-site filled with learning, reflecting, and bonding. We can’t wait to keep propelling Resolution Games and the VR & AR games industry forward!
Disclaimer: All attendees at this event had to present a negative Covid test to attend and as a studio we have a high vaccination rate. Additionally, wearing a mask was required and a majority of the off-site was held outside.
