Jaakko Iisalo

Jaakko Iisalo
Nationality	suomi Finnish
Gender	Male

Jaakko Iisalo is a Finnish video game designer, developer, and the Senior Game Designer of Angry Birds. He is one of the lead people in the making of the original Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons, Bad Piggies, and other Rovio games. He is the chief designer of Rovio and was the leader of the making of Angry Birds. He was the person who sketched the initial concept art for what would become the birds used in Angry Birds. He was also responsible for drawing the pigs, specifically the Minion Pig.

Game credits

• War Diary: Burma (2005), (artist)
• Paid to Kill (2005), (artist)
• War Diary: Crusader (2006), (artist)
• Totomi (2009, (game design, graphics)
• Angry Birds (2009), (lead designer)
• Angry Birds Seasons (2010), (lead designer)
• Angry Birds Rio (2011), (game design)
• Angry Birds Space (2012), (lead game designer)
• Angry Birds Trilogy (2012), (design supervision)
• Bad Piggies (2012), (lead designer)
• Angry Birds Star Wars (2012), (lead game designer)
• The Croods (2013), (creative director)
• Angry Birds Star Wars II (2013), (creative director)
• Best Fiends (2014), (level designer)
• Love Rocks Starring Shakira (2015), (special thanks)

Sketches

The Jaakko Iisalo sketches were six sketches made by Jaakko Iisalo that were the first depictions of the Flock and the Bad Piggies. The exact location of the sketches is unknown, but multiple photos of the sketches circulate on the internet. The sketches depict flightless birds and green pigs.

History

In early 2009, Rovio staff began reviewing proposals for potential games. One such proposal came from Jaakko Iisalo in the form of a simulated screenshot featuring some angry-looking birds with no visible legs or wings. While the picture gave no clue as to what type of game was being played, the staff liked the characters, and the team elected to design a game around them. In early 2009, physics games, such as Crush the Castle, were popular flash-based web games, so the Rovio team was inspired by these games. During the development of Angry Birds, the staff realized the birds needed an enemy. At the time, the "swine flu" epidemic was in the news, so the staff made the birds' enemies pigs. As a result of the sketches, Angry Birds became one of the most popular video game franchises in history.

Gallery

The first sketch. It depicts Red, Jay, Jake, and Jim, another red bird (possibly Terence) and an unidentified purple bird

Trivia

• The sketches are seen at the orientation theater of the Rovio headquarters.

Gallery

The Developer Birds. The bird depicted as Iisalo is the purple one on the right.

The original sketch made by Iisalo depicting a crude mock-up of what would become the first Angry Birds game

Jaakko at work desk with prototype Plush Toys.

A plush of his Developer Bird design.

Videos

LUTES Hyvä peli vs. menestyvä peli, osa 4

Trivia

• Iisalo was spoofed into a Developer Bird (seen in gallery) in a Chrome advertisement.
• Iisalo was the artist who made the original sketch for the first Angry Birds game (seen in the gallery).

External links

• http://www.edge-online.com/features/meet-man-behind-angry-birds
• http://www.skimbacolifestyle.com/2011/09/angry-birds-headquarters-in-finland-the-mastermind-behind-angry-birds.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V70ruRzEGOI (hear the voice of Iisalo, English)

See also

• Peter Vesterbacka
• Mikael Hed
• Rovio Entertainment Corporation
• Rovio Animation

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