The Finnish based mobile community game builder Ironstar Helsinki has opened a new country for their Moipal virtual world - Brazil. Moipal is a mobile based game that is a mix of Tamagotchi and Facebook. You play the game on your own, but there are interactions between the players.

Joakim Achrén, the CEO, told us that on many occasions there are hundreds of Brazilian players on the US site which confirmed him they need a local site in Brazil as well. The community management is handled from Brazil, but the hosting and other technicalities are still handled from Finland, says Joakim. They are also working on many small aspects to make the service more localised, such as Samba parties at the beach etc.

Brazil will be Moipal’s 3rd site (Finland and the US being the first two).

We interviewed Joakim, the CEO of ironstar helsinki, and they’re building a service called MoiPal.

I had lunch today with ironstar helsinki’s Joakim Achrén. Joakim is the CEO and they are building a cross platform virtual world that is mainly played on the mobile - it’s called MoiPal. Ironstar helsinki is 9 men strong and they are located in Helsinki.

MoiPal has all the usual aspects of a social gaming application, profiles, personalisable rooms and characters, a facebook like profile page (to link to), virtual currency and lots more. Joakim managed to really surprise me how smooth the character moved on the mobile - no buggines at all. MoiPal could be described as a mixture of Facebook and Tamagotchi (I’d add Sims). The software runs on Java and they have three different versions for different phones.

You take care of your character by feeding her, washing her, exercising, etc to keep all the personal attributes in top notch condition. They’ve also put a lot of effort into making the whole system scalable. For example, you can do lots of things with the character in her own room without being connected online hence not accumulating a lot of data costs. Also, all the characters are clothable in different types of clothes available for purchase in the online shop. At the moment they have a deals with Warner music for example to cloth the characters in different band attire.

We also talked about the fact that where they see their focus geographically. Middle East, Russia and Far East Asia seem to interest them, which in my opinion is a very good call. There is a lot more competition in Asia, but their mobile usage is on a totally different level.

I was really impressed in the product, being a veteran of the gaming industry. I’m sure they will have lots of success with it.

There will be a special startup developers get together event in Helsinki on May 22. The purpose of the event is to exchange knowledge about technologies and conventions touching startup developers, and also to demonstrate students “how cool it is to run and work in a startup”.

There’s quite a good bunch of startup speakers participating, including Lare Lekman, CTO of Star Wreck Studios, Jani Luostarinen, System Administrator at Floobs, Joakim Achren, founder and CEO of Ironstar Helsinki (MoiPal service), and Taro Morimoto, CTO of Zipipop. After the afternoon event there will be an evening party as well, place to be declared later.

The event will take place on Thursday, May 22, starting at 1pm at HAAGA-HELIA University of Applied Science in Helsinki. Check out the detailed agenda and enrollment on Yahoo upcoming or Facebook.

If you can’t make it, you can see the live stream from Floobs. Sponsors are also sought after, so if you’re interested, contact Kai Lemmetty @Floobs.