Nikolina Finska, who participated in the development of Angry Birds, returned to Croatia and, together with her husband and experts from six countries, is developing the mobile game Merge Medicine aimed at adult women.
The Rijeka-based gaming studio Sentona Games, behind the mobile game Merge Medicine, is one of the latest stories on the Croatian gaming scene. It was founded by Nikolina Finska, a former employee of Nokia and Finland's Rovio, where she worked on the globally known Angry Birds franchise. Now, she wants to bring her acquired experience to Croatia together with an international team of experts.
In an interview with Financije.hr, Nikolina Finska revealed the reasons for her return, the biggest differences between the Croatian and Finnish gaming scenes, as well as details about the game with which they plan to break into the global market.
The decision to leave Finland and return to Croatia was not easy. According to Financije.hr, Nikolina Finska had been considering moving to a country with a developed gaming industry, such as the United Kingdom, for several years, but had no concrete plans. Everything changed in 2019 and 2020.
"Around 2019/20, a so-called 'perfect storm' occurred in which many things coincided. The attitude towards foreigners in Finland began to change, and they were no longer as welcome, even people like me who had been there for a long time and functioned very well within their ecosystem. You could feel that a certain intolerance was growing, and I also had health issues. Additionally, my father fell ill in Croatia, so I started returning more often, almost every month," Nikolina Finska told Financije.hr.
When Covid hit, her company in Finland struggled to adapt to the new situation. Together with her husband Jorma Finska, whom she met at Rovio, she decided to return home.
"At first, it seemed like a crazy idea; we hadn't really thought through all the details, but it turned out great, and I can say that Croatia met our expectations and that we made the right decision," she added.
Nikolina Finska's career in Finland began at Nokia, where she first came into contact with mobile games. Rovio, the creator of Angry Birds, started as a partner for Nokia, for which it made 45 or 46 games before creating the global phenomenon. When Angry Birds began gaining popularity, Nikolina applied for a job and was among the first hundred employees at the studio.
She had the opportunity to participate in the period when Rovio escalated and grew from 80 to 1,000 people, building its brand. Her first project was Angry Birds for consoles, in collaboration with Rovio and American Activision, which gave her insight into both the creative and commercial approach to developing a commercial product.
Sentona Games was officially founded a year and a half ago, and the co-founders have been working for two years. The company was set up by four co-founders, and today the team includes experts from Croatia, Finland, Germany, the USA, Poland, and Sweden.
Alongside Nikolina and her husband Jorma Finska (also a former Rovio employee), the founding team consists of technical director Ilja Immler from Germany and creative director Andrea Glavačević Jakubi, whom Nikolina met at a gaming conference at Algebra while leaving Nanobit. The team was later reinforced by art director Gary Bedell from the USA, character artist Iga Oliwiak from Poland (currently in the Netherlands), narrative designer Nicky Silber from the USA, senior developer Poooja Kubde from Sweden, senior developer Alan Kolić from Croatia, and others.
At Sentona Games, the emphasis is on the Finnish work model.
"In Finland, creativity is truly valued and encouraged; people have the opportunity to present their ideas and pitch them to management," Nikolina Finska said for Financije.hr, adding that they also strive to encourage team members to propose new and different ideas.
Teams are small, between 10 and 20 people, everyone has a voice, and decisions are made by consensus. There is very little administration, and speed of reaction in the market is a key advantage compared to the American system where teams are large and everything requires approval.
Speaking about the differences between the Croatian and Finnish scenes, Nikolina Finska notes a lack of ambition among domestic developers.
"My first impressions are that we have good ideas and technical knowledge here, but there is a bit of a lack of ambition. No one starts with the attitude 'I want my game to be the most downloaded in the world'; instead, for example, 10,000 downloads are enough," she stated.
In Finland, according to her, everyone starts with the goal of making the best and most successful game, and there are specialized gaming funds available where you can get a million euros from Finnish investors alone, which does not yet exist in Croatia.
The first major product of Sentona Games is the mobile game Merge Medicine, aimed primarily at an adult female audience. According to the interview published on July 28, 2026, on Financije.hr, more than 60 percent of the gaming industry's profit comes from mobile games, and more than half of players are adult women who spend more on mobile platforms than men.
However, the content offered to them is still infantilizing.
"Research conducted among the female audience showed that 40 percent believe there are no games for them. We compared the gaming industry with television and film and noticed that the most popular genres are medical, romance, and crime dramas. There is very little of that on mobile platforms, almost nothing," said Nikolina Finska.
The game uses themes proven on television, hoping to attract even those who have not played before. The industry, by the way, is worth about 200 billion dollars annually, the founder reminds.
Merge Medicine is undergoing testing in selected markets. They first started with Asian ones, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines, and then with European ones, the Netherlands and Ireland.
They say they are more than satisfied with the first results. The plan is for the game to hit the main global markets, primarily the USA, by the end of 2026, while the domestic market should open in the fall of 2026. The game is currently available on Android via Google Play, and should be available on iPhone from September or October 2026. It will be free, with the option to watch ads for rewards and the possibility of in-game purchases.
Last year (2025), Sentona Games closed a preseed round led by AYMO Ventures, and is now in the process of raising a seed round for scaling and global launch. They are looking for local and regional investors and angel investors interested in gaming, and what is crucial for them is a long-term partnership and understanding of the vision, Financije.hr reports.
