Young game designers were challenged to create games that have migration and nationalism as their themes at the recent Games and Politics Game Jam held at the Augusto-Rosario Gonzales Theater of the De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB).
Organized by Benilde’s Game Design and Development (GDD) Program, the Games and Politics Game Jam tasked participants to develop a new program in just 24 hours.
Gamers Union for Innovation and Leadership Development (GUILD) Vice President for Academics Gab Dacanay revealed that only 50 of 100 registrants qualified after assessment. A total of seven groups competed in the finals of the impromptu creation sessions
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Dacanay said the event showcased the talent of developers, many of them with as much as two years experience in their craft. He said the hackathon aimed to send a positive message about gaming.
Diaspora was hailed as the Champion, while Lit Path and What’s At Steak were first runner up and second runner up, respectively.
Team Diaspora received free flight tickets to Gamescon 2018 in Cologne, Germany from Geothe-Insitut. Likewise, those named winners were provided with booths at the recent Electronic Sports Gaming Summit (ESGS) Indie Arena.
Games and Politics is a touring political exhibition produced by Goethe-Institut Philippines and new media institution ZKM Center for Art and Media, which features a number of video games with unique political potential, including Positech Games’ political strategy game Democracy3, Lucas Pope’s diplomatic puzzler Papers, Please, and 11-bit Studios’ civilian-perspective survival story This War of Mine.
