Game Jam Weekend, art and gender for the digital creation of video games

Over 40 participants on multi-disciplinary teams have worked on their creativity, design, and programming video games in the first edition of Game Jam Weekend, a 48-hour program aimed at the digital creation of video games, with a focus on art and gender, organized by Universidad Europea and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, along with the UE Game Studio Association.

Over the weekend of June 1-3, the participants created video games such as ‘Escape from the Museum,’ ‘Dual,’ ‘Dianas Tale,’ ‘Vitruvia,’ ‘Splash,’ ‘Sorority,’ ‘Make her visible,’ and ‘Anónima,’ in which they tackled issues such as the empowerment of women in painting, the difficulties of many classical artists in history, and inequality between men and women in art. To do so, the young participants experimented with new forms of creation based on the inspiration drawn from works of art from the Museum, explained by the Educathyssen team, as well as from different programming and drawing workshops carried out on the Villaviciosa de Odón Campus.

The first edition of this digital creation event ended with the presentation of the participants’ projects and the awards ceremony, in which special recognition went to the project ‘Dual,’ a puzzle in which players must alternate their perspective between a woman and her masculine alter-ego, through which she publishes her works of art. For the director of the Universidad Europea School of Architecture, Engineering & Design, Alberto Sols, this event was “a once-in-a-lifetime experience with a great social and artistic component that reflects Universidad Europea’s commitment to the video game and animation sector in recent years. Moreover, working hand-in-hand with a top-rate international institution like the Thyssen Museum makes the experience much more enriching for all of the participants.”