How to Create a Video Game from Scratch in Just 48 hours

For the second year in a row, MediaMonks opened its doors to hose the Global Game Jam in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Innovation, experimentation and collaboration are the three pillars that characterize this global event that was held for the 12th time in 118 countries at the same time. But it’s not a competition, as there are no winners or losers: it’s an annual meeting that fosters collaboration and teamwork between people from different fields, such as developers, illustrators, animators, game designers and audio experts, among others. (You can also find this post in Spanish right here.)

Fabricio Mouzo, Director of Operations at MediaMonks Buenos Aires, told us about this event: “Every year there is a secret topic, which is revealed on the first day of the Jam. The topic is revealed at the same local time for every location, meaning that you can’t publish anything about it until the last location, Hawaii, is told. Participants are free to interpret the topic as they please, without restrictions, and then they have 48 hours to develop a prototype.”

This year’s topic was “repairs,” while last year it was “what home means to you.” “Every year there are different diversifiers, which are optional challenges for participants. Some of them are narrative, while others are related to design. One of them was to create 20-second long games,” said Fabricio.

MediaMonks’ goal is to offer a space for Monks to flex their abilities in projects that they don’t usually work in during their day-to-day; the Amsterdam office was the original venue for MediaMonks when it entered the event three years ago, but since 2019 Buenos Aires offices has hosted the 48-hour developing spree. For example, developers have worked creating web pages or illustrators have designed banners. “A lot of them are gamers, and they loved this idea,” says Georgina Bianchi, Global Head of Talent at MediaMonks.

“Part of the idea of opening doors is to let people from other creative industries know about MediaMonks, because we cover several areas with our services: we create advertising with platforms, video games, we even launched a chicken sandwich to space,” says Bianchi. “That’s why we look for people with skills that go beyond advertising or web or traditional design, MediaMonks is much more than that.”

Fabricio told us his vision of the place video games as advertisement have in Argentina, he says that “It’s great to take advantage of how creative and engaging video games can be, and use them for advertising. I think that some of the most interesting projects that we do at the MediaMonks games department are activations for big brands, where the games that we create are not destined for the screen, instead they try to engage people with the brand through unique interactive experiences.”

Six games were developed this year at MediaMonks Buenos Aires. All of them can be played on Global Game Jam’s official website, along with those we created in 2019.

We also spoke with Luciana Méndez, UI Developer at MediaMonks, who, together with an interdisciplinary team, created a game called Rail Raider: “This is the first time that I’m part of this event. It was so much fun, but so intense at the same time, that I would participate again this year, but no more!” Luciana says.