Brazil: Game competition aims to increase awareness of heritage

Games aim at engaging a broad audience
The Noord Game Jam is a competition in which teams of electronic game producers race against the clock to plan and produce a game with a theme related to the Dutch period in Brazil. Because of the Dutch presence in northern Brazil between 1630 and 1654 in the state of Pernambuco, the Netherlands has strong historic ties with this state of which Recife is the capital. Programmers, researchers and experts from both countries will compete for 72 hours with the aim of making the best game on this historical subject. The winning team will be awarded a cash prize.

Boost for innovation and education
Besides generating engagement with shared cultural heritage, the project will give a boost to Brazil’s creative hub, Recife. The Game Jam is being organised by Noord Games, a startup company from Recife whose main objective is to foster the e-sports scene in the northeastern part of Brazil, based on three main pillars: education, entertainment and professionalization. The Game Jam is also accompanied by pre-events, such as lectures on the Dutch-Brazilian link. The games that will result from the Game Jam (ten to be expected) will provide an innovative and interactive way of increasing awareness of Dutch-Brazilian history and may also be implemented in educational programmes for schools in Recife.

The Game Jam on Shared Cultural Heritage is supported by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Brasília.