Equality Game 'Let's WoW' Hackathon Excitement at IMM's Game Development Center

In order to draw attention to gender equality with the narrative and interaction power of digital games and to raise awareness in this area, the “Let's WoW” Hackathon was held in Equality Game in cooperation with Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Game Development Center (OGEM) and Women in Games Turkey. 14 female and 15 male participants with different abilities were selected among 200 applications for the hackathon held at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Game Development Center (OGEM) on March 30-20.

Before the Hackathon; İBB establishment Medya AŞ General Manager Pınar Türker, British Council Art Director Esra Aysun, Women in Games Turkey Founder Simay Dinç, Oyunder Director Tansu Kendirli, UNOG Director Sercan Muhlacı, TikTok Turkey's İpek Türkman and İdil Sükan, Selen Lun, Deniz Çağlı, Names from the developer ecosystem and game world such as İpek Türkman and Melih Gürel prepared the participants for the event with their speeches and presentations.

After the presentation and preparation stages, the participants were divided into 8 groups; They started to work on ideas, scenarios and coding and became a part of the game development process that lasted for 36 hours.

The participants, who processed their ideas with the support of mentors, continued their game coding until the first light of the morning, while enjoying this unique experience and also had the opportunity to get to know their hackathon friends with similar interests.

8 Games for 8 Social Problems

8 teams; developed their games to draw attention to gender inequality, income injustice and prejudices in daily life with 8 different game scenarios they created;

1. Super Cat Games team, with their game 'Equal Judges', "prejudices in the working environment",
2. Don't Panic team "Still" with the game "gender inequality",
3. The Truffle team, with their play 'Equly', to "income inequality",
4. Safe Zone team 'Who are u?' game "prejudices encountered in job interviews",
5. With the game 'One Wish', the Herumetto team "defies gender-based prejudices encountered in daily life".
6. The Seven team, with their play 'Eva's Dilemma', aims to address inequality in education and the duties assigned to women in daily life.
7. BBY team's play 'Baby Shower' is aimed at “prejudices faced by women from birth to work life”.
8. High5 team drew attention to “the prejudices that we are spectators in business and daily life” with their play 'Wake up'.

The Games First in the Museum Gazhane, then in London!..

Games developed at the Hackathon will be released on March 19-20. Kadıköy The museum will be exhibited at the “Let's WoW” Digital Art Exhibition in Equality Game as part of the WoW International Women's Festival to be held in Gazhane. After the exhibition in Gazhane, the museum will meet with the participants at The Next Level Conference held as part of the London Games Festival on April 4th.