With the entertainment game ‘Kekokada’, students from the Institute of Computing Oliver Alves and Dante Azevedo were part of the winning team in the Entertainment category

It was with the entertainment game ‘Kekokada’, focused on business and the culture of Alagoas, that scholarship holders from the Edge Innovation Center, linked to the Institute of Computing, Oliver Alves and Dante Azevedo, emerged champions of the ‘Innovation Marathon: Games’, which took place during the seventh edition of the Trakto Show, between August 1st and 3rd, at the Convention Center, in Maceió.

Promoted by the Inclusive Innovation Laboratory (Liinc), with the support of the Foundation for Research Support of the State of Alagoas (Fapeal) and the State Secretariat for Science, Technology and Innovation (Secti), the Marathon awarded the six teams that developed innovative digital games in the areas of Education and Entertainment. Made up of 3 to 5 people, the teams had 54 hours to develop the games, with the help of specialized mentors and the provision of lectures, brainstorming, monitoring and evaluations.

According to Oliver Alves, who is a student in the 8th semester of Design at the Federal University of Alagoas (Ufal), the game ‘Kekokada’ was developed in about 45 hours by a team of five people, including students, designers and developers, and is a business management game.

“We started our work process with a brainstorm, which was refined through team discussions, and then we started working on the game based on the question ‘how to convey the idea of ​​management to young people?’. From there, with the help of design tools, we began to shape our game ‘Kekokada’, which is a game with varied gameplay, which uses the regionalism of Alagoas and pixel art as an aesthetic appeal”, explains the student.

‘Kekocada’ features female representation through the character ‘Bruxinha Keko’, who makes magical coconut sweets. Through the production of these coconut sweets, the player manages the business, raising funds and raw materials, preparing the coconut sweets, and then selling them at a fair.

According to Oliver, overcoming the challenge was very rewarding. “It wasn’t easy to develop a game in such a short time, but it was certainly very rewarding. Thanks to our organization as a team, dividing tasks and optimizing time through design tools, we were able to speed up our work. I feel extremely happy, because I learned a lot with the help of the instructors, I was able to expand my network and make new friends”, he concludes.

For the general coordinator of Liinc, professor at Ufal and organizer of the Marathon, Hérmani Magalhães, the event boosts the innovation ecosystem in Alagoas. “The Marathon is super important for the innovation ecosystem of our State and for the Academy as well, because we were able to develop innovative solutions in a short space of time in a free, high-level event, with very strong engagement from several people in the community”, points out Magalhães.