AfterZoom's microorganisms granted award for best european educational serious game

• 2011-10-25 12:17
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AfterZoom has won the Award for the Best European Educational Serious of the Fun & Serious Game Festival.

The first educational project by the company Abylight, AfterZoom is a game that teaches through entertainment. “We added an educational component that can be gradually learnt without the need of lessons or exams,” says company CEO Nacho García. 

AfterZoom turns the camera of Nintendo DSi/3DS into a virtual microscope to find microscopic creatures (inventions where reality and fantasy blend), capture and take care of them, and chemical substances to keep them alive and healthy. “Players thus learn, without noticing it, that there are different organic domains they had never heard of (bacteria, archaea, etc.) and kingdoms (Animalia, Protista, Fungi, Plantae). 

The video game (entirely developed and marketed by the Catalan firm) was produced with a subsidy of the Ministry of Culture, which has “contributed to significantly improve its quality,” says García. 

AfterZoom is only sold by downloads at the Nintendo DSi/3DS online stores. It was released in July in North and South America and in Europe. On October 26, it will be launched in Japan too. 

Nacho García considers the Fun & Serious Game Festival Award to be a “warranty and recognition of the game’s quality, and of the attention the Abylight team (who have developed 24 video games in seven years) paid to AfterZoom.” 

 “We’re now working on another game for Nintendo DSi, two for Nintendo 3DS, and one for iPhone. Next year we are releasing fewer yet more important games,” he revealed.  

The Award for the Best European Educational Serious Game will be granted at the Fun & Serious Game Festival award gala at the Campos Elíseos Theatre in Bilbao on November 8. 

The Fun & Serious Game Festival is sponsored by the The Fun & Serious Game Festival is sponsored by the Basque Government andBilbao Town Hall, with the cooperation of the Basque Government, the Bilbao Townhall, Provincial Government of Vizcaya, Vadejuegos.com, Digipen Institute of Technology Europe-Bilbao, Virtualware, El Correo and APD.

About the Fun & Serious Game Festival

The Fun & Serious Game Festival was established in 2011 in recognition of the best European entertainment and serious games of the year, that is, as a reward to the work of artists, developers, directors, and producers in the video game industry. 

The Festival’s spectacular gala will be held at the Campos Elíseos Theatre in Bilbao on November 8, 2011. In addition, on November 8 and 9, the Euskalduna Convention Centre and Concert Hall is playing host to the 1st Serious Games Conference for trade members, which is to gather leading professionals and specialists. 

In its first edition, the Fun & Serious Game Festival seeks to strengthen recognition and promote the activity of video game professionals in Europe. It is also aimed at consolidating the video game industry in Spain and the European continent. 

Awards will be granted to the best productions and most brilliant careers in the video game industry, both for games developed for entertainment and for those fulfilling cultural, educational, health, or corporate purposes.