Madrid in Game celebrates its second anniversary with videogame legend Jordan Mechner

‘El Tardeo de Madrid in Game’ closed yesterday at the Experience Center of the Campus del videojuego its last event of the year with a legend of the video game industry: Jordan Mechnercreator of the renowned ‘Prince of Persia’ sagaor the classicKarateka‘ (1984). This year’s event, which filled the Campus event pavilion, featured Mechner’s inspirational talk “Replay: Story of an exile and a revolution in the video game world.“. In addition to reviewing his extensive career in the industry, he presented his autobiographical graphic novel ‘Replay: Memoirs of a Family‘, in which he highlights the parallels between his grandfather and father in war conflicts and exile during the 20th century.

Born in 1964 in New York, Mechner rose to fame for his ability to fuse cinematic storytelling with interactive design, laying the groundwork for many of the modern standards in video games and being instrumental in the development of the action-adventure genre. Among its greatest achievements is that it pioneered the application of the rotoscopy in animation

He also became one of the minds behind the popular comeback of the franchise with the ‘The Return of the Game’.Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time’.which brought the saga back to success in the 2000s by Ubisoft with multiple installments on different generations of consoles and PC and a film adaptation by Disney.

Regarding his key work, ‘Prince of Persia’, Mechner pointed out that people who evoke ‘Prince of Persia’ today do so as a fond childhood memory, which is the best gift they can give me as a developer. About his graphic novel, ‘Replay: Memories of a Family’, he added that this novel is like a sketch of my life. When you draw you are able to say things that you can’t always capture in words; ‘Replay’ is the right way to tell a very personal story.

Mechner thus closes a year in which he has celebrated thirteen editions of this event thanks to the incorporation of the El Tardeo On Tour format, which has taken the event to the facilities of some of the main partners of the Madrid Videogame Cluster and the cities of Valencia, Burgos and Malaga. Among the most prominent guests in recent months are the founder of Dinamic Software Pablo Ruizor the former Counter-Strike and Valorant’ professional playerMixwell‘.

El Tardeo: more than twenty editions and more than 2,000 attendees.

El Tardeo de Madrid in Game was born in March 2023 with the aim of giving visibility and creating community around the sector. Based in the Experience Center, the third pavilion of the Campus del video game, it is a meeting for industry professionals that combines networking and presentations by the most relevant protagonists of the ecosystem national and international gamingSince its inception, more than twenty editions have been held, which have been attended by more than 2,000 attendees Monthly and free, El Tardeo creates synergies and helps to advance in the construction of the next video game and gamification capital: Madrid.

Undoubtedly this is a very special edition, since the visit of a legend like Jordan Mechner has coincided with the second anniversary of the Campus del videojuego. An innovative bet that puts the focus on the video game industry with the conviction that it is committed to a prosperous and successful future for the city of Madrid.

Ángel Niño, Councilor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship of the Madrid City Council.

Madrid in Game: 2 years turning Madrid into the world capital of videogames

Together with the Cluster of creative industries and videogames of Madrid, Madrid in Game began two years ago its journey in pursuit of to turn the city into a capital for the video game industry.. Since then, the Campus del videojuego and its three pavilions have become the epicenter of change in the video game sector. gaming municipal, reaching important milestones in entrepreneurship, esports competitions or events related to the industry.

The Development Center, one of the three pavilions of the campus located in Casa de Campo, is home to the Start IN Up Program, one of the world’s leading acceleration programs for companies and technologies applied to video games. Since its inception, has raised 5.4 million euros and created more than 170 jobs..

On the competitive side, the Esports Series Madrid, the municipal esports leagues, have gathered more than 22,000 players. since the start of the competition. Open Monday through Sunday and free of charge, citizens can visit the Esports Center, another of the campus buildings, to train in competitive gaming on consoles, tablets and next-generation PCs.