Gamificando en secreto: diseño y puesta en escena de un juego de realidad alternativa en un congreso académico

If we have to think of a scenario prone to gamification, to the inclusion of ludic mechanics or even ludonarratives as a vehicle to achieve certain objectives outside the magic circle, perhaps that could be a specific academic conference on the topic, a day of conferences. starring experts in innovation, in creative uses of the game in real life, in the company or in educational environments. However, in practice it is much more plausible to imagine or predict the development of said congress like any other, with a conventional agenda, with a presenter, round tables and speakers constrained to a timing, than as a recreational laboratory. This dissonance between what could be and what finally is can well be interpreted as a symptom of the suspicions or even the fear that generally provokes the approach of certain strategies or the use of certain devices unaccustomed to the academic field, no matter how much the subject matter be favorable to the experiment. With the aim of overcoming this prejudice, the Faculty of Communication of the University of Seville in collaboration with the RTVE Chair organized a Congress on Culture and New Media with a very special guest: an alternate reality game that, like a Trojan horse ludonarrative, infiltrated the public and led the day to a completely unexpected outcome.