Malak XR Production Studios commissioned Evoke Studios to collaborate with Mexican TV station TV Azteca to gamify the station’s weekly two-minute updates on poll results during the broadcasts of the 2024 Mexican election.

Harnessing a global team of project managers, illustrators, animators, texturizers, and programmers, Evoke Studios created four multi-level, yet challenging, gamified worlds. Here avatars of the presidential candidates competed with one another for poll position.

With multiple creatives working on the project, one of the challenges the Evoke Studios team faced was to ensure continuity of style across all the backgrounds and assets. “This outcome relies on comprehensive prep work, research, and clear and concise communications,” explained creative technologist and project manager, Karim El Fatatry of Evoke Studios, who is himself from a gaming background. “To that end, we use several project management software systems that allow every individual on the team to see the whole of the project in real time, wherever they were in the world.”

In total, four Super Mario-style worlds—mimicking popular Mexican landmarks alongside cultural and leisure activities—provided the stage for the presidential avatars to compete with one another. Each week the avatars embarked on various challenges and adventures, echoing the real-time results of the political polls. By converting complex polling data into visually dynamic experiences, the channel ensured its viewers experienced the Mexican electoral process in an engaging and understandable way.

“TV Azteca wanted the 2024 election coverage to be an immersive storytelling experience. They were keen that viewers could explore real-time poll results through the lens of various custom-created, gamified worlds,” continued El Fatatry. “We worked on the project for three months, making the most of the various time zones our global team of creatives hails from. Our job was to create a digital stage, which allowed TV Azteca to insert the political candidate avatars their team of creatives had built. TV Azteca gave us a lot of creative freedom. In response, we created worlds that were places of fascination, holidaying or culturally important for Mexican people.”

The Evoke Studios team used many textural and color references from the real world, adding to the sense that the avatars were immersed in a modern, yet animated, version of Mexico. There were also certain cultural references that TV Azteca wanted to replicate. “It is a bit like creating a 360-degree, digital collage. Some visuals are created from scratch and other assets are imported and modified,” said El Fatatry. “The challenge is to make the environment feel cohesive and believable, wherever the virtual camera is looking in the digital world.”

Once the worlds were complete, the competing candidate avatars were dropped in. The TV station oversaw the control of their movements and the camera angle inside the digital worlds. “This meant that each of the worlds we created had to be fully rendered and available to the virtual camera,” stated El Fatatry. “Candidate avatars could also trigger events in those worlds, which would either slow them down or speed them up. Each event would reflect something that was happening in the political polls. For example, the avatars might be having a bicycle race around a volcano. One candidate might hit a stone and fall off the bike, slowing them down. Alternatively, one might discover a short cut that puts them in poll position.”

The final product each week was a recorded two-minute video clip, even though the content appeared to be a game and that the avatar candidates triggered many of the content’s events.

Co-founder and director of creative for Evoke Studios, Urs Nyffeneger, concluded: “When we first started this project with Malak XR, we had all hoped to have completed a fully equipped XR studio for TV Azteca. This would have allowed us to also bring the presenters into the gamified environment. However, for reasons beyond our control, that part of the project was delayed. Nevertheless, our client was delighted with the outcome, and the success of the animation element of the project has already opened the door for future collaborations between Evoke Studios and media outlets globally.”

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, gamification and interactive storytelling are proving to be powerful tools. They enhance public understanding of current events, from elections to economic updates and beyond. Evoke Studios says it is “very much part of that evolution.”