Artivism and Human Rights visibility through ludonarrative and immersive mechanics in indie video games

Resumen

Video games considered indies have known how to exploit ludonarrative possibilities and merge them with different advanced immersive mechanics, thus creating complex, deep and human stories. Some even manage to use artistic expression combined with immersive technologies as a means that contributes to collaborative education. A fact that occurs when propagating a social message that moves to action and change and can be considered digital artistic works with activist discourse, that is, artivism. Following this fact, this manuscript analyzes the main themes and stories that are present in indie video games aimed at the public and reflects on the didactic nature of their activist discourse in relation to Human Rights. The method is a mixed research methodology based on interdisciplinary coding that combines various variables extracted from specialized literature. The results allow us to conclude that the videogame is a means of artistic and digital educational expression suitable for disseminating messages intrinsic to activist discourse, with special attention to human rights, while it deploys immersive mechanics that allow users to participate in said messages, integrate them naturally into their actions and promote change and social education through ethical implications and ludonarrative elements based on emotion, awareness and first-person playable experience.