Bogotá, May 29 2025 – In a ceremony attended by many prominent figures of the design industry of Colombia and abroad, NovaMundi was awarded the Lápiz de Acero 2025 trophy for the videogames category.
Lápiz de Acero is a prestigious Colombian award for design and innovation. With this, Novamundi’s design has been recognized as an important contribution to the game development industry in the country and beyond.
Following are some details of NovaMundi’s submission for the award.
Design Contribution
With the goal of creating a product that spotlighted the national territory and its rich indigenous history and diversity, the game’s design focused on a precise and respectful portrayal of the represented cultures and events, but with enough flexibility to make the experience fun and replayable—allowing players to feel that enjoyment comes first, and learning stems from a richly designed world.
To achieve these goals, the game was strongly based on elements and techniques of procedural generation (that is, the content consumed by players is generated through detailed procedures that produce different results each time), ensuring a consistently fresh experience. This presents a new map with every gameplay cycle, unexpected challenges, and varied rewards. As a result, each gameplay session offers a familiar experience while also delivering new emergent narratives.
NovaMundi also plays an important cultural role, contributing to the efforts to revive the Muysccubun language of Bogotá and the Muisca culture of the same region through a respectful and accurate in-game representation. This was the outcome of a rich and in-depth research and educational process in which every member of the design and development team took part.
Of particular importance is the presence of words and phrases in the native language within the game’s dialogue, which appear sporadically with a translation shown when the cursor hovers over the text, as well as an introductory sequence narrated entirely in the original language.
NovaMundi arises as a response to the lack of representation in the global video game market of cultures native to the current territory of Colombia, especially the Muisca culture. Once this issue was identified, a great opportunity emerged within the medium of video games to achieve international dissemination of these cultures—their customs, languages, beliefs, and daily life. While the role of the Spanish conquistadors has been extensively narrated in various media (particularly concerning their actions in what is now Mexico), the world at large remains unaware of the cultural richness present in our territory during the historical period of the conquest, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.
NovaMundi presents itself as a title that places the Muisca culture and people in a leading role, and the player as an active agent immersed in that culture, while reflecting on the nuances of the European invasion of their lands. The game also filled an under attended niche: video games aimed at an audience that is not actively seeking education, but instead arriving at it as a happy accident, the result of the pursuit of entertainment.
NovaMundi is created in Colombia by a multidisciplinary team from different regions of the country, with occasional participation from international professionals—including Spanish artists, designers and developers from Antioquia and Bogotá, and Muisca historians and linguists. This diverse team grounded the design in strong foundations aligned with the goals mentioned above and garnered attention from both national and international press, as well as a global audience of various ages.
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