Peru Party: A Virtual Reality Video Game Featuring Peruvian Music and Dance in the Style of Just Dance

Peru Party is a video game created by Nathaly Kalantar Cuéllar, a young communicator who developed the idea as part of her thesis project to earn her bachelor’s degree at the University of Lima. Nathaly, a longtime lover of video games and dance, noticed a lack of representation of Peruvian music and dance styles in popular games like Just Dance. This sparked her idea to create a game that showcased the diversity of Peruvian culture.

Despite lacking technical knowledge, Nathaly pursued her idea and enlisted the help of the Information Technology Learning Laboratory at her university to bring Peru Party to life. The game uses virtual reality to provide an immersive experience for players, allowing them to explore iconic Peruvian locations like Machu Picchu while dancing to a mix of traditional and modern musical genres.

The game employs artificial intelligence to score players based on their dance moves, with Nathaly personally training the AI by performing the choreography multiple times. The team behind Peru Party focused on showcasing a fusion of musical genres unique to Peru, highlighting the work of up-and-coming artists who blend traditional and contemporary sounds.

After presenting the prototype at various events in Peru, Nathaly secured a scholarship to attend the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where Peru Party gained international acclaim. The team is now working towards releasing a free version of the game for the public to enjoy, with plans to further develop the project into a fully-fledged game.

Nathaly encourages aspiring game developers to participate in events like Game Jams to hone their skills and creativity, emphasizing that technical knowledge is not the only key to success in the industry. With passion and determination, anyone can follow their dreams of creating innovative and engaging video games, just like Nathaly did with Peru Party.