CASE STUDY
Last fall, our longtime creative partner, Studio Mega, designed Agency Adventure, a custom 8-bit desktop video game for Snapchat. In this game, players take on the role of an ad agency’s new business coordinator on their first day at work. Players move through an open office world that features four mini-games — each representing major stages of a client pitch.
The end goal was a pop-up arcade “roadshow” for Snapchat’s event marketing team to take to advertising and media agencies throughout New York City. When Studio Mega asked if we could team up to make it happen, we jumped at the opportunity. Their design concept called for two functioning arcade machines, several personified video game characters and icons, environmental graphics, a trophy, and tabletop info cards — all branded with Snapchat’s yellow, black, and white brand colors. The biggest challenge was going to be the custom arcade machines, so our engineering team dove into research and development to establish a game plan.
The custom arcade consoles needed to be fully functioning, wireless, sturdy, and collapsable for shipment. To achieve this, we found and cut off-the-shelf components to the dimensions needed to fit the tablet, keyboard, and mouse perfectly. Then we wrapped everything in Snapchat-branded printed vinyl. When the boxes arrived, Studio Mega found an installation directive, hardware, and the tools needed to put the consoles together. Both were successfully assembled and disassembled several times as Snapchat took the NYC agencies by storm.
Over the following three weeks, we prototyped and manufactured two working arcade machines, a variety of self-standing 3D characters, photo backdrop elements, a custom rug, dimensional Snapchat logo trophy, and tabletop QR code cards, all in the style of the pixelated 8-bit video game. Given the nature of a multi-stop “roadshow,” this project needed to be scalable and adaptable to a variety of different room footprints. We intentionally designed flexibility into the setup by grouping and layering the characters, consoles, rug, photo backdrops and benches for smaller event spaces. For bigger footprints, the elements could be spread out and work just as well.
The pop-up activation also needed to be repeatedly and easily assembled and disassembled by Snapchat’s event marketing team. Smaller boxes always make for lesser shipping charges, so our fulfillment crew carefully flat-packed the arcade game console pieces with detailed assembly instructions and then shipped out the colorful project. The touring pop-up made its way around NYC, filling agency creatives with 90’s video game nostalgia and earning Snapchat and Studio Mega a new high score!
If you’re interested in learning more about custom engineering and fabrication services, we’d love to chat ideas with you. Contact us to learn more!
