2021 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

Challenge
When Swedish game developer Funcom launched Lovecraftian role-playing game Moons of Madness, they felt it would take more than the traditional trailer, walkthrough and influencer outreach program to set the mood for the experience to come. Fans of Funcom’s The Secret World were accustomed to unique and bizarre investigations about secrets that go beyond human comprehension. They also craved complex, mind-bending puzzles and games.

The challenge of getting this unique breed of gamer hooked on Moons of Madness before its launch was handed to The Humanise Collective / Alice & Smith. To fuel anticipation and thus “hit the ground running” with the Moons of Madness official release one month later, the goal was to get influential and diehard role-playing gamers hooked, especially Lovecraftian gamers.

Insight
What Secret World gamers love most is Lovecraftian games and puzzles served up in a complex living way. A “game before the game” approach revealing the backstory of Moons of Madness would allow players to unlock unique storylines, delve into the lives of secret characters and reveal a mind-bending prequel to Moons of Madness, and hook them on what was to come.

Execution
“Cyrano Story” is a creepy, complex and living Alternate Reality Game that immerses players in the backstory to Moons of Madness one month prior to its release date. One of the most advanced transmedia experiences created for the launch of an online game, players were required to use an eerie living entity, or beast, to solve puzzles and challenges in order to unravel or reveal the prequel.

Through the cooperation of play, gamers worked together, unlocking the secrets, hidden backstories and characters that our storytellers created.

In “Cyrano Story”, Google AI was put in charge of the game universe and taught 298 human phobias. This allowed the AI to identify the players’ worst fears, based on words and phrases that they fed to the beast. It also allowed the game and storyline to evolve as players interacted.

At times, storytellers required players to cross over into real life to put the pieces together, with a mission to photograph items around the physical world and a rendezvous with a live agent in Berlin.

For those instrumental in unravelling the story, there were 2,000 Moons of Madness activation codes and a trip to the NASA Space Center up for grabs.

Results
The successful launch of Moons of Madness was propelled by “Cyrano Story”, with over 53,000 players engaged and an average of 10 pages played per session. In fact, “Cyrano Story” was so well received, it was recently released on Steam, the world’s leading platform for digital game distribution, as a stand-alone game.

Credits

Agency: The Humanise Collective / Alice & Smith

V.P. Storytelling & Puppet Master - Andrea Doyon
Puppet Master - Sébastien Trudel
Game Designer - Alex Corbeil
Game Designer - Étienne Clavet
Designer - Isabelle Brunette
Narrative Designer - Joshua Doetsh
Lead Developer - Frédéric Forgues
Producer - Nathalie Lacoste
Narrative Designer - Catherine Robinson
Writer - Joshua Doetsch
Writer - Lovent Group
Developer - Corey Martin
Developer - Vincent Croteau
Developer - Alex Corbeil
Project Manager - Suzanne Tee

Client: Funcom

Marketing Manager - Marin Yvon-Maze