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A PHYGITAL EXPERIENCE TO TAKE PARTIES TO THE NEXT LEVEL

JBL Partybox AR Game

SAVE THE PARTY

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BACKGROUND

Product innovation made JBL one of the most iconic brands in the world. JBL was the first audio brand that defined portable speakers by the use-case they represent. It was the first brand that brought passive radiator into a portable product, and the first who packaged audio and lighting in a portable product creating ultimate audio/visual experience. Being innovative and visionary have always been in JBL's DNA.

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However, when it comes to digital products such as mobile applications, JBL always faced some challenges; Apps are not engaging enough to encourage users to use them multiple times:

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  • On average 32.4% of the users connected the apps 1- 3 times and 41.9% 4-10 times

  • 80.3% of users are male and 19.7% female

ASK

To bring more engagement into JBL Party-box application as one of the most innovative, playful and successful JBL products in the market, considering the brand's innovative and visionary DNA.

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DESIGN SPRINT & IDEATION

Good party is always characterized by things such as good music, dance and drink, but most important ingredient to a great party is socializing. We decided to create an engaging experience through a multiplayer AR game that can act as an ice-breaker to attract and connect users in a party while staying loyal to JBL's values and characteristics.

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GAME CONCEPT

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GAME CONCEPT

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1. Imagine you are in a party where JBL Party-box is playing some cool punchy music but somehow the party doesn't come to existence. 

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3. There is always somebody that sits in the corner who is too shy to interact with the crowd.

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5. This is where the JBL "Save The Party" AR game can literally help you save the party.

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7. Participants should protect Partybox and DJ Kayla from nasty Morphs who hate good mood and loud music! Morphs try to stick their bodies to the speaker grill to block the sound.

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9. If you beat the Morphs, you will become a party hero and are now allowed to play your music for the next 30 mins.

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2. This might happen because, there is always this one guy who screams: " Hey, let me play my music!"

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4. There is always a guy who takes all the attention of the room and leaves no space for the others.

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6. Once enabled on everyone's phone, every 30 mins, all party attendance are participating in a challenge.

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8. The more Morphs could stick  to the speaker grille, the lower the volume of your party become. Participants should shoot morphs with their AR blaster before they could stick to the speaker grille.

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10. If you lose, the volume will go down for one minute and you have to have one drink, jump into the pool, take a piece of your cloth or do sit-ups. DJ Kayla will decide your destiny.

HIGH LEVEL USER FLOW

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DEFINING THE SCOPE

Complete Design of the game

Prototype a Limited Version to test

Full development & App Integration

Before fully integrating the game into the Partybox app, it has been decided to prototype a full version of the game to test it:

 

  • The prototype should contain 2 options, with physical JBL Partybox product and without the product so that we can test it with more users.

  • In order to stay in budget and time and for prototype purposes, it has been decided to change the multi-player game mode to pass the phone game mode and still keep the sense of competition alive.

DETAILED FLOW, WIREFRAME & MECHANICS

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CHARACTER & GAME ASSET DESIGN

Rough game elements visualization:

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In-depth character states study and visualization:

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States animation study:

Game asset design and simulations:

GAME ASSET & ANIMATION CREATION

Asset creation, optimization and animation simulation that could be used in Unity engine.

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UI DESIGN

Designing UI elements and motion prototyping:

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PROTOTYPE & GAMEPLAY

RESULT

The game has been released in 2021 Harman's global EMT meeting with more than 3000 attendees. We asked participants to download the game and fill out a survey (after one month) to give us feedback. 109 people out of 396 people who downloaded the game participated in the survey.

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While we got positive feedback and more engagement rate than our apps average engagement rates, there were points mentioned in our survey that could be improved such as lighting and music sync between hardware and software and more challenging gameplay. The project gained so much attention in the company that not only we are currently working on integrating the experience in Partybox app, we have also been reached out from other departments to use the experience as a stand alone game in different use-cases such as Interactive retail stores: 

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TEAM MEMBERS

LEADERSHIP

  • Damian Mackiewicz: Executive Creative Director

  • Alexander Efimov: Creative Director

  • Wenkin Huang: User Experience Director

PRODUCT TEAM

  • Amin Einakian: Lead Experience Designer

  • Stephanie Tuttle: Lead Researcher

  • Mo Wang: UI/UX Designer

  • Oleg Gogolev: Lead Developer

  • Todor Todorov: Developer

  • Emine Arikan: Project Manager

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