Insight · Nostalgia and mapping
Night falls on the courtyard and the side of the building lights up with an eight-bit game ten metres wide. A grandfather and his granddaughter play side by side on their phones. He knows the game from forty years ago. She just knows she is winning.
The short version. Nostalgia brings comfort and new technology brings surprise. Put them together at scale and you reach everyone in the crowd at once.
Why retro works
Simple games have rules everyone understands in seconds, which is exactly what a crowd needs. Familiar shapes and sounds give older guests an instant way in, and the scale gives younger guests something they have never seen. The game becomes a shared moment across generations.
Catch some pixels below, then picture it on a building.
Mapping the surface
Projection mapping turns architecture into a screen by fitting the image to the real shape of the surface. PRISM maps buildings, products and scale models, and OPULENCE maps tables, walls and stages for gala evenings. The deeper technical side is in our insight on projection mapping on curved surfaces.
Phones as controllers
Nobody wants to install an app to play for two minutes. Guests scan a code, a web page opens as a controller, and they are in. The game logic runs locally so the projection never waits for the hall connection, the same principle we explain in our post on offline-first event applications.
Low latency or no fun
A game where the screen lags behind your thumb feels broken. We keep the controller, the game and the projector on the same local network and measure the delay before the doors open. The engineering discipline is the same one behind our reaction game for Al Salam Bank, where timing was read on the board at the moment of the press.
Mistakes we see
- Choosing a game that needs instructions. Crowds play what they understand at a glance.
- Controllers that need an app. A code and a web page gets people in within seconds.
- Running game logic in the cloud. Lag between thumb and wall makes the game feel broken.
- Undersized projectors. Ambient light outdoors needs more brightness than people expect.
Where it fits
- interactive games and audience engagement
- inauguration and launch experiences
- PRISM: projection mapping
- FRESCO: digital graffiti wall
Questions clients ask
Do guests need to download an app?
No. They scan a code and play from a web page.
How many players can join at once?
That depends on the game design. We scope it to the crowd and the surface.
Can it run outdoors?
Yes, after dark and with projectors sized for the surface and the ambient light.
More insights
- Less conference, more festival: corporate events without the rows of chairs
- The right handshake: how smart matchmaking connects attendees
- No more brochures: multiscreen applications for interactive exhibition stands
- A wall that keeps up with the room: real-time social walls, local first
- How a cylindrical hologram works: from CAD file to exhibition floor
- Lead capture on a stand: the architecture behind 217 qualified leads
Start with a conversation
Tell us the event, the venue and what people should walk away remembering. Games and engagement WhatsApp FAIM
Joby Thuruthel / FAIM
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