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Sometimes, You Just Need To Make A Best-Selling Video Game For A Gourmet-Quality Coffee Company
By Nick Robalik, Creative Director
We set out to make a fun, small-scale promotional game for Austin-based Roasty Buds Coffee Company. Something with retro charm, featuring the brand’s lovable coffee bean characters, and gameplay people would actually want to spend time with instead of immediately clicking away from – a rarity in most modern promotional games.
Turns out, when you treat a branded game like a real one and not just an ad, you end up creating something people genuinely enjoy. The original browser-based game quickly proved that gamification and interactive marketing can create far more engagement than yet another forgettable banner ad.
Instead of asking people to watch a commercial, we invited them to play one. Every stage, character, and power-up was designed to reinforce the Roasty Buds brand and product line without feeling like a sales pitch. The result was a branded gaming experience that people shared and recommended to their friends. Making something entertaining and engaging tends to work better than yelling “BUY OUR COFFEE” at people, despite what LinkedInfluencers might tell you while using far too many emojis 🤢🤮.
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The success of the original game (which won an Addy) lead to a desire to create something more substantial (which also won an Addy), and that caught the attention of classic gaming company Atari, the OG’s of the US video game industry. What started as a small promotional campaign suddenly became something much larger, and we ended up partnering with Atari to expand the concept into a larger commercial release, transforming the original browser game into Roasty Buds: Special Brew for their Atari VCS video game console. Along the way, the collaboration grew to include an exclusive Atari-branded coffee blend, merchandise, and product partnerships that celebrated both brands’ love of all things retro.
Developing for the Atari VCS gave us the opportunity to build on everything that made the original game successful: we expanded the gameplay, added tons of new content and polish, and created an experience worthy of a console release, all while keeping the brand’s quirky personality that made players fall in love with the web version in the first place. It’s not every day a browser game earns a second life as an official, best-selling commercial title.
The best branded content doesn’t feel branded at all. By focusing on nostalgic pixel art and genuinely fun gameplay, we created an experience that outgrew its original marketing brief. Sometimes all it takes is one well-made promotional game, a little creativity and the right people discovering it at the right time.
