Metallic Menace

In the United States, 2.1 million students use e-cigarettes. Since vaping poses a tremendous risk to children’s health, our partners at The Real Cost and Fandom set out to educate a generation of youth about the menace vaping causes to their lungs and inspire them to kick the vaping habit. Because kids have a small appetite for adults nagging them about their health, we needed to develop a unique approach to health education that engages them in a way that would inspire them to pay attention. Enter “Attack of the Metallic Menace,” an augmented reality game that is on a crusade against vaping! It is an immersive gaming experience introduced in San Diego during the biggest fan convention of the year, Comic-Con.

This prevention campaign focuses on awareness surrounding the imminent dangers of vaping, but it’s not so obvious that it’s edutainment. The AR experience plays like a first-person shooter combat game, where preserving your lungs’ health is mission critical. 3D objects designed to simulate shards of metal vapor are hurled towards players, providing not-so-subtle cues that each inhale of a vape delivers tiny metal scraps directly into the lungs’ alveoli. Our team addressed frictionless entry into gameplay by using web-AR technology from our partner Niantic, makers of “Pokémon Go.” Optimized to be playable on a website instead of an app, allowing for the widest playability across devices, “Metallic Menace” beckons all to put a stop to the chromium chaos plaguing our country!

Check out more of our interactive branding work.