After last year’s PNC campaign (a video-based storytelling site made with Flash), the client wanted a new and unique idea for its annual interactive experience that would engage students nationwide who use the classroom resource to learn about economic trends. At B-Reel, the creative DNA and mission is to push technological boundaries. Motivated by my previous experiences with Google Maps as well as the trendy HTML5 standards of 2012, I created this new, interactive experience for PNC utilizing the maximum power of HTML5 on desktops and tablet devices to awaken the web audience.

The game presents an entertaining challenge. The pretense: Gifts from the familiar holiday tune have gone missing. Scattered around the globe, students must recover them to learn the 2012 Christmas Price Index.

So, to locate rings, maids, pipers, and that pesky partridge, users employ a familiar, real-life travel tool — Google Street View — to visit 12 locations worldwide. Based on the Google Street View API, I developed an editing tool that integrates geolocation lookup and the ability of adding custom elements in panoramas. Then we pitched to the client with a high-fidelity interactive prototype made faster by this tool.

Simple and fun mini-games are core design elements to engage the youthful target audience. The game subjects were chosen by collaborative efforts between creatives and myself to examine the educational value as well as how much joy the games bring them. I crafted and fine-tuned each unique interaction with code, and I was glad to see happy faces of the people playing it.