MAGNUS V.ÖSTERGREN
PROJECT: SKAZKA OFFF COMPANION SITE
CLIENT: THE MILL+ NY
TYPE: CREATIVE EXPERIENCE
YEAR: 2014
AGENCY: POTEMKIN
OFFF
SKAZKA
Deliverables
- Campaign website
Team Credits
Creative Lead: Magnus Östergren
Producer: Thomas Oger
Development: Goo
Producer: Thomas Oger
Development: Goo
Awards & Mentions
- FWA site of the day
My Responsibilities
- Creative direction
- Concept Development
- Experience design
- Visual development
- Art direction
Summary
A collaboration with The Mill+ for the 2014 OFFF Festival led to the creation of Skazka: an interactive digital experience blending film, 3D models, and textures. Empowering users to explore and create within this abstract world, Skazka fostered a vibrant community of creators and enthusiasts. Through sharing their imaginative endeavors via small video clips, participants contributed to an experimental and collaborative space, where creativity flourished and boundaries dissolved.
THE CHALLENGE
When N.Y-based powerhouse The Mill+ asked us to come up with an idea for a browser based experience to accompany their film for the 2014 OFFF Festival in St. Petersburg we could only say HOLY CRAP YES.
THE CONCEPT & SOLUTION
Collaborating closely with The Mill+ in New York, we embarked on the creation of the Skazka interactive experience, a project that seamlessly intertwines filmed material, 3D models, and organic textures. By melding these elements together, we constructed a captivating abstract world that invites users on a journey of exploration and creativity. Within this immersive environment, users are not only empowered to unleash their creativity but also encouraged to share their unique creations with others. Through the generation of small video clips, participants can showcase their imaginative endeavors, fostering a vibrant community of creators and enthusiasts alike.
THE RESULT
The SKAZKA digital experience became an experimental, creative and collaborative experience where we let the visitor explore and get lost in this alternate world, to create something of their own, and then share the experience with others.
BEHIND THE SCENES
VIDEO
A peek into the XERO experience, featuring the discovery of the entry point to the hidden site, choosing a district, exploring the map, and decrypting clues about the world of Den Of Wolves.
FYI: you might just end up more puzzled than you were before watching this but please keep reading and things will make a bit more sense I hope.
CHALLENGE
The client’s request was for me to come up with a concept for an immersive experience website that encourages players to actively participate in the game’s community while the game was being developed. The goal was to cultivate fan interest in the upcoming game to the extent that they would willingly register for a newsletter and add it to their Steam wishlist.
I teamed up with my boon companion Thomas Oger and we started thinking.
SOLUTION
Exploration and discovery
So after having discarded and challenged more conventional ideas we arrived at this: A hidden collaborative digital experience where the users had to team up, explore, locate, and extract fragmented and encrypted data from the game’s lore, development, and other sources. This experience would also evolve and get upgrades as the game’s development progressed and the users collaborated to extract more and more data.
I wanted it to be all about teamwork as the game Den of Wolves is a co-op game. So we made a site where the players could dive in, collaborate, and share their wild theories on platforms like Discord and Reddit.
- Plain looking landing page with a cryptic CTA in the bottom to lure users in to the actual XERO experience
- A fictional/functional hacker tool created by a hacker existing only in the Den of Wolves universe in 2097
- A district map for the user to explore and find nodes they can interact with
Nodes containing assets and lore that can be added, customized and activated by us at any time for the user to discover, unlock through a mini-game and share. - All the encrypted content on the site can be accessed through 3 different puzzles/activations, either as single or 2-4 player co-op setups.
- We also added bigger community events needing up to 1024 concurrent users on the platform to unlock specific content for more impact
- While we wanted to keep things familiar with a traditional landing page, we injected a bit of intrigue into the user experience with our hacking tool. Imagine stumbling upon a secret tool crafted by a rogue genius—that’s the vibe we were going for. It’s all about immersing users in the experience and sparking their curiosity.
Art direction and design process
While defining the retro terminal style of the UI and having designer Paul Witherden taking it to the next level, I took on the task to art direct and design the interactive map view and what the glitched out decryption moments looked like in the experience. These were realised in collaboration with WebGL developer Einar Öberg.
Forget about the typical Hollywood hacker vibe—I wanted something real and ugly-not-ugly. Drawing inspiration from actual exploit tools and the demoscene, we crafted a tool that feels like it was cooked up by a lone wolf hacker person using whatever she finds to make it run. Think PETSCII character sets, one typeface, and a punchy color palette. We had a blast adding quirky ASCII art, text-based lore, and PETSCII illustrations to give it that extra flair. And seeing our community soak it all in? Pure joy.
Me and and design lead Paul Witherden both had demo-scene backgrounds and that did really shine through when we started polishing the UI and the map elements. From having ASCII art created by awesome freelancers to weaving intricate lore, every detail was a labor of love.
RESULTS
Reception was very positive and it was a joy following the first batch of dedicated fans in the community going all in on trying to solve this alternate reality game even if it’s just the first early version. And we’re still work in progress with this one so stay tuned for further updates.
Extract
Reactions
SHOTS
Enjoy some random shots from the project. More to come when I dig up the work files from a hard drive that is currently somewhere, somehow and sometime.
FULL CREDITS
CREDITS
Creative Lead: Magnus V Östergren
Producer: Thomas Oger
Tech Director: Daniel Isaksson
UX design: Adria Verdaguer
Tech lead: Miha Klasinc
Art Direction: Magnus V Östergren & Paul Witherden
Map & Glitch design: Magnus V Östergren
WebGL development: Einar Öberg
Frontend + multiplayer development: Nick White
Backend: 9Volt