Neste - EduCycle AR Game

Pre-order the Future is an environmental awareness campaign from Neste and is about exploring new ways to create better, cleaner tomorrow on this planet. Thru the jury of experts and public involvement most significant idea was chosen. The result was EduCycle, a learning kit about carbon cycle for school children. It teaches kids in a fun, intuitive and practical way about important global topic: what kind of consequences our choices have.

Fake was selected to create the prototype for this iPad-based augmented reality game and
it was a great six month journey of game prototype design. EduCycle is in use internationally at 10 locations at the moment and 40 more games are waiting to be distributed around Finland and the world.

“As important and rewarding it is to design and execute communication for marketing purposes, as a father it’s a privilege to have an opportunity to create something with potential positive impact to the most significant issue for quality of life our future generations will face. There’s hope I’m worth the air I’ve consumed after all.” Tommi Rapeli, Creative Director - Fake

This project was a perfect example of Fake’s versatility in field of visual communication and ability to design and develop unprecedented solutions using cutting edge technology. Even though there were several technical challenges to solve, Fake never lost the focus from the client’s communication need and target audience’s user experience to carry the message thru loud and clear.

The main design aspect was to solve how to educate kids about carbon cycle and the effects of different choices in society in such engaging and interesting way that one can’t help but to be educated. This new awareness of the environmental thinking and willing to take action is in the heart of Neste, so delivering in the educational aspects also supports and builds value to the Neste brand.

From the very beginning the game was designed for a classroom use with a teacher guiding thru the game. So a lot of consideration was put in designing the details to ignite further discussion and delving deeper to the information outside the game. Like for an example other environmental effects of the agriculture outside co2 emissions, mining required for the metal industry or a need for the nuclear waste management solutions.

The game mechanics is based on just a few simple steps, using the built-in camera of the iPad to explore the virtual map and building new assets to the world by adding EduBlocks to the game board. There are billions of possible and rational combinations available to see how developing your world affects on the environment and future.

TBWA was the main agency to lead the campaign and Fake had a close collaboration with their technologists, designers and production team. During the EduCycle project there were weekly meetings to keep in track and update everyone involved and the prototype was getting its final form step by step.

This case shows the appropriate use of augmented reality when there is a correct use case that has well thought design for it. The combination of a physical game set and the iPad application let’s whole classroom interact together while playing. We at Fake hope that this game will make people think more about the world we are living in and that the future generations has versatile thoughts on how the future could be better for the environment and people.

Want to learn how your choices affect the future?

https://www.neste.com/preorderthefuture/