Denim Karuta
Open the game- Brand
- 45R
- Year
- 2024
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Fashion & Beauty
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- COPILOT Inc.
- With
- SHIFTBRAIN Inc.
- With
- Ingraft Inc.
Objective
45R has spent more than three decades building a dense in-house culture around denim — invented terms for its fabrics, colors, and models, and a fussy attention to production detail. Rather than explain that vocabulary through marketing copy, the brand and studio SHIFTBRAIN turned it into a game, betting that players would absorb 45R's philosophy faster by playing than by reading. The whole experience was built mobile-first, since that's how most visitors reach the site.
Solution
Denim Karuta plays out entirely in the browser as a round of karuta, the traditional Japanese matching-card game, no install required. After a sound warning and a start button, a practice round walks new players through the rules: a clue about 45R denim appears on screen, then a board of illustrated cards to search by dragging and scrolling with a finger or mouse. The real game runs five questions, with an on-screen counter tracking progress; each answer triggers a right-or-wrong response, reveals the card's explanation, and offers a link straight to the related page on 45R's site — a collection, an event, or similar. A session ends with one of six ranked verdicts, from top marks as a "denim master" down to a consolation "failure is the mother of success," after which players can replay, check the correct answers, or browse all 45 illustrated cards in a full catalog.
- 1
The game opens on a title screen with the game's name, a tagline describing it as a card game built from 45 facts about 45R denim, a warning that the site uses sound, and a single button to start.
- 2
A practice round runs first, explaining the game's rule: read the clue on one card, then find its matching picture card on the next screen.
- 3
In the core loop, the player reads (and hears) a clue card describing a fact or detail about 45R denim, then searches a field of illustrated cards — dragging and scrolling to see cards that don't fit on screen — and taps the one that matches, receiving a correct/incorrect response.
- 4
After the practice round, the player advances into the real quiz with a dedicated button.
- 5
The main quiz repeats the same read-then-find loop across five numbered rounds, tracked by a progress counter; each round ends with an answer breakdown showing the matched card's illustration and an explanation of the denim detail it depicts, plus a link to a related page on the 45R site, before a button advances to the next round.
- 6
On the fifth and final round, the advance button is replaced with one to view the results.
- 7
A results screen grades the session into one of six tiers, from a top "denim master" rating down to an encouraging note to try again, based on how many cards the player matched correctly.
- 8
From the results screen, the player can replay the quiz, review the correct answers, or open the full card catalog.
- 9
A separate encyclopedia mode lets the player browse all 45 illustrated cards and their facts outside the quiz, then return to the title screen.
