Beamin' Up
View the case- Brand
- Urban Decay
- Year
- 2022
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Fashion & Beauty
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- AR & VR
- Agency
- Tool
Objective
Urban Decay wanted its 2022 holiday collection — a limited-edition Naked x Robin Eisenberg palette — to be more than a shelf item: a way to pull the packaging itself into a digital experience and get people talking about the art collaboration. The brand had never run its own game before, so this doubled as a first foray into playable content, built to travel past the store, work on any phone with no app download, and pay off in a personal, shareable result.
Solution
A shopper scans the QR code on the palette box, a retail display, or the brand's booth at ComplexCon, and the game opens straight in their phone browser — nothing to install. After picking English or Spanish and hitting play, a portal opens into illustrator Robin Eisenberg's galaxy right in the player's own room, and ships packed with "Alien Baddies" fly out and hover around them in real space. The player points their phone to beam up each alien, sending it "good vibes" and racking up points, while on-screen arrows point toward ships outside the frame, pulling the player to physically turn and walk around the room to find them. As the timer runs down, ships arrive faster and pick up speed, with sound and visual cues flagging power-ups and the closing seconds. At the end, the game renders a personalized animated card in Eisenberg's art style showing the player's score and "vibe check," ready to download and post.
Results
The QR-coded palette that unlocked the game rolled out to more than 13,000 Ulta stores and over 500 Sephora stores across the US, plus urbandecay.com, starting September 29, 2022.
- 1
The player scans a QR code printed on the Naked x Robin Eisenberg palette packaging or on in-store POS displays, which opens the game instantly in the phone's browser with no app to install.
- 2
The player picks a language, English or Spanish, and taps play to start.
- 3
The phone's camera opens an AR portal into Robin Eisenberg's illustrated alien galaxy inside the player's own room; spaceships carrying "Alien Baddies" fly out of it and hover around the player's physical surroundings.
- 4
The player aims the phone at a floating alien and fires a beam at it, scoring points for each hit.
- 5
When a ship drifts out of the camera's view, directional arrows appear at the screen's edges, prompting the player to turn and move around the room to find it again.
- 6
Power-ups appear over the course of the round, each flagged by a sound cue and a visual indicator.
- 7
The round escalates as ships move faster and appear more frequently, with audio and visual warnings signaling that time is running out.
- 8
The round ends with a "Good Vibe" score and a "vibe check" rating based on how the player performed.
- 9
The game generates a personalized animated image in Robin Eisenberg's art style displaying the player's score, which can be downloaded and shared on social media.
