Chrome Dev Summit: Adventure
- Brand
- Google Chrome
- Year
- 2020
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Set Snail
- With
- Tcmg
Objective
With Chrome Dev Summit 2020 forced online, Chrome wanted to save what a livestream couldn't offer — bumping into other developers, wandering between booths, and getting pulled into a demo you weren't looking for. The game gave remote attendees a shared space to explore the summit on their own terms instead of just watching talks play out on a screen.
Solution
Attendees pick a character and drop into a top-down 2D world, moving around alongside every other developer logged in at the same time. Walking up to different areas surfaces that part of the summit — a talk, a product demo, a codelab — while other zones are built for hanging out, chatting with fellow attendees, or talking to Google staff and NPCs stationed around the map. Along the way, players pick up virtual conference swag, the same kind of incidental reward you'd grab wandering an expo floor. There's no set path or session length — you stay in the world as long as there's something new to wander toward.
- 1
The player opens the game straight from a browser tab via a short link — nothing to download or install.
- 2
Before entering, the player builds a custom avatar that represents them in the shared world.
- 3
The player walks their avatar through a shared, top-down 2D world where other summit attendees and Googlers move in real time — a communal space, not a solo game.
- 4
A map in the top-right corner lets the player jump straight to a booth or zone by topic (e.g. Angular) instead of walking the whole map.
- 5
Reaching a booth and interacting with it surfaces that topic's summit content — talks, product demos, and codelabs stand in for a traditional schedule.
- 6
NPC characters scattered through the world trigger dialogue on contact — lines, jokes, and hints in the style of a standard RPG.
- 7
Text chat and emoji let the player network directly with other attendees and Googlers inside the world, with no separate messaging app.
- 8
Exploring and completing actions unlocks virtual swag — a digital stand-in for the merch handed out at an in-person conference.
- 9
Beyond the content booths, the world also holds leisure and hangout spots — described as including mini-golf and fishing — where players can unwind and cross paths with others.
