Distant Lands – BMO
View in store- Brand
- Adventure Time
- Year
- 2020
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Mini-Games
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Active Theory
Objective
Cartoon Network and HBO Max needed to launch "Adventure Time: Distant Lands — BMO," the first of four specials in an anthology streaming exclusively on the platform. Instead of a trailer, the brief called for a way to actually hang out with BMO, letting the character's screen-for-a-face gimmick and easygoing personality carry the promotion. The site had to feel like the show itself, not an ad for it.
Solution
The player flies through space, straight into BMO's ship, and lands face to face with the character, who can be spun around and inspected from any angle while assorted objects drift nearby. Every action runs through BMO's face, which doubles as a retro desktop of clickable files and icons: open one to watch clips from the special, another to download a potato pie recipe. Two folders open mini-games — Potato Pong, a paddle match against an AI-controlled BMO, and Beat Maker, where the player builds a short track from samples, dials in the BPM, and shares the result. Poking around further pays off: BMO talks back with lip-synced voice lines, a lever on the ship triggers a jump to hyperspace, and dragging a file marked DONOTDRAGTOTRASH.dll into the trash sets off the show's signature glitchy white-wave effect.
- 1
The experience opens with a cinematic flythrough that carries the player from deep space into the interior of BMO's spaceship, ending in the cockpit as the ship glides through space in front of the character; the scene can be viewed from different angles, with objects floating around BMO.
- 2
BMO's face doubles as the screen and main menu: the player navigates a retro-computer interface displayed on it, and every other section of the site is reached from here.
- 3
Tapping through the interface lets the player "ask" BMO questions, triggering voice-line responses pulled from the show, with BMO's face cycling through dozens of lip-synced expressions to match.
- 4
The desktop screen holds draggable files the player can move around and drop into a trash can; one file, DONOTDRAGTOTRASH.dll, punishes that exact action by throwing the screen into a glitch effect with white scan-wave artifacts pulled from the show.
- 5
The cockpit also offers ship controls: pulling a lever sends the ship into hyperspace, triggering a jump animation.
- 6
From the interface the player can launch the special's video content, which breaks out of BMO's small screen to play full-screen in the browser.
- 7
A separate screen holds Potato Pong, an arcade pong variant where the player volleys a potato instead of a ball against an AI-controlled BMO, scoring points by keeping it in play.
- 8
Browsing BMO's interface also lets the player download a potato-pie recipe as a takeaway file.
- 9
The other screen is Beat Maker, where the player builds a custom track by picking sound samples and setting the tempo, then shares the finished beat with others.
