Escape To Plastic Beach
- Brand
- Gorillaz
- Year
- 2010
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Web
Objective
Gorillaz needed to push Plastic Beach and its lead single "Superfast Jellyfish" to an audience well beyond their existing fanbase — casual browser and mobile gamers who might never buy an album but would play a game, as Matmi put it, without knowing "who Gorillaz are or what the story is about." A paid final chapter also gave the band's deluxe 'Experience' edition extra value and a direct revenue line beyond record sales.
Solution
Players work through three chapters that pick up where the band's music videos left off. The first two, free on gorillaz.com, are 2D/2.5D Flash levels: chase Murdoc's speedboat through the "Stylo" pursuit, then guide the group on a submarine run beneath the ocean toward Plastic Beach itself, dodging hazards along the way. Buy your way into Chapter Three — in-browser or as a standalone iPhone/iPad app — and the game switches to full 3D: eight levels of rising difficulty defending the island itself, scored to the album's soundtrack with the band's own voices narrating the action. Every run posts a score to a global leaderboard shared with the rest of the site's players — including, famously, entries left by the band members themselves — with a one-tap option to share your result back on gorillaz.com.
Results
The mobile release of Chapter Three hit #1 in the UK & Ireland App Store within its first week, and the game held an average session length of 12 minutes among an audience Matmi describes as previously unreachable through music marketing.
- 1
The player enters through gorillaz.com, where the first two chapters are free to play and the third is locked behind a paywall; creating an account saves scores to a global leaderboard.
- 2
Chapter 1 opens with footage from the "Stylo" video rendered in retro 2D, framing the goal: outrun the police and El Camino to reach Plastic Beach.
- 3
Chapter 1 alternates between two mechanics across three timed stages: a top-down driving segment where the player steers around obstacles to reach the finish before time runs out, and a first-person shooting segment where the player, as Cyborg Noodle, fires on a pursuing car until it wrecks.
- 4
Chapter 2 moves underwater, with the player guiding Murdoc while towing 2-D and Cyborg Noodle through maze-like levels, dodging jellyfish, mines, and sharks that cost health and time on contact, and racing a depleting oxygen meter across three arenas to reach bunker checkpoints before it runs out, ending at the submarine from "Stylo."
- 5
Advancing to chapter 3 requires paying (or entering a code from the deluxe album edition), which also unlocks a bonus MP3 of "Superfast Jellyfish."
- 6
Chapter 3 switches to full 3D flight, with the player piloting Murdoc's homemade "Doom Glider" over the island base, steering by tilting the device (or standard controls) and firing machine guns with a tap.
- 7
Across eight increasingly difficult levels, each built around either intercepting 2-D before he escapes the island or flying him back home, the player flies through ring gates while shooting down enemy vehicles, ghost ships, and other obstacles.
- 8
Once a level's objective is met, the game opens into free flight over the 3D island, letting the player collect bonuses and rack up extra points.
- 9
Each attempt's score posts to a global leaderboard alongside scores from the band members themselves, tied to the player's account on the site.
