Ramen Wars
View the results- Brand
- BOON Ramen
- Year
- 2024
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Merci-Michel
Objective
KPR wanted to pull its Web3 metaverse brand and its fictional BOON Ramen chain out of the crypto niche and in front of a mainstream audience that had no wallet and no blockchain experience. The three-week push needed to re-energize KPR's existing community and give BOON Ramen a public launch moment tied to its real-world pop-up dinners with chef Esther Choi, while also selling in-game NFT power-ups to ordinary credit-card shoppers.
Solution
Players sign in with just an email or Google account and register as a citizen of Prisma City, KPR's fictional metaverse setting — no wallet required. From there they follow a chapter-by-chapter mystery alongside celebrity chef Esther Choi, helping her track down who contaminated the ingredients for the grand opening of her new chain, BOON Ramen. Clearing each chapter opens up more of an illustrated city map, unlocking new quests, ingredients, and bigger prize pools. Between story beats, players build their own bowls from the unlocked ingredients in a mix-and-match ramen builder with millions of possible combinations, and can take on an optional side challenge, Pamp's Portal, for extra rewards. Prizes and collectibles land automatically in the player's account, and anyone in a hurry can pay by credit card for Chibi-Go power-ups that speed up progress and improve their odds in the prize draws.
Results
Within about three weeks of its late-January 2024 launch, Ramen Wars had onboarded more than 8,000 unique players and sold over 5,500 Chibi-Go power-ups.
- 1
The player opens the browser game through a loading screen, then an illustrated intro screen introduces Prisma City and chef Esther Choi's mission, with an option to continue as a guest. Signing in instead with an email or Google account creates a crypto wallet in the background, and the player registers a "citizenship passport" that tracks progress through the campaign.
- 2
A branded transition leads into an illustrated cutscene establishing the domed city of Prisma City, which resolves into an isometric map of the island rising into view.
- 3
A tutorial dialogue with chef Esther Choi explains the collection goal — gathering ingredients for ramen — and introduces the Chibi-Go helper: clicking a lit-up location on the map sends it out, and after a wait it returns with a chest of ingredients.
- 4
A persistent HUD tracks the current chapter, an XP progress bar, and a token counter.
- 5
Players pan and zoom the city map, hovering to light up open districts before clicking one to open its location screen, which shows lore, a rotating list of obtainable ingredients, and a dispatch bar with a named Chibi-Go, charge slots, and a travel timer.
- 6
Once the timer runs out, the Chibi-Go returns with a chest of ingredients that add to the player's stock and chapter XP; players can also buy extra Chibi-Go charges with a credit card to run more expeditions at once.
- 7
Collected ingredients feed a ramen builder where players combine them into their own bowl, from a pool advertised as millions of possible combinations.
- 8
Progress is also marked by collectible NFTs airdropped automatically into the player's account, and players can optionally take on Pamp's Portal, a harder side challenge.
- 9
Completing a chapter unlocks a new part of the map and a bigger prize pool, with pools grouped across chapter pairs and the whole campaign running for a few weeks; outside the game, a linked Galxe campaign offers extra prize draw entries for following and sharing on social media.
- 10
The final chapter resolves the contaminated-ingredients mystery, opens the BOON Ramen HQ, and closes the campaign with prize draws, reserving the grand prizes for players who finished every chapter.
