Looped: A Customer Service Nightmare
View the case- Brand
- PolyAI
- Year
- 2024
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Simulation & Strategy
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Glenn Catteeuw
Objective
PolyAI sells voice AI for customer service and wanted to dramatize the pain it fixes: endless recorded prompts, phone menus that assume callers know the org chart, IVR systems that mishear you, and hold music that never ends. The Halloween stunt was built to make marketers and contact-center leaders recognize themselves in the joke, then pitch PolyAI's assistant — which automates over 50% of calls — as the way out.
Solution
Landing on looped.poly.ai, the player drops straight into a pixel-art top-down maze built to look like an abandoned call-center floor, no install or sign-up required. Rolling a smiley-face ball through the dark office, the player has to find the exit before the clock runs out, while recorded messages, hold music, and dead-end "answers" from the office's creepy residents keep throwing them off course. Along the way, prompts contrast each dead end with how the same moment would play out with a PolyAI assistant instead. A run ends when the player escapes (or doesn't), and the finishing time posts to a public leaderboard players can compare with others.
- 1
The game opens on a title screen presented by PolyAI, naming the game and daring the player to enter with the line "Enter if you dare..."
- 2
After a loading screen, the player takes control of a pixel smiley-face ball and rolls it through a dark, purple-lit abandoned call-center office, racing a timer that starts at 04:00.
- 3
The office is laid out as a maze of dead ends modeled on an old IVR phone menu, so the player repeatedly hits blocked paths and doubles back while searching for the exit.
- 4
While navigating, the player is beset by looping hold music and repeating, unhelpful menu prompts that play as a running sonic obstacle.
- 5
The maze is populated with creepy pixel-art characters encountered along the route and hazards to steer around, including a giant burning skull planted in the middle of the office.
- 6
A lit monitor in the office displays an in-game text message to the player as they pass.
- 7
Periodically the game contrasts the frustrating maze experience with hints showing how the same interaction would flow smoothly with a live PolyAI voice assistant.
- 8
Quitting mid-run brings up a confirmation prompt warning that all progress will be lost, with Yes/No options.
- 9
A failed run ends on a Game Over screen that traps the player "in the loop" and lets them restart, while a successful escape is timed and logged to a public leaderboard, which as of November 2024 topped out at 58, 59, and 60 seconds.
- 10
Outside the game itself, the brand extends the funnel with a "Play Looped" button on its blog, a "Request a demo" call to action, and a downloadable guide titled "Escape the customer service nightmare."
