Attack Of The Metallic Menace
View the case- Brand
- The Real Cost
- Year
- 2023
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- AR & VR
- Agency
- Neo-Pangea
Objective
The FDA's The Real Cost campaign set out to reach the 2.1 million U.S. teens who vape with an anti-vaping message that wouldn't read as a health warning. Fandom, partnering with the campaign for a second year, wanted to meet that audience on its own turf: the country's biggest fan convention, and their phones.
Solution
Players point their phone camera at the room in front of them and drop a ten-foot kaiju built from scrap metal — the Metallic Menace — right into their own space, no app download required. From there it's a first-person AR shooter: the monster hurls jagged metal shards at the player, who fires back while dodging the incoming debris to keep their own health bar intact. A physical statue of the monster stood in the Interactive Zone at San Diego Comic-Con for photos, but the game itself ran entirely in the mobile browser, with levels, a chargeable laser weapon, and a running score. After each round players type in their name to post a result to a shared leaderboard, competing against other convention-goers, visiting gaming influencers, and anyone playing the same link from home.
- 1
Players open the game via a QR code at the event or a direct link, landing on a title screen with PLAY and LEADERBOARD buttons and links to Terms of Service and Privacy Policy; opening it inside a social app's built-in browser instead shows a prompt to switch to Safari or Chrome to play in AR.
- 2
A permissions screen asks for camera and motion-sensor access to enable AR; declining leads to a dead-end screen stating motion permissions are required, with only a refresh option to retry.
- 3
A short tutorial walks through animated hand-gesture screens for aiming and firing, paged with NEXT and SKIP controls, and closes with a readiness prompt before the AR session begins.
- 4
Players scan their physical surroundings with the phone camera to find a surface, then tap to place a battle arena; the antagonist — a ten-meter kaiju built from metal — materializes at full scale directly in the camera feed, standing in the real environment with no overlay.
- 5
A level-start screen brings up the battle HUD (pause button, player and monster health bars, score, level number) and a name plate announcing the incoming boss, counting down before the fight activates. Players then aim by turning the phone and fire at the monster, chipping down its health bar with each hit, while the monster periodically charges and hurls three-dimensional metal shards back at the player; a chargeable 'Charge Laser' shot can interrupt an incoming attack.
- 6
Defeating a boss shows a 'You defeated X!' message, then the score carries into a new, higher-numbered level with the same name plate announcing the next boss — each named for a toxic metal, such as nickel, chromium, or lead. Between fights the game inserts campaign fact cards, e.g. that vaping can mean inhaling toxic metals like nickel, chromium, and lead, linking to further Real Cost materials.
- 7
A pause button, available throughout combat, opens a menu with RESUME, HOW TO PLAY, and QUIT, the last confirmed via RETURN HOME or NOT NOW.
- 8
If the player's health runs out, a TRY AGAIN screen offers to restart the run.
- 9
At run's end, players enter a name (3-10 characters) to submit their score, receive a shareable result card ('I SCORED X POINTS IN THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN') with Share Results, leaderboard, and Play Again options, and can compare their score against other players, including invited gaming influencers, on the leaderboard.
- 10
At the Comic-Con activation, the AR game is paired with a ten-foot physical statue of the monster in an Interactive Zone, which event visitors photograph with and also use to launch into the game.
