Shopper Hopper
Open the game- Brand
- Year
- 2022
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Phantom
Objective
For Black Friday 2022, Google Store wanted its biggest shopping moment of the year to do more than end at checkout. Shopper Hopper was built as a surprise-and-delight follow-up for buyers, keeping Google Store top of mind after the sale was already made. The same mechanic was later reused to engage a B2B audience in MENA, swapping in-game pickups for Google's business products.
Solution
Players open a link or scan a QR code on their phone, land on an arcade-style menu, and pick PHONE or ARCADE mode. From there the whole game is one tap: Hoppy runs on his own down an isometric voxel shopping street, and tapping makes him jump. The player dodges pedestrians, traffic cones, lampposts, sale signs, and workers carrying sheets of glass, while grabbing coffee cups and Google Store bags along the way. One collision ends the run and shows the final score with a ranking against other players in the same country and worldwide. Buyers who received the cardboard arcade cabinet by mail could assemble it, slot their phone inside, and play the same run on a tabletop machine.
Results
Shopper Hopper drew more than 3,000 players across 90 countries, with an average session of over five minutes.
- 1
The player opens shopperhopper.withgoogle.com from a link or a QR code (including one on a cardboard arcade cabinet mailed with a Black Friday order) directly in a mobile browser, with nothing to install. A title screen in an arcade-cabinet style introduces the voxel character Hoppy.
- 2
From the main menu the player selects "PLAY GAME" and then chooses a mode: "PHONE" to play handheld, or "ARCADE" to assemble the mailed cardboard mini-cabinet and slot the phone into it as a tabletop display.
- 3
The run itself is an endless runner: Hoppy advances automatically down an isometric voxel shopping street, and the player's only input is a tap to jump, with no other directional control.
- 4
The player times jumps to clear street obstacles such as crowds of shoppers, traffic cones, lampposts, sale signage, and workers carrying a large pane of glass.
- 5
Two pickups appear along the route: floating coffee cups grant a temporary bonus (reported variously as brief invincibility or a speed boost), while Google Store bags add to the score.
- 6
The score climbs for as long as the player keeps running, with the goal of covering the greatest distance.
- 7
Any collision ends the run immediately and brings up a Game Over screen showing the final score.
- 8
The player's result is ranked on a leaderboard split by country and by world, and they can start a new run from there.
