Hardware
- Brand
- Various Production
- Year
- 2014
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- App
- Agency
- Code Computerlove
Objective
Various Production built the hardware app to launch their release without a conventional rollout: rather than just streaming the tracks, they gave listeners something to actively work through, holding back exclusive music and video as the reward for that effort.
Solution
Open the free hardware app on iPad and you're dropped into a dark, retrofuturist world built around themes of war, isolation and runaway technology. Instead of a track list, you're faced with a series of audiovisual puzzles — you look, listen and work through on-screen clues to crack each one. Solve a puzzle and it unlocks a payoff: an exclusive hardware track or video you can't get anywhere else. You move through the puzzles at your own pace, building up a personal stash of unlocked music and footage as you clear them.
- 1
The player installs the free iPad app for Various Production's "hardware" and enters a retrofuturist shell built around themes of war, isolation, and anxiety about technology.
- 2
The core activity is opening audiovisual puzzles, where sound and image work together as the material of each puzzle rather than as separate layers of presentation.
- 3
Solving a puzzle unlocks exclusive project content — music tracks and video not available on the standard release — so progress through the app is measured in content unlocked rather than points or levels.
