Flash Thunder

Promotional site highlighting life in a submarine with the Australian Navy. The level of detail is quite amazing, with high production values – the whole site is set from a side profile cut open view of a Collins Class submarine. You see how submarine operations are handled by specific people and what roles they have. Lots of video and small mini games demonstrate certain tasks – emptying the ballast tanks, or identifying radar contacts and so on. A very immersive experience, full of video and sounds – it also looks great, with loads of really nice touches – icons, animation and so on – great to see such a well polished production.

Created by Visual Jazz.

Website here…

Interesting site promoting Verbatim memory. Characters that are made up from memory sticks fight each other in an arena, you can answer a series of questions, each correct answer gives you more memory – in the end creating your character – which you can then use to fight other characters. All in slick 3D, the site is great fun to use, with loads of nice animations and interactivity. Pretty unusual and engaging way of promoting a somewhat boring product!

Created by Roxik, who created Pictaps and developed the amazing Ecodazoo.

Website here…

Website with a great little game which warns you not to ‘touch’ the bottle, promoting from what I can tell a new deoderant. When you click on the bottle it explodes, you then have 5 minutes to put it back together via an ingenious game, similar to the recent 3d game for Pearl Jam. By clicking and dragging a peice of the bottle you can rotate around and find the place it should be in. Really like the intro and the section before you click on the bottle, nice art direction and fantastic execution, great fun.

Created by GrupoW and Papervision creator’s new agency HelloEnjoy.

Site here…

Latest Axe promotional site - Muchas Maracas, in the German / Austrian territory. Really fun series of games / video content which features the Axe stable of scantily clad women, with full screen high quality footage. The games are loosly based on the ‘Muchas Maracas’ concept seen in the latest Axe commercials, one game asks you to hit the cursor keys in time with a beat, another to press the keyboard on the left/right side while a girl is sprayed with a water pistol! Nothing new but simple, and fun – I think the target audience will like it!

Website here…

Incredible game ‘Windosill’. Featuring several puzzle games that involve you getting your ‘character’ through rooms, each with small interactive games. Amazingly detailed and crafted, you are dropped into a world of 3d objects that you can drag around and play with, everything feels very tactile and interactive. For example you can drag the small part of the ‘i’ in windosill and place it into the small hole in the wall to get to the next room. You can play the first half for free online to complete the game you have to play $3. Really cool…

Created by Patrick Smith, Vectorpark.

Website here…

Fantastic site promoting the Honda FIT. Very cool interface, with a the car centre stage, you click and drag the car around and the thumbnails which float around the car in 3D space move so you can select them. Each section features something different, some with little games or images, each highlighting different features of the car. It’s a really fun colourful site, with a really nice use of 3D – which is followed through to the information sections – which is actually quite good fun. I like that you have to explore to get to the various sections – as they are fun you want to see most of them. Love the floating thumbnails and the great feeling of depth in the site, awesome.

Created by Grip Limited.

Website here…

Interesting game where you direct particles to fill sound bars – making a nice melody along the way. Variety of different levels, nice idea which is crafted well in Flash.

By Cipher Prime.

Website here…

I remember seeing the first version of this site a while back and being very impressed, now v2 is out and it is awesome. Essentially it’s Coen Grift’s portfolio - navigating via a drag interface, zoom in and out with the mouse scroller, you can view the basic information such as biography, contact, etc, but the most interesting part of the site is the little games and puzzles you discover in the ‘explore’ mode. It is a huge canvas - 1000 megapixels - full of great illustrations and characters. Really great attention to detail and very stylish, you really feel that he is not restraining himself and it’s so refreshing to see a totally ‘different’ portfolio. Nicely coded and really intuitive, fantastic!

Site here…

Immersive site, open only from 6 PM to 6 AM, set in a haunted hotel and presented in a first person perspective. The story starts as you awaken and try to escape the hotel, you must complete a series of tasks to get out. These tasks range from clicking on doorways whilst navigating the hotel’s hallways to taking pictures of a ‘thing’ to blind it, to trying not to wake the baby from hell. It all has high production value and is very well crafted, from the sound design to the animation to the video. I particularly like the 3d video and the interactivity (although limited) whilst moving through the hotel, the movement it provides feels relatively realistic.

Its quite intriguing as it’s all for Doritos, under the guise of the ‘Snack Strong Productions’, who just make nice sites and games like this one. There is really little branding involved – just the concept that Doritos the brand is providing enjoyable experiences like ‘The Quest’ that was earlier in 2008.

Made by Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the people behind the famous ‘Milkatraz’ game that was so popular last year.

Site here…

Viral site for a new NFS game, viewers are driven to the url which is seen at the end of video banners. Greeted by a looping video apparently from a security camera, there are no hints as to what can be done. By clicking on certain areas of the site i.e. the lightswitch, you trigger events and unveil clues. Interesting way of teasing the audience, I first thought it was for a new film release, but after a quick search many forum posts have ‘solved’ the mystery. It always amazes me how often you present a puzzle and how people will spend an amazing amount of time and trouble to find the answer, check out this page. Nice idea and nicely executed.

Site here…

Fantastic website for singer/songwriter Julian Velard. You are free to explore his mind and play puzzles, reveal music and experience his world. Incredibly addictive you want to explore every area, and discover all the scenes, it draws you in and of course the background music is his own. Great way of keeping the audience captive and providing an enjoyable way of promoting yourself. I played on this for over half an hour and loved it, really well designed and executed was a joy to play with.

Crafted by the amazing WEFAIL.

Website here…

Another great Japanese website, this time promoting the Smart car in Japan. In 3d you can design and drive your own Smart car, the great thing about the driving part is the way it is thought out. Presented in a ‘join the dots’ fashion, you drive your car from point to point, when completed the camera zooms out to reveal the picture you have just made, you can then download it or try again. There are several puzzles to complete and you get points to unlock design parts for your car. This is all set in a fun, easy to use look and feel, just a fun well thought out and executed site. Similar in many ways to the Red Bull Flightlab.

Created by CMD9.

Website here…