Protect The Football at B-Dubs

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This new game from Buffalo Wild Wings aims to teach football fans how to make the most of this season. It's designed to virtually – and physically – get football fans to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant, by pitting the player as the B-Dubs Buffalo against a series of game-day distractions such as a crying baby, dirty laundry, bad reception on the TV and gym workouts with a Russell Simmons-esque instructor. The goal is to collect as many footballs as possible and make it to B-Dubs, the perfect place to enjoy football, wings and beer.

Play the game yourself here: www.protectthefootball.com

The homepage was created using a strict no gradient and solid shapes only illustration style. To make the welcome experience more fun Tumult Hype was used to create an intro animation featuring the beer and football illustrations.

Each week the top 50 scores are rewarded with a $50 gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings. Additionally, the top 25 mobile players win gift cards as well.

The design and illustration is something we have been calling "fake-bit." Its not quite modern gameday graphics, and its not quite retro 8-bit. The goal was to pay homage to the vintage games we all grew up with, but reflect the modern sharp design of the new Buffalo Wild Wings brand. Gamers and sports fans both love nostalgia and this game was meant to tap into that. At the same using the most modern technology and addictive game mechanics to bring it to life.

One of the things I think is most successful about this game is the fact you get so much control and fun out of using only one button to play. This was intentional to aid in mobile conversion to allow a simple tap to jump ability.

HTML5, Ruby on Rails and ImpactJS were used to create the game levels.

During gameplay billboards promoting a variety of reasons to "Get To B-Dubs" appear. The longer you play the game more interesting and odd the reasons get.

Say hello to the bad guys. For Buffalo Wild Wings the enemy is anything that keeps you from being at the restaurant while the game is on. Gameday distractions such as dirty laundry, crying babies, bad TV reception and a Russell Simmons-esque workout instructor were created to keep you from getting to B-Dubs.

Agency: space150, Minneapolis, MN
Agency website: space150.com http://space150.com
Creative Director: Tony Lintner
Senior Designer: Dustin Joyce
Copywriter: Thom Kordonowy
Illustrator: Dustin Joyce