Blend is an interactive content studio so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to create a piece of interactive content to market ourselves. We wanted our audience to learn about us and how we can help in a fun and engaging way.

We wanted to show how gamified content can be used as a marketing tool as well as an eLearning one. At Blend we are always exploring new ways interactive content can engage audiences in a more effective way.

The objective of this piece was to create a personalised video game experience for the user, whilst at the same time showing Blend’s strengths in interactive eLearning design and storytelling.

For us creating projects like the Content Detectives is a huge reason why we starrted Blend in the first place. We feel eLearning and other forms of interactive content can be as immersive and engaging as our favourite video games and the Content Detectives was our attempt at illustrating this. 

Alongside our mission of creating education, in particular, soft skills training accessible to all young people around the world through eLearning (which we have tried to show through Project ReLearn); our other motivation is to create engaging gamified content such as the Content Detectives.

We opted for a nostalgically themed route and were influenced by many of our childhood favourite video games.

Sam and Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle and other Lucas Arts point and click adventure classics were inspirational, plus film noir cinema was also an influence.

We built branched scenarios with two detectives to choose from and non-linear puzzles that required searching around crime scenes to solve clues for the tongue-in-cheek narrative.

We built 3D sets, character animation and even animated cutscenes to drive the narrative, as well as immersive sound design and music.

The visuals and UX was created through Articulate Storyline and Cinema4D and Adobe Creative Suite of programs.

We were really proud that 96% of users would recommend or share Content Detectives compared to traditional non-interactive content and that 81% of respondents said that interactive content is more effective than static content in capturing consumers’ attention.