Promoting a film with mobile games is not new to Indian cinema. However, so far, they have mostly been half-hearted attempts that have failed to give the experience of a real game. The makers of Sivakarthikeyan’s upcoming film, Hero, claim to have come up with a game that is unlike anything we have seen before. Named Play Hero, it is an Augmented Reality (AR) application.
Explaining how the game works, the founder and CEO of game development company Djinn Solutions, Mohit Mehra says, “It’s a treasure hunt type of game, made with top-of-the-class AR, which requires the player to go out and collect the Hero badges placed across the State. The in-built navigation system will help the players find these badges. Since it’s AR, the logo badges are placed in real environments. Once a badge is collected, players will have to wait for two hours to collect another from the same location.”
Powered by AugmoAR and conceptualised by BeatRoute, the game is now available for downloading across Tamil Nadu.
“The idea of launching a game came after the teaser release. At the end of the teaser, Sivakarthikeyan throws the logo and this got us thinking of game. We had been in touch with BeatRoute to incorporate AR in one of their projects and when they approached us with Hero, things fell in place,” says Mohit.
The virtual badges have been placed in more than 25,000 locations across the State. “Chennai alone has more than 1,200 places from where these badges can be collected. In less than a day, we reached close to 12,000 downloads, with 8,000 badges having been found across Tamil Nadu. The top ten players have already found more than a hundred badges each. The prizes will be announced soon for the person who collects the most number of badges,” adds Mohit.
Director PS Mithran says, “We wanted the promotions to be interactive because it creates a lot more interest. Even for Irumbuthirai, during the press-meet, we made all the phones in the entire building ring at the same time.”
The team, however, was clear that the game should not reveal what’s in store for the audience in Hero. “We don’t want it to act as a precursor to it. The game has certain elements that will get the players accustomed to Hero,” adds Mithran.
Producer Kotapadi J Rajesh says the team was keen on trying something new for Hero’s promotions. “Sivakarthikeyan has a massive fan base and we wanted to do something innovative. This is the kind of crowd that will welcome and enjoy it. We wanted a one-of-a-kind promotional activity that will involve people more. That’s the idea behind this game. There’s a phase two of the game in the works. We will keep coming up with other interesting promotions as well.”