Line Jumpman | Air Jordan 11 Legend Blue
Putting sneakerheads into a retro RPG game to re-live 90’s drop culture
Client
Nike / Jordan
Platform
Snapchat / Lens Studio
After the success of the game plai created for the Air Jordan Tatum 2, Jordan tapped plai to see if we could immerse sneakerheads into the experience of “The Line” campaign they created for the Jordan 11 Legend Blue.
plai worked alongside Jordan to develop the creative, design and game mechanics to bring Line Jumpman to life from brief to final delivery. Completing the game was rewarded IRL with exclusive early access to the AJ11 Legend Blue.
An RPG style game was the perfect compliment to the Legend Blue campaign films (which showed Jordan fans queuing for the sneakers on release day).
Players explore the line, interact with NPC sneakerheads, and complete side-quests with the goal of making it to the front of the line. The RPG format fortified the voice and messaging of the Legend Blue campaign whilst creating an engaging, shareable experience for players.
To boost shareability and engagement, each player got to star as the game’s main character. We used their camera to live capture their face and head motions then map them onto the virtual character. To ensure our game was representative for all players, we sampled the skin tone of the player’s face to create textures for the character’s head and hands.
Sharing and engagement time were levelled up again with a global leaderboard. Each completed mission added to a player’s score and standing on the leaderboard. You could see how far your friends had gone in the game and the only way to see your name atop the leaderboard was to complete all missions.
For the game’s design, we looked to the Legend Blue inspiration: the AJ11 Michael Jordan wore to the ‘96 All Star game. Line Jumpman’s design comes from that same era – game consoles of the late 90’s. The low poly characters, simplistic animation, and photographic-yet-low-resolution textures created a nostalgic yet fresh vibe for Line Jumpman. We also used the game as an opportunity to show off the Jordan 2024 winter collection, outfitting all players in the latest Jordan apparel.