Crafting a No.1 game for the whole family

Alphaputt is that beautiful place where typography meets crazy golf. As you putt your way through the alphabet, you can complete your own wordy course, challenge your friends and share your best shots. Just watch out for the UFOs. And the vacuum cleaners.

From our starting point of "mini-golf meets snakes and ladders" we spent months sketching, prototyping, playtesting and iterating to arrive at a decidedly more refined and focused concept — a concept that celebrates one of our true loves; "typographic mini-golf". This gave us the necessary design constraints and focus to move from concept to production.

Pouring our passion for beautiful typography into the project, we designed visually rich artworks to look as good in print as they do in the game. This resulted in a suite of typographic dioramas that could stand alone as mini moving artworks in their own right. We drew inspiration from everywhere – film, pop culture, sports — and a heavy dose of childhood nostalgia.

With only a tiny budget left to promote the game, we focused on creating few assets and maximising their reach. Our promotional video was featured by Instagram, WeTransfer and Apple, which helped drive awareness. Connecting with the creative community also got us to 100k+ views across various social channels. Finally, we put out a 'Making Of' video in partnership with Made by Folk, as well as a podcast and framed prints for their online shop.

Backing Movember – a men’s health charity – we created a bespoke M and donated 100% of the game sales for November 2019 to the charity. The stubbly golf course has become a permanent feature of the game, continuing to raise awareness for Movember.

In conversations with London Games Festival leading up to the annual event, we decided to create three new letters for Alphaputt. L for London, G for Games and F for Festival, to promote both the game and the festival. The letters were an instant hit with LGF and were made into 5x5 meter prints to cover the height of Somerset House’s walls.

Kicking off the festival with a series of interviews, our Creative Director Matt talked to Alex Calvin on the Founders Stage. And with 100,000 visitors, the festival was a great success. Even the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, popped his head in.