PikPok creative
In my 3 and half years at PikPok I have been one busy boy. I’ve ideated, pre-produced, written & directed hundreds of videos, varying in scale, budget, audience & importance. For each game I’ve searched far and wide for inspiration and reference in every corner of popular culture. I’ve spent hours upon hours switching between wildly contrasting tones, with any given week giving me a new challenge every day; a Monday creating cozy vibes with cute cats, Tuesday building empathy for zombies, Wednesday weaving an epic viking tale, Thursday breaking the rules with a bunch of ducks, and Friday racing to the finish line on horseback. Below is a small fraction of these efforts, a culmination of the joy and creativity I had the privilege of bringing to life for so many fans of PikPok’s games.
Studio showreel
What better way to show of the PikPok’s insane range and talent, than with a showreel. The studio’s catalogue had been growing at pace by the time we sat down to work on this (to the point where, by the time we’d squared it away, we’d already announced several new games, and even released one), so we thought we ought to show off some of our best work to date. Because of the variety in our games, the aim of this piece was to show off that variety, in tone, visuals and gameplay. In further service of this, we spent time with the audio team to create a track that felt like it was pumping with PikPok energy, whilst remaining true to each game in their respective segments. It remains an effective recruitment tool.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy
Clusterduck
Clusterduck is a game about making the craziest possible ducks, pitting them against other ducks, and occasionally sacrificing them to the monstrous/omnipotent duck gods who happen to live in a giant hole. Feel free to read that again incase you thought you misread. The only rule with marketing Clusterduck is that there are no rules; the less an idea made sense, the more it made sense for us to use it. This had more or less been the rule of thumb throughout the game’s development, so we adopted the same ethos and pushed it further and further in the game’s marketing. A ducking good time if you ask me.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy, Copywriting
My Cat club
Throughout its development My Cat Club grew in a wide variety of different directions. It eventually ended up with a photography focus, alongside cat collecting and raising mechanics, but this was not always true for it throughout development. Part of my role in advertising the game throughout its early access was to figure out gameplay and thematic additions might appeal to the players. To the left you can see examples of some of my more experimental efforts, and above is tonally true to where the game ended up. Two factors remained consistent thorughout; collecting different cats and ensuring the cuteness was always dialled to 11.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy, Copywriting
Shatter: remastered
I wasn’t at PikPok for the original Shatter, but I was one of the driving forces for the marketing of its console and PC remaster. We developed 3 trailers for the title, each escalating in excitement and number of new features announced. We really wanted to lean into the fact that this was a remaster of the beloved original, with all the trimmings you’d expect from a complete overhaul. The game also boasts a remastered version of the soundtrack, so we made sure to select fan favourite tracks to set the trailers to. Shatter: Remastered Deluxe became such a success it was later picked up by Netflix as a part of their premium mobile games service.
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy, Copywriting
VIKING gods
GET READY TO RAGNAROK! Viking Gods was PikPok’s attempt at revitalising the mobile clicker genre. Though the title wasn’t a massive success and therefore didn’t have a very long marketing run, we still had a whole lot of fun with what we did make. I’m a bit of a geek for anything mythological, so this was especially awesome for me. The approach here was to really lean into that Saturday morning cartoon vibe, especially with some of the custom animation we did for the trailer. Once again the audio team came in clutch with an absolutely phenomenal theme song which we used in a number of ways, both in the trailer and in our smaller ads (left).
My role in this project:
Concept, Direction, Pre-Production, Strategy, Copywriting
Key contributors:
Robin Wilson-Davey, Renee Cotton, Michael Corlett, Ali Paul, Will Littlejohn, Harriet Prebble, Jayde Marter, Jason Erskine, Broghan Blackshaw, Dmitry Novikov & the PikPok team.
