Games and interactive experiences
Challenges, choices, feedback and progress turn a subject into something a person can act on, instead of a page they read or a video they sit through.
Make a choice, see what it does
The mechanic is simple to state and hard to do well: a person decides, the world responds, and they decide again. PTR builds that loop for training, brand activations and learning, in the browser, on a phone or in a headset.
Games follow the same Fast Builds timeline as everything else: rapid prototypes from two business days, full builds up to eight working weeks.
What you bring, what you get
You bring a subject people struggle to stay with. PTR brings the building blocks that make them act on it.
A subject, turned into something people act on
Scoring or progress, branching choices with visible consequences, timed challenges, and simple competitive or cooperative mechanics: these are the blocks, and the brief decides which ones the subject needs.
What comes back is a working game your people can play in the first sprint, then a finished build with the mechanics tuned to how they actually played it.
The building blocks
A token on a track, a character crossing obstacles, a line of dialogue chosen from tiles: three of the mechanics, tested in the studio.
You can see it working before anything is measured
Someone who is playing leans in, takes the option they are not sure about, and asks to go again. That happens in a room in the first sprint, well before a number can say it.
It reads the other way just as clearly. The moment people stop leaning in is the moment worth rebuilding, and that is what the tuning round is for.
Play in the browser, nothing to install
PTR's interactive builds are live on Labs Demos. Open them on a phone or laptop.
Meet the runner
The studio's own character, drawn as a chibi Simon, cup in hand. Standing, then two frames of the run cycle that carry a character across a screen.
"Many of us have likely found ourselves gazing out of a window during a training session, questioning the relevance of what we are learning. Traditional training methods can sometimes feel disconnected from real-life applications, leading to disengagement and a lack of tangible outcomes."
Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution. Let's be prepared, Global Best Practice Group, August 2024
Carked It!: a card game about dying
Play as a way into the conversation people avoid most. A tabletop game from The Ageing Revolution, the first business Simon Lowe and Leonie Sanderson founded.
A 2024 Australian Good Design Award
Carked It! is a tabletop game about death and dying. It won a 2024 Australian Good Design Award for Social Impact, and it uses play to get a table of people talking about the one subject nobody wants to open.
It is not a Fast Build; it is the founders' earlier work, and the reason PTR treats a game as a serious way to teach. The full story of Carked It!
Cook It: a VR kitchen for New York classrooms
Client work rather than a Fast Build: a gamified VR cooking simulation PTR built with FoodStream Network to make food and nutrition education hands-on.
The classroom becomes a kitchen
Students prepare meals and explore the science and stories behind their food instead of sitting through a lecture. In FoodStream Network's own evaluation of one classroom sample, 9 of 12 students actively chose to take part.
The full account is in the Cook It case study.
Multiplayer, and the engineering behind it
When more than one person plays, every screen has to agree on what just happened. That is a build problem PTR solves in the studio before it reaches a room.
Play on the phone, out in the world
The same mechanics on a phone, layered over a park, a laneway or a workshop, so the place itself becomes the board.
Higher ground
More outdoor boards: a hill with kites, and a maze through steel sculptures.
Brief, Build, Test, Refine, Ship
A working game to play at the end of every step.
Sprints, not a reveal
Brief defines what the game has to teach and who plays it. Build turns the mechanic into something playable. Test puts it in front of the people who matter. Refine tunes what they showed you. Ship deploys it and keeps improving it.
The five steps in detail are on the Fast Builds page.
Rhythm and timing, not just movement
A game does not have to be physical to be interactive: a keyboard, a cue and a beat to hit are enough.
Where to go next
Games sit beside events, case studies and AI practice partners in PTR's work.
Have an idea for a game or interactive piece?
Sources
The award and the evaluation named above, with where to read them.
Carked It!: a card game about life, death and beyond
The award record for the game, credited to The Ageing Revolution.
Interactive Learning Tools: Food Education Case Study
The classroom evaluation behind the 9 of 12 figure for Cook It.
