Mr. Right is a romantic comedy from the talented minds of Powderkeg Media, Paul Feig's digital production company founded specifically to elevate filmmakers from underrepresented communities.
Through your decisions and interactions, Mr. Right gives players the power to influence the personality of Rob (played by Sam Asghari), the robot who needs a personality, while helping Sophia (Aimee Carrero) navigate her messy love life. With 5 personalities and 17 possible endings, Type/Code was tasked with taking the story from concept to design to launch, defining how the user interacts with the characters and how their decisions affect the outcome of the story.
Mr. Right is a marriage of story and interactivity, crafted through close collaboration with the film’s writer, director, and executive producers at Powderkeg Media.
Together, we brainstormed ideas for how and when to engage the user with interactive moments as they move through the story, and developed a series of interactions that felt both actionable for the user and appropriate for the plotline. By designing the user experience and developing the script in tandem, we were able to chart out the story in a way that weaves expository, exploratory, major decisions, minor-decisions, and interactive moments together into a game-like experience that builds upon itself as the user progresses.
The user experience is a mix of passive viewing as the player watches compelling scenes play out, and active decision making through the lens of the protagonist's phone as she texts, video chats, snaps photos of, and even creates a social media profile for Rob the robot. This linear narrative experience gives users an idea of time and setting through the use of playful "chapter screens," while game-like elements such as an hourly countdown and dashboard give users a sense of progression through the story.
Architecting each of these moments into predictable, modular units - both in the way the app was designed and in how it was built - we were able to create a game framework in which we could reuse, shuffle, repurpose, and build upon each moment. This approach allowed us to stay nimble as changes occurred to the script and production plan, and to evaluate and adapt the user experience as needed to find the right rhythm, pacing, and scaffolding for the story and game play.
Built on Google's Flutter framework and integrated with Unity, our tech stack allowed us to cross-publish to iOS and Android while infusing the story with engaging character interactions through augmented reality. Sam Asghari (AKA “Rob the Robot”) was captured on a volumetric stage and rendered in 3D by Evercoast and streamed through the Mr. Right app to the user’s device, where they influence the story outcomes by manipulating him in their own environment.
Drawing on inspiration from Japanese dating sims, vaporwave, and retro gaming interfaces, our goal was to create a look that is both fresh and nostalgic at the same time. Brutalist type and lo-fi iconography that act as subtle nods to 8-bit computer graphics are balanced with softer elements like gradients and neon pastels, lending an air of vibrancy and approachability for the post-social media generation. The UI system feels both realistic and fantastical for a story placed in the near-future where much of the action unfolds through a simulation of the protagonist's phone.
Great storyline and top notch casting~ obsessed with Rob!!! 10/10 😍🥰😻— App Store Review