Wimbledon, The Virtual Hill
Summary
Wimbledon is one of the most iconic tennis sporting events in history, and when in 2021 limited our livelihoods, so was Henman Hill - the perfect viewing point for the tournament. Alongside Wasserman agency, Solarflare Studios with me at the helm of Creative Direction as well as Product, World and Asset design turned the hill into a digital WebGL metaverse, for visitors to watch online, interact and win prizes all in a bespoke built 3D environment. The success recreated the true buzz of the spirit, and returned for a second year even more gamified, explorable to capture the essence of the sport and atmosphere.
Service | Creative Direction, Ideation, Project Management, Product Design, Game UX/UI & Mechanics, Animation, Illustration, Copy & Storytelling
The initial year developed an interactive social experience featuring avatars, emojis, strawberry costumes and mullets. Creating an unforgettable digital experience to keep fans connected and feeling the Championship spirit. We then followed it up by placing you in the centre of Wimbledon’s biggest crowd in 2022, taking the interactive social experience to the next level to create an unforgettable digital experience - all within browsers.
I lead and worked extremely closely with our team, managing 3D designers for the world and models, developers for the frontend beautifying and backend gamifying to keep it smooth and music technicians for all the SFX and soundtrack to the experience. From the design side, did a lot of the ideation, character creation & development, texturing work, whilst also taking charge of the game flow UX/UI, from sign up, customising, quest lines, shop, prize and quiz mechanics and pleeeenty more (even a little bit of voice, music and sound effect direction thrown in their too!)
I really took this project as my own, and got to gain a lot of experience as not just a designer, but a leader and project manager for this.
The next level of browser-based gaming.
We took 360 and drone photos of the hill and the Hill surroundings to bring to life a perfect replica into a virtual world. Our players could move around and explore, embark on daily missions and quests, hunt for more collectibles, take part in quizzes. Tonnes.
We went wild with the styling. With our customisable avatars and patches, inclusive skin variations – a big hit with the Vitiligo community – unlockable items and wearables, our players could get as creative as they liked and were encouraged to share up a storm on socials with how the used what they unlocked. I had a big part in pushing a lot of over the top ideas and variations, because why not?! We’re in a virtual space that can allow people to have some exciting freedom, and that exactly embodies what people do on the real hill with their amazing outfits! We even featured some IRL legends too.
You even had the ability to explore with your friends, take a selfie or quiz together, and even have a chance to ‘meet’ one of most famous British Champion stars, Andy Murray on the Mound.
Even accessible on Mobile Safari?! Yes.
There was a huge amount to account for when it came to flow and depth with this project, and with this much going on it of course needed to do it’s best to be simple yet effective. Especially that all this had to be able to be supported on browsers, and predominantly for a mobile experience, which we’d discovered from the first hill that was our prime user base. Creating something as hefty in WebGL for internet browsers already hits you hard with data/connection limitations, various browser hiccups, and work for even the oldest of iPhones – looking at you 5’s. It all all needed to be QA’d like crazy. Textures and models optimized to the high heavens. All whilst being able to be a real-time live multiplayer experience.
With all that taken into account, we also needed to make sure each step guided the user nicely. You had tutorials for the non-tech savvy on how to navigate the world, enjoy the action with friends, and win big prizes for Wimbledon – even tickets for the following year! It had to be incredibly well-orientated without overwhelming, which, from the below, you can imagine wasn’t the easiest task. But making sure I planned things well, myself and the devs smashed through this monster of a task.
It was an absolute beast of a project. With only 5 weeks for Virtual Hill 1.0, and less than 5 months to pull off this entirety of 2.0 from scratch was an impressive effort all round to say the least, but with the incredible team behind me and the insane payoff we had by the end of this… I wouldn’t have had it any other way. And the stats, publicity mentions and various awards won by each experience speak for themselves.
FEATURES & AWARDS: Leaders In Sport 2022, Marcomm News, The Voice Online, Daily Mail, Evening Standard, and at the physical AELTC Henman Hill.
You can also check out the first years success overview video here!