In all my time at ESG, Star Trek Lower Decks: The Badgey Directive was one of my favorite projects to work on. I provided prelaunch and worldwide launch screenshots, Big Catch Strategy video concepts, and oversaw the video production on a massive outsourcing operation for the title.

World Wide Launch Store Screenshots

Store Screenshots

The challenge to all marketing assets (from storefront assets to network creatives) is soft-launch testing, pre-world wide. Before world-wide, the art assets in game, from gameplay to ui to character models, are in constant flux. What was approved assets last week will be out-dated by this week. In the screenshots below you can see the early concepts for STLD:TBD before the assets were “locked in”. The goal for all soft-launch testing is, of course, to get as many users into the game as possible, in order to test both the creatives and the game itself!

Just like in Cheech and Chong: Bud Farm Idle Tycoon; the main focus of these screenshots were simply to highlight the main game features (and since this is a very popular IP, the included characters.)

Soft Launch Store Screenshots

Thanks to Soft Launch testing, the marketing team had a fair idea what needed to change in both ad network creatives and the store screenshots. Not only did we update the store with the current game art; we put a larger emphasis on the “gameplay promise” and created more idealized screenshots.

Apple “App of the Day” Feature Image

One of the perks to working on a big IP is how willing Apple and Google Play are to feature the game in their stores. Star Trek Lower Decks: The Badgey Directive was given multiple features; and each feature we needed to update the art. This is just one of the many features, using the art from the game’s intro. The trick to feature art is it must be flexible; designed in such a way to be cropped and have text overlays without losing the main focus.

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Self Expression Video

This “Self Expression” ad was one of my favorite ads to pitch and create. Though the gameplay has no “expression” mechanics (such as dress-up or even character selection) I felt we could lean on the show’s distinct characters and imagine how they would play the game.

The screenshots and apple feature were created using Animate and Photoshop; the video was created using After Effects and Premier Pro.