Everyone knows what to expect at a trade show.

Booths as far as the eye can see. Free tote bags and stress balls. Trying to figure out who has the best free food and snag some without getting roped into a sales pitch. CoreLogic knew what they were up against and that they had to create a “wow” moment to stand out in the crowd.

The ask.

CoreLogic provides data and digital tools to the mortgage industry. It’s not sexy, but a new product that will actually digitize the digital mortgage process—it still involved a load of paper- work—would shake things up. They wanted to show how the current “technology” behind digital mortgages is actually pretty retro. What better way to display that than an arcade game?

The solve.

After mapping out several gameplay options to see what would communicate the paint points best, we landed on Mortgage Mountain. Our hero is Lender Larry, a mortgage underwriter who scales Mortgage Mountain while Hank the Yeti tries to thwart his efforts by hurling rolls of red tape and paperwork at him. Climb the mountain, close the loan. Grab the CoreLogic logo and you become invincible against the obstacles.

The result.

Two custom- coded games with messaging that hyped the product, wrapped in cabinets featuring on-theme artwork. A booth was the talk of the trade show floor. And a happy client.