Halloween is creeping up again. For most people, that means pumpkins, costumes, and maybe a haunted house or two. For us at Immerstory, it also means thinking about how brands can do more than put a pumpkin in the lobby or send out yet another themed newsletter. Don't settle for the same old seasonal tricks that make you fade into the background. Use Halloween as your chance to truly stand out!
To explore how seasonal campaigns could benefit from XR, we built a prototype. The idea was to test what kind of experience could capture attention quickly, be fun in short bursts, and remain flexible enough to adapt across industries. Instead of talking about possibilities in the abstract, we wanted something tangible clients could try, measure, and imagine in their own context.
Designing for Accessibility and Versatility
Whenever we design an XR showcase, we start by considering accessibility. How can an experience be understood within seconds, enjoyed by a wide audience, and run in many environments? That was the guiding principle for our prototype. Out of this thinking came a sorting challenge: objects move toward the player, and they must decide quickly: pick up, sort, throw, or leave it.
The beauty of this mechanic is that it is intuitive, quick to learn, and universally applicable. It can be themed and rethemed for different industries and messages — whether you're demonstrating production processes, training fast decision-making, offering an immersive event attraction, or creating a gamified recruitment tool. The format delivers physical engagement without requiring a large playspace, and it produces measurable outcomes that can be tracked and compared.
A Halloween Twist: The Potion-Brewing Challenge
To meet the occasion, we gave our sorting concept a witchy makeover. Picture yourself inside a crooked old witch's house. A conveyor rattles to life, spilling out mushrooms, roots, pumpkins, fish, and slabs of meat. Your task is simple but relentless: toss the earthy ingredients into the bubbling green cauldron on the left, the slippery fish and meat into the blood-red cauldron on the right, and everything else - shoes, watering cans, stray tankards - straight into the pit.
The pit itself glows with an eerie green light, hinting at something unseen and dangerous below. The witch cackles as she oversees the chaos, mocking and praising in equal measure.
What starts off at a steady pace quickly escalates into a frenzy: more items, less time, rising tension. The simple task becomes a frantic, spooky challenge that's as fun to watch as it is to play.
To prove these are not just empty words, we've captured a demo video to show the experience in action.
A word of warning though: The demo video contains a jump scare at the end, viewers should be prepared for that!
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When time is up, players enter their name and see their ranking in a global high-score table. The competitive element adds excitement and ensures players want to try again or compare their results with friends and coworkers.
From the organizer's perspective, the experience comes with a dashboard. Administrators can see the actual high-score table and track KPIs such as number of users, total playtime, recurring users, and average playtime per user. Other useful KPIs which we have not implemented but could easily be added might include average score, peak play hours, session throughput (users per hour), and regional breakdowns for distributed campaigns. This makes the experience not only engaging for participants but also measurable and insightful for decision-makers.
We designed and built this experience entirely in-house. The application and dashboard can be fully customized to match your requirements, ensuring not only the game but also the data and reporting align with your business goals.
Who Benefits From This Format
While the witch house skin makes for a perfect Halloween showcase, the underlying mechanic is universal. Here are three areas where this format shines:
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Event agencies The witch-house-themed demo can serve as a turnkey immersive event attraction for Halloween parties, trade shows, or corporate events. It works as a ready-made highlight that draws a crowd, sparks friendly competition, and leaves participants with a fun story to share. As an interactive trade show booth element, it creates memorable engagement without requiring large-scale infrastructure.
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Employer branding & recruitment At career fairs or internal team events, the challenge becomes a playful icebreaker. While the Halloween theme is tongue-in-cheek, the format — simple rules, short sessions, visible scores — can easily be adapted around company culture or industry-specific metaphors. Used as a gamified recruitment tool or VR team-building activity, it helps employers stand out in a crowded field.
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Brand activation For consumer campaigns, the Halloween skin demonstrates how a simple mechanic can be re-themed for any brand story. The intensity curve and leaderboard keep people engaged long enough to create a lasting memory, while data capture through scoreboards and dashboards ensures measurable impact. As a gamified brand experience or XR brand activation, it blends entertainment and performance-driven storytelling.
The witch and pumpkin are placeholders — the experience itself is the canvas.
Accessible, Customizable, Cost-Sensitive
This Halloween-ready experience is available as a fixed-price XR package, ready to deploy. Customization like logos, colors, or thematic tweaks, can be added quickly for a low fee. That makes it a cost-sensitive but high-impact option, whether you want a ready-to-go Halloween attraction or a custom XR solution tailored to your message.
Below are two examples of how easily this experience can be tailored to your brand. The first shows how a logo or campaign title can be seamlessly integrated into the scene, turning a fun Halloween game into a lasting brand impression. The second demonstrates how in-game objects can be swapped for your own sector-specific items — here illustrated with a set of craftsman's tools. These are simple, low-effort adjustments that give the experience a personal touch, and they can be added for only a small extra cost.
Don't Fade Into the Background
Halloween is near. If you'd like to give your audience something more memorable than a discount code or a pumpkin in the lobby, now's the time to act! Let's talk about how immersive XR can make your seasonal campaign unforgettable.
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Choose the format: turnkey Halloween demo at a fixed price, or a customized version with low-cost branding and thematic tweaks.
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Pick the setting: run it on-site (trade fair, office, event) or as a portable setup.
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Confirm logistics: venue, hardware, and data capture preferences.
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We deliver: installation, support, and a branded dashboard with KPIs.
Ready to start? Get in touch!