Our creative idea was to bring the Kentucky Buckets to life by creating a playable football game that put the user in charge of calling plays for the Kentucky Buckets. The experience featured simple game play, with different animations for each of the different plays the user could choose. The ultimate goal of the game was to choose the right succession of plays that could score a touchdown drive. The simple nature of the game also allowed us to easily port the game to different social platforms, giving the idea the most scale possible. As a result, we were able to create the first-ever playable football game not only on Instagram, but on Facebook Canvas as well.

The game’s launch was carefully timed to occur after the end of the regular football season but before the playoffs and Super Bowl. This is also the time when fantasy football ends, so the game was uniquely positioned to give football fans something new to engage with during the lull in football action.

Users are first presented with a collage of individual Instagram posts depicting a football field. In the caption of the starting image, they are given two play options, represented by two additional Instagram accounts. By clicking on either play, they are taken to that Instagram account where an animation will show the chosen play unfold. From there, they can choose from yet another set of plays in the caption of that post. The more you play, the more fun and surprising the animations become. The game continues in this way until the user scores a touchdown.

On Instagram, over a third of users finished the experience, while on Facebook the game reached over 4.4 million people with an average view time exceeding one minute.