Case Study: Tray Racers!
The game:
Tray Racers!, from Bit Loom Games, is a casual party racing game set across an adorable post-apocalyptic world, released on PC and Nintendo Switch in April 2023.
The campaign:
For this campaign, we worked to deliver excellent PR and content creator results from the reveal through launch, alongside extensive consultation on community strategy and execution.
We announced Tray Racers! in June 2022, obtaining a slot on the GamesRadar+ Future Games Show for the big reveal. Our efforts were very fruitful, delivering coverage from high-profile and respected publications like Eurogamer, Nintendo Life, Rock Paper Shotgun, Gematsu, and more.
Ahead of the February 2023 Steam Next Fest we began preparations for a press preview beat. Since Tray Racers! is best played with friends over voice chat, we didn’t just want to send a code to press and have them play the demo by themselves. That is not the optimal Tray Racers! experience and we were desperate to do justice to this wonderful game and its even more wonderful developers. Our solution to this problem was simple, but by no means was it guaranteed to work and deliver positive results.
We decided that the only way we could successfully deliver previews that were not only positive, but were a great representation of the ideal Tray Racers! experience was to invite press to a private Discord server and run scheduled multiplayer play sessions with the developers. For press, this was a far more interesting offer than a simple code in their inbox for them to play in their own time, and for the Bit Loom Games team, it was a good chance for them to see and get confirmation that the game they’d been making for two years was in fact a total blast for newcomers outside of their bubble of friends and family.
The entire Mooncat Games team and Bit Loom Games team played Tray Racers! with press in multiple 30-60 minute sessions over the course of a week, with each session culminating in an in-game fireside interview with the devs (around the campfire in the game’s social hub!), giving press more insight into the game, development, and future plans for the studio. The preview event was a great success, full of laughs, dramatic last minute wins, great conversation, and culminated in a number of excellent preview pieces from the likes of TheGamer and Eurogamer, the latter calling the game “riotous, simplistic fun”.
Our extensive targeted content creator outreach for Tray Racers! was equally successful, with many creators falling in love with the silly nature of the game, and returning for multiple streams during Steam Next Fest, and through the launch of the game.
Interested in working with Mooncat Games on your next campaign? Check out our services and how we work with indie and AA games to make the perfect campaign plan for you.
