How indie agency Sideways has reimagined board and dice games
Indian agency Sideways, in a joint venture with Reliance Brands, has launched its first IP in the form of gaming engine DiiCii. The Drum gets behind this first-of-its-kind gaming innovation, and its go-to-market strategy in India and across the globe.
DiiCii games are scheduled to launch in the UK and other international markets by Christmas, having already launched in India
Many years ago, India was the cradle of dice and board games. Now that traditional world of board and dice is being reinvented and layered with new-age technology to make it relevant to a new generation. The age-old home game has been refurbished and launched as ‘DiiCii’ by the product design and technology verticals of the independent agency Sideways as a joint venture with Reliance Brands. This launch takes forward Sideways’ ambition “to launch its own IP products at scale and take them to market,” according to its Mumbai-based founder Abhijit Avasthi.
Renovating the dice
The origin of this launch happened when the Sideways team was working on developing toys and collectibles for a global giant. Along the way, the team sensed an opportunity in relooking at how a dice can behave differently, shares Avasthi.
Thus started the journey of reimagining a 4000-year-old gaming engine – from the concept to designing, to prototyping, to getting down to engineering details, to getting it manufactured and to finally launching it.
Manu Sharma, group vice-president, Reliance Brands, adds: “DiiCii is the beginning of a journey to envision and introduce more pathbreaking and innovative games in the global market.”
DiiCii campaign
Rules of the game
DiiCii, the reinvented gaming device, is a dice that changes color, and with the new added dimension of color opens up a world of new possibilities and combinations. With red and green as the two changing colors of DiiCii, the players can define it in their own way.
The randomized illumination has the potential to create thousands of play patterns and new games. As per Avasthi, the DiiCii ecosystem hopes to reimagine the function of a dice for the 21st century, while keeping it inclusive, simple and fun. As part of the launch, six new board games have been created including Greedy Monkey, Astro Hunt and Knock Out. The classic games Snakes & Ladders, Ludo and Brainvita have also been reimagined with a twist.
The DiiCii gameplan
To test the waters before going ahead with the full-fledged market launch, the team showcased DiiCii last year at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in Germany. The response there gave them the confidence to launch it, despite the challenges of the post-pandemic world, shares Avasthi.
If all goes well, the company plans to launch it in the UK and other international markets by Christmas, having launched in India a few weeks back. As per Sharma: “The iconic Hamleys store on Regent Street, London has listed DiiCii in its top 10 toys to buy for Christmas 2021. The global footprint has been enhanced with the reach of Hamleys – across 14+ countries and 190+ stores.”
The gaming target group
The idea behind DiiCii is to create games and toys that will have acceptance across all markets, and to create IPs that will resonate with kids and game lovers across the world. Avashi says: “DiiCii has been positioned as a novel platform idea that cuts across all ages, genres and territories by simply adding an additional vector to the traditional dice play pattern.”
How the reimagined dice reinforces Sideways’ own ambitions of ‘life beyond advertising’
Ad veteran Avasthi has been in the creative business for many years. In his last job at Ogilvy India, he was the national creative director of one of the most celebrated agencies in the country when he decided to move on after almost 17 years, launching Sideways in 2015. Sideways has been at work for the last few years doing lots as part of its vision to do things beyond advertising. These include building digital payment and social networking apps and designing credit card offerings, and, of course, good old advertising continues, says Avasthi.
The idea behind the launch was to build a creative company that brought together a team of differentiated talents – techies, product designers, design researchers, writers, brand strategists, management consultants – and solve problems and explore opportunities across the spectrum beyond advertising, shares Avasthi. An added desire was to launch its own IPs at scale, and DiiCii is a step in that direction.
Avasthi concludes: “The reason we managed to make DiiCii happen is because strategists, product designers, techies, engineers, brand folks sit under one roof and work together at Sideways – that’s the magic and I doubt it could have happened elsewhere.”