Crunchy #3: Doritos

Where Cheetos goes random, Doritos puts on it's construction hat and builds a city.

Using a city scene, or any environment, as a menu interface is not a bad technique, it sets a solid metaphor and atmosphere. But what is usually overlooked is the potential for strengthening the experience even more. Just because you're using specific objects as doorways to other sections, doesn't mean they have to be the only things you can click on. I've just come to your site, I'm clicking around, I'm in the mood to explore. For example, why is there a ship in the lower right? If i mouse-over it, nothing happens. How disappointing. Just something simple like that could set me off to spending a few more minutes clicking on everything.

Half the buildings in the scene are in-site content:

And the other half lead out to promotional microsites.

The above is the beginning of a "Myst"-like puzzle game called The Quest. You solve puzzles in order to compete in a live action version in Las Vegas. It looks like this whole promotion happened last year though.

The best thing Doritos has online right now has nothing to do with the brand, chips or snacking. If you visit hotel626.com before 6pm, you're told that the hotel is only open at night. If you make a reservation, you get this in an email later that night -


What follows when you revisit the site is a survival-horror game. Using video, clever puzzles, your microphone and your webcam, this is my new favorite commercial site. How this idea sold through Doritos I have no idea. I'm not going to go into any more details about it though...this is one of the ones you should visit yourself.

But I will leave you with this:

This little guy didn't like the song I tried to sing him to sleep with.

/.stabitwiththeirsteelyknives.\