BROKEN
CASE STUDY
Studio / Portfolio / House Broken
ForwardXP × Meta

Please Don't
Touch Anything

Meta AR Ad Instagram Effect Story AR Multiple Endings
The brief

An ad that plays
like the game.

ForwardXP, commissioned by Meta, needed an AR ad experience to promote their VR title Please Don't Touch Anything: House Broken on Meta Quest ahead of its December 2023 launch. The format had to live on Instagram and drive players toward a purchase.

The game's entire premise is a console you're told not to touch. That same instruction works as an AR ad mechanic. Curiosity guarantees the interaction. Playing the ad was playing the game.

The experience ends with a direct CTA to the Meta Quest Store, and the client offered discount credits to players who converted after completing it.

Client
ForwardXP × Meta
Platform
Meta Spark · Instagram AR
Role
Creative Director, Oraar Studio
Campaign
Meta Quest launch campaign for House Broken VR title
Year
2023
Deliverable
Interactive story-game Instagram AR ad with multiple endings and a purchase CTA.
In the experience

Don't touch it.
You know you will.

House Broken AR ad console interface, don't touch anything The console
House Broken AR interaction state, touching triggers events
House Broken AR ending screen with Meta Quest CTA
Video
Instagram AR
Click to play
Process

The mechanic is the ad.
Curiosity does the rest.

01
The mechanic is the ad
The game's premise, don't touch it, is both the product hook and the strongest possible call to action. Aligning the two meant we never had to explain what the product was. Playing the ad was playing the game.
02
State tracking in social AR
Most AR effects are stateless. Tracking interaction order across multiple branching paths required careful architecture to keep UX legible without breaking immersion. The system had to feel simple while handling real complexity underneath.
03
UX clarity at scale
With many possible outcomes, users needed to always know what to do next without being told. Guidance stayed implicit: part of the world, not overlaid as UI. The console's design did the work that a button prompt would have killed.
The result

An ad that earned
its own ending.

Meta Quest VR platform the ad drove players toward
Multi-end Branching story mechanic: outcome driven by interaction order
Discount Credits offered to players who converted through the experience
When the mechanic and the message match, copy becomes optional
The game sells itself through the interaction. No headline needed to explain what House Broken is: playing the console tells you more than any tagline would.
State-based storytelling is underused in social AR
Tracking interaction sequences across branches opens up narrative depth that most effects never explore. The complexity was worth it and the experience felt like a game, not a filter.
Curiosity converts better than any prompt
"Don't touch it" works because breaking the rule feels like the user's own decision. That sense of agency keeps them in the experience long enough to reach the CTA.
AR ads that mirror the product build real purchase intent
The discount mechanic landed because players had already experienced the game before seeing it. The conversion was a natural next step, not an interruption.
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