TheLast Slice

The brief was simple enough. Windows programmers are stuck in their ways. Microsoft is releasing lots of new tools, but struggling to get devs to see the point in trying them. Only 4% of this highly specific group actually watched the educational content designed to get the word out, which isn't surprising. 90% of developers self-diagnose as "self-taught" and prefer hands-on trial to any other learning method. So to get them using the tools without even realizing it, we turned to 80s video games, reddit, github, a Bitcoin pizza legend, and probably the nerdiest, most technical branded challenge ever conceived.

The only way to win was to cheat. Which was exactly what we wanted devs to do, hack the code with Visual Studio's tools, give themselves superpowers and deliver the legendary Bitcoin Pizza. The game was designed to appear deceptively easy in the style of a simple retro 8-bit arcade game. But anyone playing the Last Slice would face difficult, frustrating, and increasingly absurd obstacles until finally arriving at the final level and realizing the game was impossible to win.