Noovie ARcade

National CineMedia (NCM), America's Movie Network, reaches more than 700 million moviegoers annually with the Noovie pre-show on 21,000 screens in over 1,700 theaters. Wanting to provide a bit of interactive fun before the film, NCM partnered with Balance Studios to create a first-of-its-kind interactive experience, Noovie ARcade, that gamifies the big screen and brings augmented reality (AR) to its pre-show party.

Movie-goers download the free app from iTunes or Google Play Stores. They then wait for prompts that announce the start of the games and watch as the entire theater turns into a shared AR game room. Guests battle for intergalactic survival to protect the theater from an alien invasion in Cinevaders. They catch emojis running wild in the theater lobby before they wreak havoc on the concessions in Emoji Escape. And in Kernel Cannon, visitors launch popcorn kernels into buckets to score as many points as they can before time runs out.

In addition to these core games, Balance created limited-edition games and experiences including  Halloween experience that required a scary amount of complex programming but resulted in a wicked-fun surprise, timed out just perfectly so all guests experience the same jump-scare moment, regardless of when they tuned into the interactive. The creative team also made seasonal games such as a holiday-themed driving game and created an incredibly popular game for the Wreck-it Ralph franchise, Pancake Milkshake, where guests force-feed pancakes to bunnies and milkshakes to kitties.

With over 3 million downloads and 3,000 more added each week, moviegoers have embraced the interactive fun and are eager for more. And more games are coming!

Noovie ARcade is so wildly popular that it has expanded beyond the big screen and can be played in theater lobbies and homes nationwide. Users can activate the app at home, off noovie.com, or in theater lobbies off of designated arcade game standees and posters.