How Playturbo's AI Creatives Fueled Haunted Merge's Global Growth

Merge games remain popular worldwide, but the category is crowded with formulaic gameplay and look-alike ad creatives. Creative fatigue sets in quickly, and differentiation becomes harder over time.

To stand out, WhaleJoy Game Limited made a bold choice: to anchor its new merge-2 title, Haunted Merge: Horror Story, in a Chinese-style horror narrative. Instead of relying solely on gameplay demos, the team leaned into suspense, emotional tension, and story-driven advertising.

To bring that vision to life at scale, WhaleJoy Game partnered with Playturbo to turn narrative-heavy scripts into production-ready AI video ads — building a repeatable pipeline from storyboard to scalable creative production.When Story Depth Increases, So Does AI ComplexityFrom the outset, WhaleJoy Game defined a “horror suspense” creative direction. The scripts emphasized tension, emotional buildup, and plot twists — a sharp contrast to traditional merge ads that focus on mechanics alone. 

When Story Depth Increases, So Does AI Complexity  

From the outset, WhaleJoy Game defined a “horror suspense” creative direction. The scripts emphasized tension, emotional buildup, and plot twists — a sharp contrast to traditional merge ads that focus on mechanics alone.  

But multi-shot storytelling introduces structural challenges. Character consistency must hold across scenes. Emotional pacing needs to feel intentional. Gameplay integration cannot feel forced. Any deviation—whether in facial features, lighting continuity, or spatial logic—risks breaking immersion.

The challenge was not simply generating videos. It was to build a creative system that could deploy, scale, and iterate without sacrificing narrative integrity.

With deep experience in user acquisition and strong AIGC integration capabilities, Playturbo provided a structured and scalable solution to this core challenge.  

From Script to Scalable Video: an AI Production Pipeline

Playturbo began with a shot-by-shot breakdown of the scripts. Composition priorities, character expression, pacing, transitions, and visual continuity were clearly defined before AI generation began. This ensured that every scene could be generated with rhythm and coherence in mind.

Hand-drawn storyboards played a critical role. By mapping spatial relationships, character positioning, and lighting direction in advance, the team locked in narrative logic before entering AI generation, reducing visual drift and maintaining tonal consistency across scenes.

Once the structure was stable, AI still-frame generation began.

The central character — a twin ponytail girl — became the visual anchor. Her facial structure, outfit proportions, and emotional expressions were repeatedly calibrated across scenes to maintain recognizability. As the number of scenes increased, this consistency reinforced audience memory and narrative credibility.

After stabilizing still frames, the team moved into video generation. At this stage, coherence mattered more than visual polish.

Movement fluidity, natural expression transitions, and synchronized lighting and sound were essential to sustaining suspense.

One top-performing video featured a stark contrast between “transporting a corpse” and a brightly lit “food aid truck.” The rapid semantic shift created tension and hinted at an urban-legend-style conspiracy.

Playturbo refined the shot rhythm and visual transitions to heighten impact while preserving narrative flow.

Controllable Generation: The Foundation of Multi-Shot Storytelling

Multi-shot storytelling pushes AI generation to its limits. Unlike single-shot ads, every frame must maintain visual stability. Even small inconsistencies in facial proportions, clothing detail, spatial depth, or lighting logic can erode immersion.

To address this, Playturbo implemented a staged generation process supported by multi-model coordination. Visual layers were controlled separately, with targeted refinements applied to key details.

This approach balanced stylistic control with creative flexibility — preserving an illustration-like texture while enabling dynamic motion.

Rather than relying on isolated prompts, the team built a structured production pipeline:

• — Lock the shot logic
• —  Layer in visual elements
• —  Refine character consistency
• —  Render fully coherent video outputs

This workflow made complex creative scalable — not experimental.

Results: From Millions of Impressions to Revenue Acceleration

According to data from Insightrackr, multiple Playturbo-produced ads surpassed one million impressions, with one exceeding ten million.

Meanwhile, data from Sensor Tower shows that in January 2026, Haunted Merge: Horror Story's global revenue increased 285% month over month. The game ranked 17th among Chinese mobile titles in global revenue growth and entered the global top 10 in merge game revenue.

While performance cannot be attributed to a single creative, the structured AI production process helped the title enter a more stable scaling phase — providing reliable data signals for further optimization and expansion.

Client Perspective

WhaleJoy Game highlighted Playturbo's ability to combine creative sensitivity with technical control:

“Playturbo's expertise in AI creative production made us realize that AI video can be produced reliably — not like a lottery. They break complex scripts into clear storyboards and maintain strong consistency during generation. The team is efficient, dependable, and a long-term creative partner we trust.”

Creative Differentiation Is Only the Beginning

This collaboration reinforces a critical insight: In established categories, subject matter creates the initial hook. But a stable, controllable ad production system determines whether that differentiation can translate into sustained growth.

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in creative production, the real competitive edge lies not in isolated outputs — but in structured workflows that transform strong concepts into scalable performance assets.

As an AI-powered creative production platform, Playturbo continues to refine solutions across diverse marketing scenarios — from AI-generated images and videos, to playable ad templates, and online creative editing tools — helping teams turn bold ideas into scalable, high-impact campaigns.

If you're exploring AI-powered creative solutions, connect with Playturbo to learn about our strategic perspectives, and discover new growth opportunities in the AI era.