Mindworks x Episode: Driving Scalable Growth Through Playable Ad Innovation
Since its launch in 2014, Pocket Gems’ interactive narrative mobile game Episode - Choose Your Story has built the world’s largest interactive storytelling community, thanks to its innovative gameplay and compelling content design. The title has remained a top player in its genre for years.
In the global mobile market, playable ads have become an increasingly important user acquisition strategy for mobile games due to their high engagement and low bounce rates — and Episode is no exception.
However, compared to video ads, developing playable ads requires greater technical expertise and time investment. To overcome these challenges and break through growth bottlenecks, Pocket Gems partnered with Mindworks. Leveraging the Mindworks team's expertise in interactive ads, they co-developed customized playable creatives to drive high-quality user acquisition.
Data-Driven Playable Ads that Resonate with Players
The Mindworks team conducted in-depth research on Episode - Choose Your Story and its competitors’ ad creatives, identifying three key factors that drive the performance of playable ads for interactive narrative games: visual intensity, emotional engagement, and interactive pacing.
Based on these findings, they adopted a creative strategy centered on uncovering industry patterns and leveraging in-ad tracking data to support iterative optimization.
Dramatic Storytelling Sparks Immediate Attention
Drawing from competitive analysis, Mindworks developed a playable ad centered on “Dramatic LGBTQ+ Storyline.” While retaining the classic “flirtatious interaction” mechanic, the ad opened with a high-impact scenario and featured deliberately exaggerated dialogue options to create humor and boost user engagement.
In the first week after launch, this creative contributed 23% of total conversions. Within two weeks, CTR (Click-Through Rate) and IVR (Install per View Rate) increased by 7%, respectively.
Additionally, Mindworks also integrated custom event tracking into the ad, capturing user interaction data that provided insight into player preferences for story themes and plot directions.
Data-Driven Iteration Takes Creativity to the Next Level
Leveraging audience insights from Episode and data from the first playable ad, the Mindworks team further refined their strategy. The second playable ad maintained the same interactive mechanics but enhanced visual impact by adjusting character proportions. The storyline pacing was also fine-tuned to allow players a better immersion.
Within two weeks of launch, the second playable ad saw CTR and IVR increase by 15% and 7%, respectively. In terms of conversions, it contributed 37% of all conversions in its first week and eventually reaching up to 70% at its peak — illustrating the remarkable impact of the iterative approach.
In Episode’s key market—the United States—this creative drove a 26% increase in impressions, even as bid prices were reduced by 37%, demonstrating strong cost-efficiency. By the second week, it also contributed to a 14% overall increase in total impressions, highlighting its outstanding performance.
Mindworks delivered an outstanding user acquisition campaign for Episode. This successful partnership highlights the powerful impact of innovative playable ad formats combined with a a data-driven, professional creative strategy in driving mobile game growth.
The Mindworks team took the time to understand the creative goals and came up with fresh concepts to support the Episode team. They have helped accelerate our playable creative development, producing concepts that have scaled both on Mintegral and other ad networks.
— Pat McManus
Performance Marketing, Episode