Advergame: Get a Branded HTML5 Game for Your Campaign
Two ways to get one, what a template lets you change, a five-step campaign plan and when to commission a custom game.
An advergame is a game built to carry a brand: its logo, colours, characters or message sit inside something people choose to play. There are two ways to get one as an HTML5 game. You can customise a ready-made template: buy a licence, put your brand on it and host it yourself. Or you can commission a game built around your brand from the start. This guide covers both, and it says what the templates in our store let you change, based on their own item pages and manuals.
A branded HTML5 game is a web page, so it can live on a campaign site, a landing page or an event page, and players open it with a link. We separate what is documented from what is not. The store licence covers one end product, and our custom work is quoted case by case. This is not legal advice.
Advergame: the two ways to get a branded HTML5 game
- Customise a template. A finished game with readable source code. You change brand elements, host it on your own server and keep a perpetual licence for one end product. List prices run from $5 to $59, and most editions cost between $19 and $49. Buying directly from the studio takes 10% off list.
- Commission a custom game. We take commissioned projects: a game made with the client's brand. Scope, price and timing are agreed in a quote. We do not publish a price list for it.
Browse the HTML5 game templates
What you can change in a branded HTML5 game template
The licence lets you change the code, art and audio inside your end product. How easy that is depends on the edition, and each item page and manual says so. From lightest to heaviest:
- A settings file, no rebuild. Tenguin: title, logo path, accent colour, default language, starting coins, rewards and shop prices. Mochi Monsters: browser title, logo, initial language and save key. Barricade Z and Deepforge: only the tab title and the save key (Deepforge also the default language).
- Plain files you edit and upload. Ricopop has no build step: levels, scoring, texts in 14 languages and ball styles each have their own file, and the MP3 music and effects can be swapped. Velvet Pool and Puttide are plain JavaScript, and their manuals map the logo, styles, colours and texts.
- Source edit and rebuild with Node.js and npm: Twirldrop, Pinloop, Trimora, Beep Out, Gridspark and Zabum. In the first three, brand.ts holds the name or title and the colours; text and audio have their own files. Zabum adds questions, categories and mascots. Item pages name the Node.js version, and several ask for 22.12 or newer.
Most editions have a 14-language interface; Zabum and Letter River have 3 (English, Portuguese, Spanish) and Deepforge 2. The Gridspark narrator and the Barricade Z announcer are English only.
Most editions list online rankings, accounts, cloud saves and hosting as not included, and several list ad SDKs too. Barricade Z also says it has no analytics. Progress stays in the player's browser. Sign-up, a shared ranking or tracking is added work, quoted before it starts.
See what is inside a source package
A branded HTML5 game campaign in five steps
- Fix the goal and the one place the game will live: a campaign page, a landing page or an event page. One licence covers one end product.
- Choose the genre by playing the demos on a phone and a laptop. Refunds stop at the download (a defect we cannot fix stays covered), so decide before you download.
- Customise. Gather the logo files, colour values, texts in each language and audio you may use, change only what the manual points to, and check phone width.
- Host it on any static web host and link to it or embed it with an iframe. Hosting is not part of the edition.
- Measure. The editions ship no tracking, so decide before launch what you will count and measure it on the page that holds the game.
Read the hosting guide: upload, embed, fix
Which genre fits which campaign goal
We have no engagement numbers to quote, so this matches goals to what each edition documents. Prices are list prices in US dollars; the studio direct price is 10% lower.
- A quick break on a brand site: Trimora ($19), one-touch 3D stacking, or Pinloop ($24), one-button timing with 30 targets and 12 backdrops.
- A reason to come back: Gridspark ($29) has a seeded daily challenge, Solitaire Links ($49) daily gifts and challenges, Tenguin ($39) daily activities.
- A friendly mascot: Tenguin ($39), a penguin that teaches the rules, with its logo and accent colour in a settings file, or Mochi Monsters ($39).
- Your own content: Zabum ($49) is trivia where you write the questions, in English, Portuguese or Spanish; Letter River ($29) lets you edit words and clues.
- A music or launch moment: Riffvolt ($49), a four-lane rhythm game where you can add songs with audio you may use.
- A sports sponsor: Velvet Pool (pool), Puttide (mini golf) or Sunset Rally (table tennis), $39 each.
Bundle discounts: 2 templates 5%, 3 templates 10%, 4 templates 15%, 5 or more 20%. Each licence still covers one end product.
Read the genre-by-genre catalog guide
When to commission a custom advergame
A template fits when the game you want already exists. Commission one when your characters, product or story have to be inside the game, when the rules must go beyond the editable files, when you need sign-up, a ranking, tracking or an ad or portal SDK (quoted before any work), or when one game must run for several clients.
We take commissioned projects with the client's brand. We do not publish prices or timelines for them: write to willian@polargames.com.br for a quote, with your goal and audience, where it will be published, your brand kit, the languages and your deadline.
Licence, white label and invoice
- One licence covers one client or final product, so an agency running the same game for two clients needs two licences.
- White label: yes. Your brand takes the place of ours; third-party notices stay.
- Invoice: a Brazilian nota fiscal if you ask, or an invoice for buyers abroad.
- Refunds: only before you download, or for a defect we cannot fix; a refund ends the licence.
- Support: 6 months, or 12 with the extension at checkout. Customisation is a separate service, quoted before any work.
Read the licence explained clause by clause
FAQ
What is an advergame?
A game made to carry a brand: the logo, colours, characters or message sit inside something people choose to play.
Do I need a developer?
Not to host it, and a text editor covers the settings files of Tenguin and Mochi Monsters. Deeper changes mean editing source, and most of those editions need Node.js and npm to rebuild.
Does the game collect leads or track players?
Not as shipped. Progress stays in the browser, and most editions list accounts, online rankings and cloud saves as not included.
White Label HTML5 Games: What You Get and What to Ask