Coca-Cola Playable Billboard
Interactive Multiplayer Billboard Experience
The Coca-Cola Playable Billboard was a public-facing interactive installation in Times Square, New York, created as part of a Coca-Cola marketing campaign.
The experience turned a large digital billboard into a live two-player game. Members of the public sat on a branded Coca-Cola sofa, used physical retro-style controllers, and played a simple Pong-inspired game on one of the world’s most recognisable advertising screens.
The idea was easy for people to understand immediately, but the technical challenge was making the whole experience feel responsive, reliable and robust in a busy public environment.
My Role
Technical Lead & Unity Developer
I worked as Technical Lead and Unity Developer on the project, responsible for the core software systems behind the experience.
My role covered the Unity application, real-time gameplay, networking, deployment setup, reliability systems and the tools needed to keep the installation running smoothly during the live activation.
Technical Challenges
The main challenge was latency. For the experience to work, the physical controllers at street level had to feel tightly connected to the action on the billboard above. Any noticeable delay would have made the game feel broken, especially in such a public setting.
I worked on the real-time multiplayer and networking systems, using interpolation, extrapolation and predictive smoothing to keep the gameplay feeling responsive even with live network traffic between the on-site hardware, cloud infrastructure and billboard display system.
Reliability was just as important as gameplay. This was a public activation with a constant flow of people, so the system had to recover quickly from connection issues, stalled sessions or unexpected states. I built recovery and reset workflows to help the installation return to a playable state without needing constant manual intervention.
The project also required close integration with external production teams, display systems and site hardware. The gameplay, controller input, visual output and operational flow all had to work together as one polished live experience.
Key Contributions
Led the technical development of the interactive game experience.
Built the core Unity gameplay application.
Developed the real-time networking and game-state synchronisation systems.
Implemented interpolation, extrapolation and predictive smoothing to reduce the impact of latency.
Integrated physical controller input with the live billboard experience.
Worked with cloud-hosted infrastructure and on-site hardware.
Built recovery, reset and self-healing workflows for public operation.
Added configurable gameplay and operational controls for the live activation.
Integrated gameplay with externally produced visual assets and large-format display requirements.
Tested and optimised the system for a high-profile public deployment.
Worked closely with producers, designers, installation teams and technical partners.
Technologies
Unity, C#, real-time networking, UNet, cloud-hosted game systems, physical controller integration, large-format displays, public-facing installations, deployment tooling.
Outcome
The installation successfully turned a Times Square billboard into a live playable game, giving members of the public a simple and memorable way to interact with the Coca-Cola brand.
For me, the project was a strong example of building technology for a live public environment: the experience looked simple from the outside, but relied on low-latency networking, hardware integration, recovery systems and careful operational planning behind the scenes.
