Indian Rummy Grandmasters
Gameskraft
• 2024
Creative Direction
+ Motion Design
+ 3D & VFX
A challenge of legitimacy
How do you legitimize a game that's been stigmatized as gambling, for an audience that doesn't speak English, in a market that's never seen organized rummy tournaments before?
Brief
What they asked for: three launch videos (teaser, in-app explainer, final explainer) that were clear, simple, and functional. The audience is non-English speaking, so we couldn't rely on complex symbolism. Just communicate the structure and get registrations.
What we heard: legitimacy, built through clean delivery of information, in a charismatically appealing style. If this looked like every other rummy app video (flat, functional, purely utilitarian), it would reinforce the stigma instead of breaking it. This is a national championship, not a mobile game promotion! And we leant into that.
Approach
We had five weeks and a collaboration where everyone was nervous. After all, it is only India's first step into new territory. Possibly the global territory. No pressure.
The safe play would've been functional motion graphics with voice-over carrying the weight. Instead, with the strong backing of my team, I pushed for a direction that leaned into royalty, authenticity, and premium craft: gold, purple, and maroon as the color palette (colors that signal value and tradition in Indian visual culture), ornate filigree and carved details that reference traditional craftsmanship rather than startup tech aesthetics, physical objects rendered in 3D (a symbolic crown, the actual medal awarded to the winner, the actual tournament structure made tangible), and immersive environments like throne rooms, tournament stages, and green felt tables lit like they exist in real space.
The question we asked ourselves was simple: the tournament is real, but how do you make an audience feel that without explicitly telling them?
The barrier between our perception and their belief had to be bridged.
So we didn't tell them. We put them in the position of the winner and walked them through that world. See the throne room. See the crown. See the medal with the tri-color ribbon. See the national stage where this happens. By the time they reach the registration screen, they've already experienced being there.
Making of
I worked the script with in-house copywriters, storyboarded and made blockouts with my brilliant motion design team, and as the graphic designers caught up to the vision and assets needed, we established the visual universe: throne room, royalty, a gold medal with the tri-color ribbon, and a premium purple and gold palette.
A five-week timeline is generous and grueling at the same time. We couldn't iterate endlessly. Every asset had to be right the first time. We had to discuss and decide exactly what deserved obsessive attention (lighting on the medal, the filigree detail on the logo, the weight of the crown) and what we could hide in shallow depth of field or quick cuts. The non-English audience meant visuals had to carry most of the atmospheric weight, so we used recognizable symbols (crown for champion, medal for achievement, map for national scale) and let the voice-over handle only the structural information.
Since this was an in-app video, we didn't rely on stopping the scroll i.e. we could skip the creative hook. But the thematic hook had to be pristine. So we opened with the most premium shot: the glowing IRG logo with ornate filigree, backlit and dimensional, in front of a podium and an ornate throne. Saturated, premium authority.
We pushed and stressed the in-house pipeline I developed with my team: we used Blender, After Effects, and Adobe Substance as our primary tools. Weight and deliberation were our cornerstones for how each asset felt. Even the camera moved with a measured weight, because fast cuts or whip pans would've made it feel like every other hype video on the internet. This needed to feel considered.
Ceremonial.
Impact
78,000 people registered for IRG across all stages. 150 finalists competed in the Zonals in four cities across India, and the Nationals were held in Delhi.
Our happiest learning after everything wrapped: Winners were celebrated in their own circles, and not just our celebration of them. We celebrated their skill, and that echoed all the way to their personal lives. It gave rummy players something they'd never had before: legitimacy. The work destigmatized the game by treating it like it already deserved respect, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Credits
This project would not have been possible without the immense collaborative spirit the following people brought to the table, day after day for weeks.
Copywriters: Rahul Yadav, Twinkle Mali
Motion Designers: Ramya Ankilla, Chakravarthy Ambica Balla
3D Artists: Neeraj Parab, Ronil Dash, Pratik Mukhopadhyay
Graphic Designers: Diwakar Pradhan, Anna Sojan
Product Designers: Sambeet Dash, Shivangi Srivastava
Product Managers: Iqbal Baig, Supriya Sehgal