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Build Story · Custom Stacking Game

How we built a custom stacking game for a corporate event

By the EventBitz studio · Arlington, Virginia · October 2026

A global technology company came to us with a familiar problem. Their booth team could talk about a portfolio of six services all day, but attendees would not stand still long enough to hear about more than one. They wanted a game that taught the whole portfolio in about two minutes, pulled a crowd toward the booth, and gave their reps a natural opening for a conversation. Here is how we designed, built, tested, and delivered it.

The brief

The client runs a large booth at a multi-day corporate event. Their goals, in their words, were simple: get people to stop, teach them the service portfolio without a lecture, and start more conversations. The constraints were just as clear. The game had to run on a big display or touchscreen, turn players over quickly so a crowd never became a traffic jam, and work for people who had never touched the product category before.

We suggested a falling block stacking game for a practical reason: almost every adult already knows how it works. There is no tutorial to teach and no learning curve to apologize for. A visitor can walk up, read one line of instructions, and be playing in seconds, which matters when you have about ten seconds to convert a passerby into a player.

Design: turning a service portfolio into game pieces

Services become the blocks

The core design move was to make the product the game itself, not a logo pasted around it. Each falling cluster of blocks is themed to one of the client's services. The cluster carries that service's color and icon, and two panels beside the play field name what is on screen: a NEXT panel previews the incoming cluster with its service theme, and a NOW STACKING card names the service the player is currently placing. A player who finishes a round has seen every service named and placed several times, paired with the short one line description we show on the home screen's service strip. Repetition inside a game does what a brochure cannot: it makes the names familiar.

The 90 second round

Booth math drove the round length. At 90 seconds of play, plus a short quiz, a single station serves roughly 25 players an hour without rushing anyone. Shorter rounds felt frantic in testing; longer rounds built lines and made watching less fun. Ninety seconds is long enough to learn the controls, feel the speed ramp, and want one more try, and short enough that the next person in line stays interested instead of drifting away.

A quiz that pays

After each round, the player answers three quick questions for bonus points. The questions are the teaching payload of the whole game, so we designed them carefully with the client:

• Three questions, not ten. Long enough to cover the headline messages, short enough that nobody sighs when the quiz appears.
• Bonus points, not gatekeeping. Right answers add points to the final score. Wrong answers simply do not. Players chase points, so they read the questions properly instead of tapping through.
• Teed up during play. A card on the game screen explains the quiz while the round runs, so it arrives as an opportunity, not an interruption.
• Client approved wording. Every question is drafted from the client's own materials and approved by them. Categories match their messaging, so a round touches three different parts of the portfolio.

The leaderboard is the crowd mechanic

The home screen headline is wired to the day's top score, so the screen itself challenges passersby: beat this number. Scores save with the player's name, the board persists through the day, and the results screen shows rank, blocks matched, and how many of the six services the player encountered. A visible board does three jobs at once: it attracts the next player, it gives the current player a reason to play again, and it gives the booth team a friendly way to start a conversation with everyone watching.

Development: how the game is actually built

The game is built as a browser application, which is a deliberate choice for events. There is nothing to install, no app store, and no special hardware. The same build runs on a booth display, a touchscreen kiosk, a staff laptop, and, in its mobile form, on a visitor's phone. Here is what is under the hood.

The play field engine

The board is a grid rendered on a canvas, updated on a fixed game loop so pieces fall at a consistent speed on any machine, from a brand new laptop to a five year old kiosk PC. Clusters fall as 2 by 2 groups of blocks. When three or more blocks of the same color touch, they clear, blocks above them fall, and chain reactions score as combos. A dashed ghost outline shows exactly where the falling cluster will land, which keeps the game fair at high speed: players lose to the clock, not to confusion.

Difficulty ramp

A flat speed makes the first seconds boring and the last seconds impossible, so the fall speed steps up six times across the round. Early levels forgive mistakes while a new player learns; the final level is fast enough that even good players top out, which ends rounds on time and keeps the line moving.

Scoring

Points come from placing blocks, clearing matches, and chaining combos, with the quiz bonus added at the end so the results screen can show the split: gameplay points on one line, knowledge bonus on the other. That split matters more than it looks. A player who learns the content can outscore a faster player who skipped it, which tells everyone watching exactly what the client values.

Inputs for every booth setup

One build supports keyboard play, on-screen touch buttons that only appear on touch devices, and USB or Bluetooth game controllers. Pause stops everything, the clock, the pieces, and the quiz timers, so a conversation with a rep never costs a player their round. The player's name and scores persist locally, so the leaderboard survives a browser refresh or a laptop restart mid-show.

Content is configuration, not code

Service names, colors, icons, one line descriptions, quiz questions, and the end screen call to action all live in a content layer separate from the engine. That is how the same foundation gets re-themed for a follow-on event in days instead of weeks, and how the client can approve final copy late in the process without a rebuild.

Playtesting and tuning

We playtest every build the way a booth visitor would: cold, standing, in short bursts. On this game, testing changed four things that looked fine on paper. A 3, 2, 1 countdown beat went in before the first piece falls, because players were losing blocks while finding the controls. Wrong quiz answers now reveal the correct one for a moment, because a quiz that never teaches is just a toll booth. The speed ramp was re-spaced after early testers topped out in the first 30 seconds. And the end sequence was rebuilt so the final score counts up and the rank lands last, because the rank is the moment players photograph and share.

Delivery: from our studio to their booth floor

Delivery for an event game is mostly about removing surprises. Before the show, we test the exact setup the booth will run:

• The setup is a slide deck setup. A laptop, an HDMI cable, and the display. Wifi, a browser, full screen, done. Controllers, when the client wants them, are selected by us, shipped ahead, and arrive with connection instructions.
• Setup time support. The client tells us when they are setting up, and our team is standing by on phone and email during that window. Phone and email support are included in the package for the whole event.
• Optional mobile version. A QR code at the booth lets visitors play on their own phones, which keeps the game available when the main screen is busy and after the attendee has walked away.
• Optional lead capture. Players can register a name and phone number for the leaderboard, with a prize for the high score at the end of the event. The captured list goes to the client after the show.
• Reuse is built in. The game is hosted for a year and can run at multiple events. New themes and new content for a follow-on show layer onto the same build.

The result for this client: a booth game where the product is the gameplay, the quiz carries the messaging, and the leaderboard keeps a crowd around the screen between players. It is a format we can re-theme for a new product line or rebuild entirely around a different mechanic, and the process above is the same either way.

Questions about a build like this

How long is a typical game round at a booth?

We design for about 90 seconds of play plus a short three question quiz. That is long enough to teach the content and short enough that a line of five people clears in under ten minutes.

Can the quiz questions be about our products?

Yes. The questions are written for your products, services, and audience, and you approve every word before the event. Correct answers add bonus points, so players are motivated to actually read them.

Does the game work on a touchscreen?

Yes. The game supports touchscreen buttons, keyboard, and USB or Bluetooth game controllers, and an optional mobile version lets visitors play on their phones by scanning a QR code.