A creative rebirth for Solitaire TriPeaks, unifying tone, emotion, and design into a living brand system built to endure.

Overview

When I joined the TriPeaks UA team, the game was coasting on name recognition but sinking in performance. Despite heavy ad spend, nothing converted.

The studio had burned through high-budget agencies, cinematic trailers, Pixar-style spots, entire creative batches. all outperformed by simple in-house card ads. Each new round cost more and did less.

My job was to stop the bleeding. Through rapid testing and hands-on creative, I shifted focus from production gloss to emotional clarity, gameplay rhythm, and character-driven storytelling.

Those experiments became proof of concept. Early ads tripled the studio’s baseline performance and forced a rethink: success wasn’t about bigger budgets, it was about rediscovering the game’s soul and turning that into a system that could scale.

Quick and Dirty to Systematic Creativity

Before the Creative Task Force, I operated in what we called the “quick and dirty” phase, a rapid production sprint built on speed, testing, and improvisation.

These early ads were proof-of-concept experiments: modular 3D card packs, swappable backgrounds, and simplified motion built from static PNGs of Tiki and Pele. Even without full assets, they carried emotion and momentum.

The results spoke for themselves, outperforming baseline UA creative by 3× and proving that energy and storytelling convert better than formula.
That success set the foundation for the Creative Task Force, where I helped turn those discoveries into a repeatable design system, one built on story, scalability, and data-driven intent.

Quick & Dirty: UA-Led Reverse Engineering
Early on, our UA analysts asked me to recreate competitor top-performers rather than “make it look like the game.” The brief was simple: clone what’s winning in the market for our brand and test fast.

A/B Deck Test: Establishing a Baseline

What this was: A fast baseline to see if a generic deck vs. TriPeaks-styled cards changed click-through/curiosity when everything else was kept simple.
Goal: Not to find a winner, but to calibrate our starting point before cloning outside winners.

Water Hose” Clone Test, Based on Grand Harvest

What this was: A purposeful clone of a Grand Harvest top performer, requested by the UA manager. I re-shot/comped it in a tropical TriPeaks backdrop so it sat inside our world, but the mechanic and gag mirrored the competitor.
Result: This did not beat existing winners at the time. It validated the benchmark and gave us a read on how much “clone vs. brand” we could get away with.

First “Finger” Ad, Human Touch + Depth

What this was: A quick pivot from hard cloning to ownable feel—keeping the fast, readable mechanic but adding a real finger interaction and 3D deck depth.
Impact: This became the first internal ad to meaningfully challenge the pack and later took over as the team’s go-to direction.

Quick Marquee Test, Bringing Tiki & Pele On-Brand

What this was: A light-lift brandability test: could we keep the speed of UA clones but inject character and neon marquee drama for scroll-stopping personality?
Outcome: Not a runaway winner, but it proved character energy had legs, which informed later directions.

Pele’s redesign became a turning point.

Pele’s redesign proved how powerful marketing can be. She didn’t just driving installs. the design inspired the product team to evolve game the character art in-game. Her elemental energy helped make the world of TriPeaks feel truly alive.

The TriPeaks UA Creative Ecosystem
A modular system built to unify design identity, storytelling, and analytics.
Each phase, from character design to data refinement reinforced scalability and measurable creative performance across internal and partner teams.

Creative Task Force Launch

As TriPeaks’ user acquisition performance declined, the studio formed a Creative Task Force to diagnose and rebuild its marketing strategy. Led by the Marketing Director, Senior Content Manager, Senior U.A Analyst and myself, our goal was simple: make ads convert again.

At the time, most campaigns across the studio converted roughly 1 in 10 installs into paying players. My ads, by contrast, consistently delivered 1 in 3 conversions. This was over three times the studio average. That performance became the catalyst for the task force, as leadership wanted to understand why my approach worked and how to turn it into a repeatable process.

Over a six-month sprint, our small team developed a series of breakthrough campaigns, including Discover the Island’s Secrets, Escape the Crystal Cave, and the George and Jane “Real Player” ads. Together, these defined the emotional and narrative tone that reshaped TriPeaks’ creative direction.

The results of the initiative led to major structural changes across the studio:

• The two junior artists I mentored were hired full-time.

• The UA art function was formally folded under the marketing department.

• I received a significant raise and expanded creative oversight, though my title remained unchanged.

Building on that momentum, I proposed the Tiki 2.0 redesign. I advocated for fully rigged, animation-ready characters like Tiki and Pele to replace the static PNGs used in earlier ads.

That proposal marked a true turning point: TriPeaks evolved from reactive, one-off experiments into a structured, data-driven creative system. A pipeline that fused storytelling, performance, and scalable design.

The success of those campaigns gave us the momentum, and the data, to think bigger. Once the Task Force had stabilized performance, we began formalizing what worked into a repeatable system. That’s when we introduced the Creative Testing Framework, a thematic approach built around emotional pillars that could guide every new concept, from narrative tone to motion rhythm.

Creative Testing Framework

With the Creative Task Force established and performance trending upward, our next step was to build consistency. We needed a framework that could guide every new concept — one rooted in emotion, not guesswork.

Working with the content manager, I helped develop a Creative Testing Framework that organized our campaigns around five core themes of player motivation:

• Exploration – The thrill of discovery and progression within the game world.

• Strategy – The satisfaction of mastery and the drive to “do better next time.”

• Social – The sense of shared experience and light competition.

• Relaxation – The calm, escapist rhythm that defines TriPeaks’ core audience.

• Charm – The warmth and humor that make the brand instantly likable.

Every new ad concept was designed to test one or more of these emotional pillars. This approach turned our creative process into a feedback loop.Now the player 's response directly informed the direction.

Campaigns like Sleeping Tiger Card Flip Fail and Discover the Island’s Secrets came directly out of this testing structure, combining emotion, tension, and humor in ways that resonated far beyond simple product advertising. It became the blueprint for every future TriPeaks campaign.We had a creative system that could evolve as fast as audience behavior did.

From Static Success to Motion Storytelling

The first wave of static testing on Pinterest and Facebook validated that our new creative framework could predict performance, but it also raised new questions. Why were certain images connecting so strongly, and could that same emotional energy translate into motion?

To find out, I took the highest-performing static pieces: “Discover the Island’s Secrets” and “Escape the Crystal Cave”, and began translating them into cinematic motion studies. “Discover the Island’s Secrets” became the proving ground for that leap: a dark, mysterious jungle brought to life through lighting, atmosphere, and the emotional tone of discovery.

The success of this piece led to the shorter, high-energy follow-up “Take the Plunge”, a six-second test that distilled the same storytelling DNA into a format built for speed, rhythm, and performance channels.

Ad Campaign: Discover the Island’s Secrets

Theme: Exploration and Charm

Discover the Island’s Secrets marked the first time our team transitioned from static imagery into full cinematic motion, and with it, the beginning of TriPeaks’ modern brand identity. The concept started as a test: could we take the visual and emotional appeal of the top-performing Pinterest ads and translate that into a dynamic short film that felt alive, mysterious, and immersive?

Working without a strict in-game reference, I was given the freedom to imagine what a dark, mysterious jungle might look like within the TriPeaks universe. The base game art at night was desaturated and flat, so I rebuilt the world with new color and atmosphere — mixing cool blues and greens with fiery volcanic tones to create visual tension. Inspired by natural storm patterns around volcanic islands, I added lightning flashes, mist, and atmospheric thunder to heighten the drama.

Crystals, ruins, and totems from the game were re-lit and graded to evoke the emotional texture of the original static ads, while dynamic camera moves and compositing effects gave the illusion of a living, reactive environment. The result became the blueprint for TriPeaks’ “mystery jungle” aesthetic: a visual language that was later referenced in multiple campaigns, key art, and partner toolkits.

This single experiment ultimately influenced product design conversations including: how the opening levels of the game could feel more atmospheric and emotionally resonant for new players. What began as a visual test became the creative DNA for the brand.

Pinterest Static Ad theme test

Ad Campaign: Take the Plunge

Theme: Exploration and Charm

Created as a 6-second, high-tempo experiment, Take the Plunge pushed the limits of our newly established design system. Working with only static PNGs of Tiki and Poi, I re-posed and composited them into dynamic 3D arrangements that conveyed movement and emotion with minimal animation: a balance of speed, energy, and personality.

The spot explored how our characters could carry both mood and story through lighting, composition, and rhythm rather than traditional dialogue or gameplay. I treated the jungle environment as a living emotional space, painted and lit for atmosphere rather than literal accuracy. We tested how far the brand’s assets could stretch to express tone, adventure, and heart.

Take the Plunge proved that even within a limited toolkit, careful posing, lighting, and direction could create the feeling of depth and cinematic scale. It became a key step in defining how TriPeaks could express “exploration” and “charm” visually, paving the way for character-driven storytelling in later campaigns.

Parallel Explorations: The Human Angle

While the team refined the Tiki and Pele creative system, I also developed a parallel series featuring “George and Jane”, 2D characters that could act as “real life player” ads that brought humor and personality to the TriPeaks brand. These “Real Player” pieces became our emotional A/B counterparts to the animated campaigns, testing relatability against spectacle

→ View the George & Jane Case Study →

 Character Sizzle Reel “Solitaire TriPeaks”

A highlight reel celebrating the successful rollout of new Solitaire TriPeaks characters and their impact on the game’s creative strategy and economy. These character introductions revitalized our brand presence, helping our social ad performance on Facebook reach competitive industry benchmarks.

The video showcases our end-to-end development process, from internal design documentation to partner-ready visual guides, demonstrating how flexible character systems empowered our content team to test new themes and creative directions efficiently.

Edited and assembled to reflect the collaborative energy behind the project, this piece captures both the charm of the characters and the measurable business lift they brought to the TriPeaks ecosystem.

Ad Campaign: “Sleeping Tiger Card Flip Fail”

This ad was developed as part of our theme testing strategy, blending the Strategy and Charm pillars from our creative framework. It transformed a simple card flip into a moment of tension and humor. Now The clock is ticking, each move could awaken the tiger and lead to an unexpected, animated “FAIL.”

The concept tapped into the puzzle aspect of Solitaire TriPeaks while emphasizing emotional engagement through slapstick storytelling. By mixing danger and comedy, it challenged viewers psychologically. The idea is inviting them to think, “Can I do better?”

This piece stood out in A/B testing for its high completion rates and strong retention impact. It proved that gameplay-driven storytelling could outperform traditional static ads, paving the way for future creative experimentation within the TriPeaks campaign ecosystem.

Tutorial Concept: “Tiki’s Big Win” (Day Version)

Developed to explore the Relaxation theme from our testing strategy, this concept presents Solitaire TriPeaks as a tropical escape — a world of calm, clarity, and satisfying reward.

The environment was designed to feel lush and inviting, inspired by the fantasy of an island paradise. Tiki interacts directly with the player’s hand and cards, turning the tutorial into a friendly, character-driven moment of discovery.

The sequence builds toward a bright burst of achievement as the treasure chest opens. This reinforces the emotional loop of relax → play → win. This simple moment of payoff captures how thoughtful animation and environment design can make learning the game feel genuinely rewarding.

Holiday Reskin: “Explore a Solitaire Wonderland”

With the new character and world systems in place, we reimagined “Discover the Island’s Secrets” as a festive, holiday-themed variation. a test of how far our creative framework could stretch while staying true to brand.

This version focused less on core card gameplay and more on parallax motion, warmth, and character relationships, particularly the bond between Tiki and Poi, his beloved masked dog. The goal was to evolve the visual language. We kept multi-layered camera movement but updated the visuals to show seasonal details that aligned with best practices for Facebook and mobile performance.

Set in a snowy re-skin of Tiki’s tropical world, the ad balanced charm and exploration, capturing the feeling of festive discovery without losing the game’s identity. It became a key experiment in how storytelling, animation depth, and emotional tone could combine to keep long-running campaigns feeling new.

Action Gameplay “High Impact Mock Gameplay”

A fully animated recreation of gameplay: engineered for rhythm, emotion, and control. Built entirely in After Effects using game assets to test pacing, biomes, and player impact.

While most best practices suggest using raw gameplay footage, we consistently found that unedited gameplay failed to perform. Viewers disengaged before the most exciting moments could unfold.

To solve this, I proposed creating fully animated mock gameplay sequences in After Effects, built from in-game assets but with complete control over timing, rhythm, and composition. This approach allowed us to amplify the emotional peaks of play while maintaining an authentic look and feel.

By designing the entire scene, from backgrounds and card motion to dynamic hand interactions, we could emphasize the most rewarding and high-octane moments of the player experience. It also gave us total flexibility for testing biomes and color environments, helping us identify which visual contexts correlated most with real installs and engaged players.

This spot was categorized under Exploration, though it also speaks to Action and Mastery, representing the thrill of precision and success in motion.

Partner Ad Extensions

Building on the success of the internal campaigns, the creative system became a framework the studio could continue to evolve. Using the TriPeaks animation rigs, modular character sets, and thematic foundations. The enameled partner studios to explore new directions in tone, humor, and storytelling while staying consistent with the brand’s identity.

This phase proved the system’s long-term value: it wasn’t just a series of ads, but a scalable creative language that allowed the brand to keep testing, learning, and refining its voice across multiple markets and collaborators.

Treasure Shrine (Partner Ad)

Studio: Solitaire TriPeaks / GSN Games
Type: Partner Execution Using Internal Creative Systems

Description:
This partner-created ad showcases how the TriPeaks Creative System empowered other studios to deliver high-quality, on-brand work. The video draws directly from my Mystery Theme treatment, leveraging the lava environment, rigs, and Treasure Shrine composition I originally designed.
While likely produced by one of the junior artists I mentored, the execution maintains the same rhythm, expression, and tone established in my internal campaigns. proof of how scalable and teachable our creative foundation became.

The Wild Bunch (Partner Ad)

Studio: Solitaire TriPeaks / GSN Games
Type: Partner Execution — Creative Brief by Jonathan Bolster

Description:
Developed from my creative brief, The Wild Bunch brings TriPeaks 2.0’s expressive animation system into a Western comedy format.
This ad demonstrates how partners could extend our in-house character rigs, and brand humor into new genres while maintaining consistency with the established visual language.
The “Draw!” gag, timed with gameplay, highlights the flexibility of the system.It fused slapstick character acting with the game’s win mechanics in a single, seamless beat.

Desert Decision (Partner Ad)

Studio: Solitaire TriPeaks / GSN Games
Type: Partner Execution: Character Comedy

Description:
Desert Decision plays like a mini silent film, a stranded Tiki at a crossroads must choose between “Water” and “Solitaire TriPeaks.”
The spot uses clean visual storytelling, expressive rig animation, and a cinematic “cutaway” framing that captures TriPeaks’ personality through timing and contrast. The transition from the dry desert to the lush oasis reinforces the brand’s “Play Now, Escape Instantly” message, extending the humor-driven tone I helped establish in the 2.0 campaign.

Key Art: Expanding the World of Tiki

Following the motion campaigns, we developed a library of high-impact key visuals, designed to capture the game’s personality across store placements, social campaigns, and cross-promotions. Each composition focuses on energy, depth, and storytelling, framing Tiki and his world through distinct emotional tones: discovery, adventure, danger, and reward.

As these campaigns evolved, the creative language behind them began to mature, and what started as short-form experiments in tone became a fully realized visual identity for the TriPeaks universe.

Evolving the World: The Mystery Jungle Style

As Discover the Island’s Secrets gained traction, its cinematic tone inspired a deeper visual language, what became known as the Mystery Jungle style. It captured the contrast between warmth and shadow, mystery and charm.This turned TriPeaks’ tropical setting outside of the realm of card game and into something atmospheric and alive.

I hand-painted modular foliage, glowing flora, and mist layers to create a system of re-usable assets that gave our team freedom to build new worlds fast while maintaining mood and depth. This look became a foundation for future campaigns, shaping everything from Tiki 2.0’s worldbuilding to seasonal event art and marketing collaborations.

Tiki in Paradise

Deep Sea Dive

Treasure Run / Lava Chase

Originally featured on the GSN Games homepage (2019–2020) as the hero image representing all apps. This illustration embodied the energy and adventure of the Solitaire TriPeaks world, positioning Tiki as a brand icon across the company’s ecosystem.

Treasure Scene / Reward

Character & World Design System

These worlds and moments were only possible because of the scalable visual system built around Tiki and his companions using a modular design language that allowed for rapid iteration across tone, environment, and event themes.

As Tiki 2.0 proved the value of expressive, modular design, the next challenge was scalability. Could we build systems that allowed anyone to create animation with the same polish and consistency?

Mini Tiki Rig System (Production Handoff)

A modular documentation set created to support consistent animation production across internal and partner studios.

These rigs detailed full mouth, eye, and hand symbol libraries for the Mini Tikis. defining a unified animation language that could scale across hundreds of variations. Each puppet used rotation-based parenting and pre-composed structures for 3D wrist motion, ensuring technical precision without sacrificing personality.

This deliverable helped formalize the bridge between design intent and production execution. A huge leap forward in making the TriPeaks creative ecosystem both adaptive and future-proof.

Creative Legacy: Building Systems That Outlive the Project

What began as a rescue mission became a creative renaissance. The lessons learned from Tiki 2.0 reshaped not just our ads, but the studio’s entire creative process.
The pipelines, naming systems, and emotional pillars we built turned reactive marketing into a living brand language. A language that other teams could evolve without losing its voice.

Working alongside our content manager, I helped translate those brand pillars into visual systems, defining what they looked and felt like in motion, typography, and tone. That clarity allowed other artists to build on the framework long after the campaign ended.

That’s the real measure of success: when your work stops being “your” project and becomes part of the studio’s DNA.

Conclusion

The revival of Solitaire TriPeaks proved that thoughtful design, storytelling, and iteration could turn a struggling product into a thriving brand. What began as a creative rescue effort grew into a full-scale reinvention of how the studio approached user acquisition,blending data with heart, and strategy with style.

By reimagining its world, characters, and emotional tone, we transformed TriPeaks from a set of card mechanics into a living, breathing adventure. one that captured attention, converted players, and reshaped the creative culture around it.