From Sketch to Site: How a Digital Character Became Mining’s Unlikely Ambassador

Remember the cheeky animated rock from the Mine Tales mobile game? That character just took a physical walk through the dust of the Pilbara. In early November, our beloved Rocky-a digital creation born in our studios-visited his real-world inspiration at the Hancock Iron Ore mine site in Western Australia.

This journey from pixels to landscape is more than a fun photo opportunity; it’s the culmination of a project that embodies our approach at Viewport XR: envisioning technical concepts and bringing them to life in ways that educate, engage, and endure.

Mining is a cornerstone of the Australian economy, yet its image is often one of remote, complex processes. Our client, Hancock Iron Ore then Roy Hill, faced this head-on. Their goal for the Resource Technologies Showcase (RTS) was clear: captivate thousands of visiting school students, ignite interest in the industry, and do it within the few minutes each student would spend at their booth.

The brief was tight: six weeks to conceive, build, and deploy an experience that was educational, fun, instantly engaging, and inherently shareable. It couldn’t just be a flash in the pan; it needed lasting appeal.

Faced with this challenge, we brainstormed a range of ideas, from VR simulators to holographic displays. The winning concept was elegantly simple and powerfully scalable: a mobile game.

This wasn’t just any game. We knew it needed a heart, a focal point of charm. Enter Rocky, conceived from initial sketches by our CCO, Andrey Tarasov. Rocky was designed to be more than a guide; he was to be a relatable, slightly silly protagonist who could carry the narrative of the mining cycle with warmth and humour.

With Rocky as our star, we deconstructed the mining process into a series of intuitive, fast-paced mini-games:

• Blasting: Placing virtual dynamite with careful timing.
• Crushing & Sorting: Tapping and swiping to break down ore and separate materials.
• Washing & Shipping: Guiding ore through water jets and launching Rocky onto waiting ships with a satisfying flick.

Each mini-game was wrapped in vibrant visuals and playful physics, transforming abstract industrial steps into tangible, fun interactions. We integrated a live leaderboard to spark competition and a scoring system that translated points into real-world products—like bicycle frames or steel beams—making the end result of mining personally relatable.

The Mine Tales project underscores a core belief: the most effective way to communicate complex industries is not through dry manuals, but through storytelling and experiential learning.

“It was so realistic. I didn’t just play the game, I felt like I was the miner,” said 12-year-old student Harper Chatfield after playing. This feedback is gold. It means the technology faded into the background, leaving only engagement and understanding.

For us, this project was a perfect alignment of creative vision and strategic purpose. We took a tight deadline, a demanding set of objectives, and partnered with a forward-thinking client to build something that was more than a tool—it became a platform for connection.