2025 Chinese New Year Interactive Game Design of TAOBAO

During the 2025 Spring Festival, TAOBAO rolled out an innovative platform-based interactive design—Chinese New Year Interactive Game. Driven by the dual pillars of emotional resonance and user benefits, this groundbreaking design created an online festive experience for Chinese communities worldwide.

At the heart of the design was a deep exploration of the cultural essence of “blessings” and “hopes” associated with the Spring Festival. Lanterns, a traditional symbol of the holiday, were reimagined into 30 uniquely ranked “Flying Lanterns”, each representing a different level of hopes and dreams. These lanterns featured a mesmerizing transition from dim to bright, enhanced by dynamic light diffusion effects, crafting an atmosphere that was both solemn and heartwarming. The application of 2D elements simulating 3D floating effects significantly enhanced the visual experience, ensuring smooth and refined animations. Beyond their stunning display, these lanterns embodied the five core themes of the Spring Festival—blessing, prosperity, longevity, joy, and wealth—while also forging a strong emotional connection with users through homophonic wordplay and anthropomorphic designs.

To enhance user engagement, TAOBAO’s design team crafted a seamless linear interaction process. A suite of easy, low-barrier traditional New Year mini-games, such as “One-Stroke Fu” and “Riddle Guessing”were designed to replace conventional, repetitive tasks, allowing users to immerse themselves in festive entertainment. Moreover, in a pioneering collaboration with the Spring Festival Gala, TAOBAO harnessed AIGC (Artificial Intelligence Generated Content) technology to introduce “Cloud Participation Pass”. With the AI costume changing feature, users could virtually take on the role of Gala performers, breaking the boundaries between the game and the Spring Festival Gala, making “watching the Gala and playing the game at the same time” a reality.

The design achieved remarkable success, drawing in over 250 million users worldwide participating and making 908 million New Year wishes. It not only enabled Chinese communities across the globe to embrace the richness of traditional Spring Festival customs online, but also set a new benchmark for cultural marketing in the e-commerce industry.