Denny's Arcade Battle Royale
Art direction and arcade illustration for Denny’s and Atari, remixing classic games into a playable campaign built around breakfast food and nostalgia.
Game On: Denny’s Meets Atari
Denny’s teamed up with Atari to turn three classic arcade games into branded remixes that lived inside the Denny’s mobile app. Asteroids became Hashteroids, Centipede became Centipup, and Breakout became Take Out. The challenge was making the games feel unmistakably Denny’s without losing the visual language and nostalgia that made the Atari originals so recognizable.
Working with EP+Co, I helped develop the campaign artwork and created the illustrated arcade graphics for Centipup, reimagining the original cabinet art with dogs, breakfast food, and Denny’s-brand weirdness. The broader campaign drove more than 10 million impressions, nearly 500,000 app downloads in its first three months, and the highest Denny’s sales and restaurant traffic since 2006.
CLIENT
Denny’s Diner
AGENCY
EP+Co
YEAR
2014
MY ROLE
Art Direction, Arcade Illustration
Arcade cabinet art, social, merch design, promo video graphics
DELIVERABLES
Arcade Cabinet Artwork, Campaign Illustration, Promotional Graphics
ADDITIONAL ILLUSTRATION
Robbie Cobb — Centipup Cart, Hashteroids
RESULTS
10M+ impressions
Nearly 500K app downloads in the first three months
Highest Denny’s sales and restaurant traffic since 2006
Taking Cues from Classic Arcade Art
Denny‘s and Atari: A Remix of Retro Artwork
Vintage arcade cabinets weren’t subtle. The artwork was loud, detailed, colorful, and often more dramatic than the games themselves. That gave us a clear visual language to borrow from, but the trick was making the Denny’s versions feel like believable lost Atari cabinets rather than modern parody art pasted onto an old format.
For Centipup, I reworked the original Centipede setup around a dog defending a field of fried eggs instead of a garden of mushrooms. The cabinet panels, title treatment, character art, and surrounding details all pulled from the look of the original while introducing enough breakfast-food absurdity to make it feel distinctly Denny’s.
Denny‘s experienced the highest sales and restaurant traffic seen since 2006, with over 10 million impressions generated and nearly 500,000 app downloads in the first three months, making it the most successful partnership in their 65-year history.
Competing to Win Your Own Custom Arcade Cabinet!
Atari Grand Champions Face Off
The campaign eventually moved beyond the app into the Denny’s Arcade Battle Royale, where top players were invited to Las Vegas to compete for cash prizes and custom-painted arcade cabinets. The finals were streamed live on Twitch, turning the mobile games into a real-world gaming event.
That gave the campaign another layer of life beyond the original app experience and helped connect the Atari nostalgia to a live audience of players, fans, and creators.
Old Games, New Players
Denny’s Atari Remix
To extend the campaign, EP+Co rebuilt the remixed games to run on original Atari hardware and invited gaming creators to play them on vintage consoles. That gave the project a nice full-circle moment: new Denny’s versions of classic games running on the machines they were originally made for.
The contrast between old hardware and ridiculous breakfast-themed gameplay was part of the appeal. It helped the campaign feel less like a branded reskin and more like a genuine love letter to arcade culture.