For Ibornversaries Season 07, IBORN reimagined employee anniversaries as a year-long interactive sci-fi comic book where employees shaped the story.
Over 12 months, anniversary squads became protagonists inside a shared narrative. The result was Conquer the Moon, an interactive sci-fi comic built around decision-making. Each month, employees celebrating anniversaries became part of the story and had to choose how it would continue. Every edition ended with two choices.
Over 12 editions, this structure created 2¹² — 4,096 possible story paths. Only one became canon, but the system was designed to support all of them. The story’s core rule was equally direct: to continue building the spacecraft and conquer the moon, the crew had to accept memory loss. Progress required a trade. That trade defined the entire season. So now you are wondering: How it happened? Let’s dive and unwrap the 7th season of our gamified employee anniversaries!
The Challenge
We wanted to move beyond one-day recognition moments and build an anniversary experience that:
- Stayed engaging across an entire year
- Scaled monthly without becoming repetitive
- Actively involved employees instead of treating them as an audience
- Used AI meaningfully while maintaining creative and visual consistency
An additional challenge emerged early in the concept phase: How do you design a story that can branch every month without losing coherence? Each edition would end with two choices: doubling the possible narrative paths and creating exponential complexity over time.
The Story
The solution was a 13-edition interactive comic series:
- 12 monthly editions, each featuring the employees celebrating anniversaries that month
- 1 final special edition, hand-drawn by an IBORN employee
The story is set in 2030, where an IBORN crew is building a spacecraft on Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Early in the narrative, the crew discovers The Forgotten Blueprint: a plan that can accelerate construction but triggers a protocol that slowly erases memories of life on Earth.
To keep building, the crew must did a trade: progress in exchange for memory. They choose to forget, and that decision became the foundation of the entire season.
How the story became the experience
Each month followed a clear structure:
- A new comic edition was released
- The anniversary squad appeared as the crew for that chapter
- The story reached a dilemma with two moral or ethical choices
- The squad voted on how the story would continue
- The next edition was built around that decision
Each choice doubled the potential narrative direction. Over 12 editions, the story design supported dozens of possible paths, even though only one canon path progressed forward.
Inside the story, forgetting was the price of building the ship. In the real world, that loss was countered intentionally. The Ibornians were invited to send memories to the employees celebrating their anniversaries:
- Messages
- Drawings
- Notes
- Symbolic items
All contributions were collected in a physical memory box, given to the celebrant. The box became a tangible expression of the story’s core idea: when progress demands sacrifice, community restores what matters.
Visual Direction and AI at Scale
All monthly editions were illustrated using Midjourney. Maintaining visual consistency across multiple environments, squads, and branching storylines required a strong artistic anchor. To achieve this, all visuals were guided by the style of Jean “Moebius” Giraud, whose beautiful work is known for cohesive, expansive sci-fi worlds.
This approach allowed us to:
- Scale AI-generated storytelling responsibly
- Maintain a recognizable universe across all editions
- Avoid the fragmented look often associated with generative art
The season concluded with a hand-drawn final edition, bringing the story full circle from AI-assisted creation back to human authorship.
Gamification Layer
Participation was supported through light gamification:
- Moon Coins as symbolic currency
- Points for interaction
- A Loyalty Card tracking long-term engagement
These mechanics reinforced continuity without overshadowing the narrative itself.
The Result
Ibornversaries S07 transformed employee anniversaries into:
- A continuous narrative instead of isolated moments
- A participatory system rather than passive recognition
- A blend of digital storytelling and physical experience
Employees influenced outcomes, authored decisions, and received something deeply personal in return. By designing employee experience with the same discipline as a product, we demonstrated how recognition can be immersive, scalable, and human at the same time.
The Team Behind It
- 1 Employee Experience Specialist
- 1 Marketing Specialist
- 107 Ibornians who participated by sending memories and shaping the plot
Conclusion
Ibornversaries S07 shows what happens when a tech company treats culture as something to be built—intentionally, creatively, and together.
Progress may require tradeoffs. But no one builds alone.
