Unrd

Unrd is an award-winning mobile entertainment studio that creates immersive, real-time storytelling experiences. Founded in 2018 by university friends Shib Hussain and Adam Lowe, the company was born from their passion for true crime series and a desire to create a truly native mobile storytelling format. After backgrounds in advertising, they identified a gap in the market, observing that existing mobile entertainment often just adapted formats from other media like television or books.

The company's core product is a mobile app, now known as Suspects: Mobile Detective, that allows users to solve fictional mysteries by accessing a character's phone. The narrative unfolds in real-time over several days through text messages, video calls, photo galleries, and social media-style stories, creating a voyeuristic and engaging experience. This 'found phone' genre primarily focuses on crime, thriller, and horror stories, where players piece together clues to solve the case. To enhance realism, the studio creates supplementary content like character Instagram profiles and fictional websites.

Unrd's business model is freemium. The apps are free to download, generating revenue through in-app purchases. Players can buy 'coins' or 'keys' to unlock additional content, access conversations, or speed up the story's progression. This monetization strategy was chosen to be non-intrusive to the core narrative experience. In 2020, the company successfully raised $2.5 million in a funding round involving investors like Galaxy Interactive and Play Ventures to scale its audience and develop new content formats.

Keywords: mobile gaming, immersive storytelling, found phone games, interactive narrative, crime mystery games, real-time storytelling, mobile entertainment, Shib Hussain, Adam Lowe, Suspects Mobile Detective, interactive fiction, narrative games, freemium games, in-app purchases, story-driven games, thriller games, horror games