Merge Mansion, a mobile game from Finnish studio Metacore Games, has enlisted Kathy Bates to play Grandma in its newest ad campaign.
One of the spots features Maddie (played by Grace Rex) willing to help her grandma rake some leaves in the backyard. Grandma Ursula tells her that rakes are in the garage, but when the young woman enters the garage she is shocked by her discovery. She immediately turns around and comes back to her Grandma, saying “So many knives!”. “So little time,” answers the latter stopping for a second and thinking about something. She then returns to racking leaves, but there are more knives than leaves, apparently.
“What’s Grandma hiding?” an onscreen line reads at the end of the commercial, when viewers are encouraged to download the game on the App Store or Google Play.
Another commercial features Maddie finding Grandma Ursula burning a document and then leading her on a chase through secret passages that Grandma opens by giving statues wet willies, raspberries on their bellies, slaps across the face and tweaked nipples.
In Merge Mansion, players must help Maddie, who – after being given the keys to a secret gate leading to a massive mansion in her grandmother’s backyard – realizes that there might be more to her family than meets the eye, investigate her family’s past by merging their way through the grounds, fixing up, cleaning up, and restoring the mansion and its gardens to their former glory.
Merge Mansion is free to download and play, but some game items can be purchased with real money.