AXEBUSTERS
AXEBUSTERS
launch
CLIENT : UNILEVER JAPAN K.K.
PRODUCT/SERVICE : AXE

Synopsis:

The site is created for a promotion campaign upon the arrival of the new fragrance of AXE "VICE".

We developed a First Person Shooting game in which users are to get even AXEBUSTERS - a squad of super solid girls in the mood, in response to the campaign's tagline: "Get the solid girl in the mood". This time we aimed for providing users with contents to play and have fun with.

The game was made as simple as possible without any advanced rules or interfaces, but addictive - so that everyone can enjoy it without knowledge of games on the web.


The game:

It is a simple First Person Shooting game. Basic operations are only targeting a lady's nose and clicking it with a mouse, to remove her AXE GUARD.

First, please use your AXE GUARD CANCELLER to general ladies coming into the screen, and get them in the mood.

The number of ladies you have got in the mood is going to be life points for a battle against a boss character. The boss battle is one-to-one duel against one of AXEBUSTERS member. You will clear the stage by whittling the boss's life points to 0 and removing her AXE GUARD, or if your life gets 0, the game is over.


The world of the game:

THE AXEBUSTERS is a special assault team created by 5 jealous girls who just cannot stand with their boyfriends or boys they like are hitting on many girls using AXE VICE.

They developed and rolled-out AXE GUARD, a clothespin-like special item which cuts 99% of AXE fragrance by wearing on the nose. Recently it has become a common sight that women go out with their AXE GUARDs.

Against these situations, AXE GUARD CANCELLER, an item dispatched by passion of boys to remove AXE GUARD from women and let them sniff fragrance of AXE, has been invented.
Boys (=players) are again able to get girls in the mood in town using their AXE GUARD CANCELLERs.

AXEBUSTERS stand in the player's way with various special weapons which can accurately dispatch AXE GUARD to girls who have been got in the mood.

But you do not need to be afraid, because AXE GUARDs, which can be removed by AXE GUARD CANCELLER, are on their nose too.



Appealing points:

We emphasized the relationship; "AXE on the web = Entertainment" so that it is not seen as mere a game contents.


Player editing screen on which they can reflect their account information of mixi, which is the biggest SNS site in Japan.


Opening movie whose episode changes many times according to play count or previous scores of a player.


Incorporated sexy elements in a unique way to AXE in Japan, such as the bonus movies upon stage-clear.


Anime-trailer-like movie to introduce the next stage which is played when the game is over.


EXTRA ANIMATION featuring main characters of the game, and its original theme song.


Ranking system incorporated elements for core fans, such as hometown and blood-types sorting. We also conducted a giveaway ranking competition in mixi official community.


AXEBUSTERS are attacking players with various techniques.




The last stage is made extremely hard and it is quite difficult to clear the entire game.
The excessive force of the last boss resulted in fostering "The boss in the last stage is impossible!" viral on the web.
After a while, at the same timing of the final announcement of the fixed ranking on mixi SNS, we released a special blast attack (="AXE LOVE SPARK") enabled by purchasing AXE and enter its product code.
That successfully increased the number of game masters, as well as directly promoting sales of AXE.
(For judging purpose, this time AXE LOVE SPARK is enabled by default. It is discharged by pressing Space key.)



AXEBUSTERS Mobile:
We released a mobile version of the Flash game too, so that mobile users are also able to experience the world of AXEBUSTERS.
The mobile version is a side-view shooting game, player can also see bonus movies in video format upon clearing a stage.
Players of the mobile version were also able to participate the ranking.

<< LAUNCH "AXEBUSTERS mobile(auto play demo)"


Results:

The game was played over a million times by over 250 thousands users, while the mobile version also attracted around 200 thousands users.