AXEBUSTERS
Read the story- Brand
- Axe
- Year
- 2007
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Fashion & Beauty
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Bascule Inc.
Objective
Axe wanted young Japanese men to feel "The Axe Effect" rather than just read about it on a poster. Instead of another print or TV ad repeating the promise that women can't resist the scent, Unilever Japan and Bascule turned that promise into a rule you could act out yourself, in a game built for a male audience that was already living online.
Solution
The game opens with a manga-style animated intro set to the original theme song, "Theme of AXEBUSTERS." Before you start, you fill in a short profile — nickname, home prefecture, blood type — and the game calls back to these answers as you play. Then you're dropped into a first-person shooting gallery set in an office, where women stand around each wearing a branded AXEBUSTERS nose clip that's blocking them from the scent. Using only the mouse, you aim a pointing-finger cursor and click to shoot the clip off each woman's face, and the instant it's gone, she visibly gives in to the effect. The session ends with a face-off against a final boss.
- 1
The game opens on an animated intro sequence, styled like manga artwork and set to the campaign's original theme song.
- 2
Before play begins, the player enters a nickname and selects a home prefecture and blood type; these choices are referenced later inside the game.
- 3
Controls are limited to the mouse and a single left click, with instructions and interface text in English.
- 4
The core loop is a shooting gallery set in an office: the player aims a reticle at women on screen, each wearing a small nose clip, and clicks to shoot the clip off; landing the small target is the challenge, and each successful hit removes the clip and defeats that opponent.
- 5
After clearing the regular opponents, the player faces a boss encounter that demands the most precise aim in the game.
