Crackables 2.0
View the case- Brand
- OnePlus
- Year
- 2020
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- UNIT9
- With
- Le Polish Bureau
Objective
Fresh off the word-of-mouth success of the original Crackables (580,000 players with zero paid push), OnePlus wanted a sequel that would break out of its core tech fanbase and pull in casual puzzle solvers worldwide. The game launched alongside the OnePlus 8 5G series in April 2020, giving the brand a global talking point built for an audience stuck at home during COVID-19. A charity payout tied to pandemic relief gave the competition a cause beyond the prize money.
Solution
After registering in advance, players log into a browser-based mobile game set in a futuristic world led by a rogue AI with pink hair. Across four stages they work through a run of cryptographic puzzles solo, each stage growing harder than the last. Every stage ends in a shared "Gate" challenge that the whole community has to crack together to unlock the next round — but only a shrinking number of the fastest players make it through each time, so a session ends either with a ticket to the next stage or elimination. Between stages, players trade tips and strategy on Reddit and Discord. The ten fastest survivors of the two-week run face off in a final tournament, streamed live with a YouTube host.
Results
100,000 players cleared the first Gate, 20,000 cleared the second, and just 1,000 made it through the third. Ten finalists from six countries reached the grand final; the winner finished with a lead of over 100 points, taking a $10,000 prize and directing a matching $10,000 to COVID-19 relief.
- 1
Players register in advance on a promo landing page, then the game opens on a set date and time: they log into an account through their phone's mobile browser at the game's URL, with no app to install.
- 2
An opening scene introduces a futuristic world narrated by a fugitive AI character with pink hair, who sets up the premise that players must crack ciphers.
- 3
The core loop is a sequence of individual crypto puzzles: the player solves a puzzle and enters the answer to unlock the next one, with difficulty climbing from an easy opening puzzle to progressively harder ciphers.
- 4
Each round of puzzles ends at a Gate, a large collective challenge no single player can crack alone; players turn to Reddit and Discord communities of thousands to trade hints and piece together clues, and the Gate admits only the fastest, with the first Gate cutting the field to 100,000 players.
- 5
The game repeats this puzzle-then-Gate structure across further rounds of harder, individually named puzzle levels, with each Gate narrowing the field further — down to 20,000 players, then to 1,000.
- 6
A final stage of consecutive puzzle levels decides the last spots: the first ten players to solve the closing puzzle earn a place in the grand final.
- 7
The open gameplay window closes on a set date, after which everyone who didn't reach the final becomes a spectator for the finale.
- 8
The grand final airs as a live broadcast hosted by a YouTube gamer inside a virtual studio built from motion graphics and 3D environments; the ten finalists race through the last puzzles on their phones while viewers watch in real time, and the player with the highest score wins, taking a cash prize and directing a matching donation to a charity of their choice.
