Cryptaris Mission
- Brand
- U.S. Army
- Year
- 2015
- Objective
- Lead Gen & Recruiting
- Industry
- Other
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- UM
- With
- MRM//McCANN
- With
- McCann New York
- With
- Plan8
- With
- Tool
Objective
The Army needed recruits with engineering and technical skills, but that audience saw the Army as a low-tech, muscle-only institution. The campaign set out to prove that Army selection is as intellectually rigorous as admission to Stanford or MIT, and to steer analytically strong candidates toward the STEM careers listed on goarmy.com.
Solution
Players open Cryptaris Mission and step straight into a browser-based tour of duty: seven back-to-back simulations, each testing a different real-world Army skill, from plotting navigation coordinates to clearing a route or piloting a drone. Short story sequences play between levels, pushing the mission narrative forward and raising the stakes before the next task begins. Each level is scored on accuracy, speed, and task completion, and the difficulty climbs sharply, so most players wash out well before the end. Anyone who survives all seven missions is sent on to goarmy.com to browse the Army's actual STEM job openings. The whole mission runs straight in the browser on desktop or mobile, no download required.
Results
Only 0.15% of players completed all seven missions. Over 900,000 people visited the site in its first month, spending an average of 2 minutes 55 seconds there. The campaign trailer drew 1 million views in three days and more than 6 million within a month. More than 7,000 players clicked through to goarmy.com to view STEM job openings, and the game generated 4,000+ Facebook shares.
- 1
The player opens the browser game at cryptarismission.com and lands in a 3D hub environment — a WebGL map or globe that serves as the mission's navigation point and launches the playthrough.
- 2
The mission is framed as a single continuous story: motion-graphic interstitials play between levels (eight in total), setting up the context for each upcoming simulation.
- 3
The core loop is a sequence of seven WebGL simulations, each built around a distinct STEM skill matched to a real U.S. Army specialty; every simulation scores the player on accuracy, speed, and completion of its objective.
- 4
The simulations vary in task: the opening level, "Trajectory Mapping," has the player plot a trajectory and serves as the easiest entry point; another level puts the player behind a drone's controls, working from its onboard camera to complete an objective; a later level, "Clear Path," tasks the player with charting a safe route through an obstacle.
- 5
Each simulation is harder than the last, so most players are filtered out before the end and only a small fraction complete all seven; those who finish are pointed to goarmy.com to browse real STEM jobs in the Army.
