Akragia promotion
With signed books by children's authors A.J. Butcher and Robert Muchamore up for grabs, the Akragia promotion was run in 2005 and saw several hundred participants. The premise was for a player to infiltrate the fictitious Akragia Corporation, locating and 'downloading' the intelligence required to bring down the corrupt institution and its CEO Kathleen Akragia.
Our Strategy
The competition was built around an interactive desk, linking the separate tasks — cracking a safe, snooping on e-mails and breaking into a restricted-access corridor. To complete a task, the player first had to explore the environment, search out information and then put it into use to crack the puzzle. Only once this information had been located could it be utilised, preventing, for instance, any brute force attack to crack the safe codes.
Each piece of intelligence found was 'downloaded' and once the player had enough to bring down the corporation they were congratulated and automatically entered into the draw. A set of ticks on screen kept track of a player's progress to show them how far they had left to go.
Reception
The mission was well received among the fans of both series and set the bar for future CHERUB missions held by Muchamore's publishers Hodder Children's Books. A researcher for one such promotion noted "Some older members have mentioned your mission as being one of the best ever created."