Intelligence service GCHQ is taking steps to prove it is no longer the secretive organisation it once was by launching an interactive recruitment game designed to entice more people to join.

The interactive recruitment CD – which was developed jointly with the recruitment communications firm TMP Worldwide Advertising & Communications – gives potential jobseekers the chance to sit in ‘mission control’ and outwit a group of terrorists.

Participants are given a series of multiple-choice questions involving situations with arms dealers and drug smugglers, and a newsreader presents one of three news bulletins at the end, depending on the answers given. Players with the correct outcome can win a laptop.

The point of the interactive game, said a GCHQ spokesman, was to give potential recruits an understanding of what the organisation did as the ‘ears of the nation’.

“The CD-Rom gives an insight into our work and what it’s like to be part of our team,” he added.