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by escapecharacter 2681 days ago
Blatant self-promotion:

For us who grew up playing lots of video games but are now adults, we now have: 1. Way less time 2. A higher expectation of quality 3. More money

Creating "Quality Time" entertainment is why I founded Escape Character. We're a platform for online experiences with a live actor. Since a paid actor is involved, and we pay them a suitable rate, events are ticketed even though they're online, just like an escape room or theatre show.

I have a background in improv theatre (but also a PhD in Comp Sci), and my initial crazy idea was "what if every NPC in a game you were playing was played by a good improvisor who could adjust to you." Economically this is feasible as long as the player:actor ratio is 4:1.

Our first online experience released last week - a 45 minute "live action digital adventure" called The Aluminum Cat. Tickets here: https://escape-character.com/

This content is made in-house, but our goal for Escape Character is to enable actors to work from wherever, to audiences based anywhere. Currently these kind of high-touch responsive experiences are exclusively in-person, e.g. escape rooms, immersive theatre, Disneyland.

2 comments

I'm not yet convinced that this is something I'd really like, but I have to admit I'm intrigued. And the prices seem really reasonable.

I feel like I'd be more sure (and more likely to purchase tickets) if I had a better idea of how it plays. The description seems to be lacking. Perhaps a short video would help people better understand what they're buying into?

To be fair, this is my problem with real "dinner theatre" as well. I simply don't know what to expect, and so I'm not likely to buy tickets.

That's valid! I think communication and setting expectations around immersive events is an unsolved problem.

We have a gif here: https://twitter.com/dustinfreeman/status/1096887625779048448

And a secret highlight reel from our premiere show: https://escape-character.com/secret/TheAluminumCatHighlights...

For many immersive events, lots of people are curious, but afraid that they'll be forced to act, or put in an awkward situation. It doesn't help that most "immersive theatre" events are so expensive to run they haven't really tried to expand out of the rich early adopter urbanite demographic.

Initially our closed alpha format had audience speaking to the actor, but we repeatedly found out that the average person was intimidated. We recently switched to a mouse-based/ouija-like UI you can see in the highlight reel. This has been surprisingly expressive. We don't use audio or text chat at all for the audience anymore. More info on my blog: https://dustinfreeman.org/blog/immersive-theatre-mice/

If I was to describe these events honestly, I'd called them "streamlined D&D" or "training wheels LARPs", but I think D&D and LARP* are intimidating mediums to the average person.

* Live Action Roleplaying.

Interesting. The concept is remarkably reminiscent of elements of The Diamond Age. Was that an inspiration?
That's a strong yep ;)