Project ‘IDLE’ Trial Run

Ideation

My group which includes Melodie, Kai Ting, Desmond and I thought of doing something like a virtual escape room. After some discussion, we decided to hold our interactive performance at IKEA, because IKEA has many showrooms which is appropriate for our intended setting.

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The performance would be conducted on Instagram via its live function and players would be able to interact with the objects in the showroom by commenting on our live videos. They would be looking at the room at a first person’s point of view, so that it seems like they are transported into the game itself. Their goal would be to find hints and ultimately the key that are hidden in the rooms by the moderators (us).

Narrative

In order to make this interactive game more immersive, we came up with a storyline so that the players would feel engaged in this interactive third space that we have curated for them. The plot follows a group of 4 friends that are trapped in 4 different rooms of a kidnapper’s house. They have been trapped for days and they will be dying in 30 mins due to the lack of food and water. Therefore, players have 30 mins to help all the victims escape by directing them to find the key to the room.

We also created four Instagram accounts documenting the bedroom, kitchen, study room and living room. Players would have to follow these accounts and view their live videos in order to play the game.

Location Recce

Our first step was to explore IKEA. During our recce, we finalised the four showrooms that we would be using on the actual day. These rooms were chosen based on their secludedness, their relatively small size and their potential for spaces to hide hints and key.

Trial Run

With all the ideas finalised, we went ahead to do a trial run at IKEA to see how we can better develop the game play. We also wanted to anticipate all the potential problems that we might face and make changes accordingly.

Watch the our trial run at https://youtu.be/2FTsIyNWUdQ

Variables

  1. Location: A random bedroom in IKEA, relatively bigger than the other rooms
  2. Player: 3
  3. Duration: 30 mins
  4. Hints: Written on white slips of paper, e.g. Within, Right, Orderly

Feedback

  1. Hints were not visible to the players because they were written on white slips of paper
  2. Hint were too vague, players cannot derive anything from them
  3. Internet latency
  4. Players not sure of how to instruct the escapees
  5. Instagram does not save the comments from the players only the video itself
  6. 3 players per room for 3o mins is feasible
  7. Room chosen is a bit huge and its hard for players to view the whole area at once