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Playing The Escape
erich666 writes "Wired reports on 'La Fuga' (The Escape), a real-world game. You overcome physical and mental challenges to escape a prison. Not just any live-action role playing game, this one is run in a $20 million facility in Madrid. A networked PDA and RFID tag keep you in touch while you play. The company is now building a 30,000-square-foot game center at 49th and Broadway in New York City." From the article: "The screen goes static and then switches to a view of a sweaty prisoner with a 5 o'clock shadow who tells me that I can liberate myself and all the other drones stuck in the prison. Those who have escaped before me will contact me to assist in my quest. The door opens, and I enter a sort of closet before another door opens to reveal a metal air duct. I try to step in, but I slip, fall hard on my ass, and slide down the chute into a room containing a baggage carousel surrounded by screens."
I wonder how fast someone will hack this! Does padding on your rear count?
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
The real question on everyone's mind: How long until VR pr0n?
The Escape sounds like it has the Kafkaesque, byzantine plot lines reminescent of the Prisoner.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
My bad, couldn't resist
This sounds like a reasonably fun concept given they keep the price down. I think that a team atmosphere in this type of game would be great as well. If you could show up with a group of friends and have a task to complete as a group. Perhaps that's version 2!
Peter: I got an idea, an idea so smart my head would explode if I even began to know what I was talking about.
sounds like a step closer to 'Dreampark', as in the novels by Steven Barnes and Larry Niven. Immersive real-life roleplaying games. If you haven't read the series yet, go do it. A neat idea, well-executed on paper.
I've been wanting something like this for YEARS!
In my imaginary version I wanted a real-life CTF situation based on paintball or similar that took place in a massive area full of buildings and the like - similar to normal paintball, but over a number of days and a much much larger playing field.
If you took the tech from this game and combined it with a much larger playing field, teams, a much longer game time (in the order of a weekend) and some form of decent forfeit for losing (say, a deposit), you'd have my perfect game!
It reminds me of trying to find my way out of the club the other night after six boilermakers five shots of tequilla and something called a New York nipple twister...
From the Article:
...and burrowed through a mass of grapefruit-sized plastic spheres.
What, he went to Chuck E. Cheese?
Viper Paintball,http://www.viperpaintball.com/, came to mind when I saw this article. It's a RTS Paintball event. A paintball game with missions and a storyline lasting up to 26 hours, even during the night.
This sounds like a solid design effort, worthy of most video game levels.
After all, I see prisons with baggage carousels _all the time_.
I hope this company has henchmen erm actors playing the role of henchmen that blindfold, kidnap and drops your unsuspecting bosses and coworkers into this prison, where they only find out its a game when I'm waiting for them behind plexiglass at the end.
I'll even order a dvd of that.
And we thought Flight Sim was bad for the Terrorists.. Now virtual training for prison escapees!
"Everything worth innovating today will go to court tomorrow."
If you have DDR for Playstation, you can plug in a regular Playstation controller instead of using the DDR mats and play it that way. None of that pesky exercise, plus it's way easier to win.
Actually this would be interesting.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Interactive experiences for adults have been around for awhile and aren't anything new, and have been popular in several cities for a long time [5-wits.com], for example. This one sounds pretty damn cool and seems really reminiscent of those awful (but curious) Cube movie they play constantly on the Sci-Fi channel. I've gotten used to the fact that when anything comes to NYC, even if it's not new it automatically becomes newsworthy. Hopefully, it will get more people going to these places and build up more of an industry for something that is really just on the cusp of becoming popular. Lord knows, we could use more interactive (read: physical) forms of entertainment in this country.
Something intelligent here.
... do you wake up disoriented and have to take analgesic to do anything useful?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I'll see your Cube and raise you this.
What would you have used a century ago, in place of the RFID player tracking, audio/video playback, and all the other various automation? A horde of employees hiding behind the scenery? Perhaps, but I doubt it would be very profitable.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The door opens...
WTF? What kind of prison break is that? Give the players a spoon and ten years to dig a hole!
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
http://archive.gamespy.com/reviews/november01/maje stic/
I think the game you're referring to was 'Majestic', by EA. The game was set up in such a way that you'd receive phone calls, faxes, IM's from people, etc, etc. all in the intent of solving mysteries and conspiracy theories and the like.
EA charged $9.95/month for this setup and I don't think it lasted beyond a couple months before they shut it down as a complete failure and shelved the whole thing.
Of course, there could be another similar one from the late 90's but this one was in mid-2000 or 2001.
Anyone can walk on water....think WINTERTIME.
I'll raise you This
And dont even try to raise me This
I am on to your game.
This actually isn't the first time that this has been done. Here in Boston, a company called 5-Wits has put out an interactive physical game that runs very much like a linear puzzle-style video game. It's called Tomb, and involves various manipulations both mental and physical in order to work your way through it. It functions for groups, though, not for individuals; in fact, as far as I can remember, most of the puzzles require at least three people to solve.
Unfortunately, it sucks. It's dreadfully boring and easy, and there are only a few rooms. The puzzles are pretty simple too -- a 5-piece towers of hanoi is actually one of them (yay for MIT graduates designing these things). A lot of effects, which is obviously what draws people, but I can only imagine how much each room cost. Their prices are comparable to the price of a seeing a movie in the theater, but usually the 'game' only lasts about half the time of a movie (about 30-40 minutes).
Anyways, for those interested and/or in Beantown:
http://5-wits.com/
I recall seeing a cool experiment involving a person who is supposedly hypnotized (or put asleep) while playing a first person shooter involving zombies. He gets put under, transferred to a building with a layout EXACTLY like the game, and he is woken up. He sees the zombie chick he just killed, and before long is trapped with zombies pouring in from all around him. He freaks out near the end, where he is "put under" again, put back in front of the video game and he wakes up thinking he's just had one hell of a game.
Here's the video.