PERSPECTIVE
Journeys to the farthest reaches of interactive entertainment
The Outer Limits will eventually take us somewhere other than warehouses in London, I promise, but they are its natural home, the kinds of spots where the column was conceived: under railway arches and in basements and unloved corners of industrial estates. Spaces that, having outlived their original purpose, will welcome just about any tenant at a knockdown price. I’ve been frequenting such places for a decade now, since a rainy day in Budapest led me down the stairs of a ruin pub’s cellar and into my first escape room. (The world’s, too, though I had no idea of that at the time.)
All this goes through my head while I watch Punchdrunk: Behind The Mask, a Sky Arts documentary about the famed immersive-theatre company that opens with footage of its founder, Felix Barrett, touring a derelict building. He pulls aside graffiti-laden hoardings and examines crevices with a torch, the narration offering a lot of waffle about “emotional architectural blueprints” and “listening” to a space, which might test your patience. Knowing Barrett is a keen player of videogames, though, I can’t help but wonder if he thought the same thing I am now: that this looks exactly like a real-life walking sim.
Which wouldn’t be a bad description of what Punchdrunk makes, actually. Enormous chunks of set-meets-level design, loaded with environmental storytelling, populated by NPCs whose actions follow an hours-long loop. They’re massively multiplayer, too, with hundreds of audience members carving their own paths through this story – only rarely by interacting directly with the characters, more often instead by choosing which scenes to follow and spaces to explore.
You might opt to stick in one room, poking at its props while waiting to see what stories wander in, or commit yourself to a single plot thread, riding in the slipstream of one character for the duration. Either way, it feels a little like haunting, thanks to the mandatory white mask that gives you the appearance of an otherworldly plague doctor.The masks are a handy shortcut for distinguishing cast and audience, establishing your role not as an active participant in the story but essentially a roaming camera.
It feels a little like haunting, thanks to the white mask that gives you the appearance of an otherworldly plague doctor
Which is also true of a fair few walking sims, of course, and indeed many other games that put their NPCs behind protective glass (literal or otherwise) while they act out their parts. Most recently, Alan Wake 2 does this in typically novel fashion. Its ‘Echoes’ trigger a filmed performance, presented as a shimmering silhouette that sits on top of the three-dimensional space you’re exploring but remains out of reach. The likeness probably isn’t
