Immersive Review Rundown: The One With Liminal Office Spaces & Ancient Myths

News got you down? Us too. All the time. Every angle.

Which is why it’s so great to be able to say: LOOK AT ALL THIS GREAT STUFF IN THIS WEEK’S RUNDOWN.

There’s not a miss in the whole set, from 2017 style snack-sized immersive shows in DTLA, to ambitious wholly original projects from the endlessly inventive folks at Houston’s Strange Bird Immersive. Plus we’ve finally got a Beat The Bomb review on record, thanks to the recent opening in Denver.

Games. Dance. Immersive theatre. The only things missing are a big ol’ piece of installation art and something from the XR side of the ledger. Let’s get into it!

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Beat The Bomb
From $34.95; 7 locations across the USA including Denver

Part real-life video game and part puzzle room, Beat The Bomb is an incredible new entertainment destination that’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.

My mission began as my group of four entered the first of four rooms where we interacted with technology to play different games. In one room, we shouted information at each other from six different terminals around the room to complete puzzles. In another, wearing bracelets that allowed the technology to track us, we moved around the room to complete sequences on the screen. In yet another, we fulfilled childhood dreams of jumping over and crawling under a room crisscrossed with moving laser beams.

Each of the four rooms were an opportunity to earn time for our final mission, The Bomb Room, where we would play one final digital game and, inevitably, get blasted with our chosen form of neon goo — either paint, slime or foam. I say “inevitably” because the final game we played was REALLY hard, but also very unique. Each of us held a rubber ball connected via cord to the game console where squeezing each ball made the tank on screen go left, right, forward or backward. Two additional balls worked together to fire the tank, and we had to successfully nail 10 targets, with the 2:43 time we earned. We never stood a chance.

But that’s kind of the point, because we didn’t suit up in the provided overalls for nothing, right? We went in knowing it was going to happen, and that anticipation was half the fun. The rest of the fun was hysterically laughing as my team struggled to figure out how to work the controls, and then rotating through all the photos and videos the system captured of us before we got hosed down.

Sixty-minute bomb missions start at $34.95, but you can also choose a 90-minute arcade battle for $24.95. In these battles, 3–12 players split into teams and compete in seven rounds of play in a semi-private arcade bay, wearing a bracelet and moving around the bay to interact with the technology. For $10 more, you can add on a bomb blast finale.

There’s plenty of seating to hang out before and after your games, with a full bar and snack menu to order from. It’s also 21+ only every Fri & Sat from 7:30 PM. They have locations in Atlanta, Brooklyn, Charlotte, DC, Denver, Houston & Philly.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Correspondent

The Endings — Strange Bird Immersive
Houston, TX; $36 USD; Ongoing

The Endings is a delightfully surreal choose-your-own-adventure interactive audio experience that weaves together an unnerving setting, humorous interaction, and themes of mortality, ethics, and agency. Strange Bird Immersive, best known for The Man From Beyond — currently ranked the #1 escape room in the U.S. — leans fully into its immersive theatre chops here. Though there are light puzzle elements, this is decidedly not an escape room.

After I arrived at the office for what was ostensibly a job interview, the receptionist handed me a clipboard with a strange array of questions: Are you afraid of dying? Are you afraid of being alone? How do you feel about wolves? Draw your ideal afterlife. It was a perfectly fitting cold open — unsettling, tongue-in-cheek, and meaningful in ways that became clear as the show unfolded.

Armed with a flashlight, headset, and a web app on a provided phone, participants make choices that shape which of the 11 trails they follow and which of the 35 “endings” they’ll face. Throughout, the voice of The Narrator offers guidance, commentary, and existential snark as our choices lead us deeper into the strange bureaucracy of death and the characters that haunt it. While there’s nothing inherently spooky about office chairs or filing cabinets, the way the fixtures are arranged — stacked impossibly high, or hiding strange secrets — imbues the space with an uncanny energy. The tone is eerie but never threatening, unsettling without ever crossing into horror. Humor is threaded throughout: deadpan narration, absurd tasks, and moments of delightful weirdness that lighten the existential weight.

The show operates on a staggered entry model, with new participants entering the space every 5 minutes. Though this approach maximizes throughput and avoids crowding, it also helps shape the atmosphere. Catching a glimpse of another guest’s flashlight or brushing past someone mid-trail added an eerie sense of shared hallucination. At times, this lent the experience an uncanny beauty, like being NPCs in each other’s narratives. However, the presence of others occasionally disrupted more intimate moments or revealed small surprises ahead of time.

The true anchor of The Endings is its final one-on-one interaction with a live actor — a moment that feels less like a scripted scene and more like a shared act of storytelling: playful and profoundly personal. With 11 distinct trails and 35 possible endings, it’s impossible to experience the entire show in just one or two visits. During my second round, this final scene was completely altered to acknowledge my return. The Endings not only encourages repeat play, but actively rewards it with new layers of narrative and emotional payoff.

With its blend of dark humor, philosophical musing, and moments of genuine delight, The Endings manages to be both deeply personal and delightfully strange. Even after experiencing it twice, I left wanting more time in this dark, playful, and unexpectedly profound world.

– Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

Limos: An Immersive Psychic Experience — DrownedOut Productions
$40 for up to five guests; Los Angeles; Run Concluded

Leveling up from a “home haunt” style attraction in Spooky Season 2024, Limos: An Immersive Psychic Experience finds one to five querents seeking out a tarot reading and finding themselves swept up in a moment where myth touches reality.

On the whole, this is an impressively polished set-up from young creators whose day jobs include work on major theme park activations. There’s some real bite to the tale, which hinges on a monologue drawn from classical mythology centered on one of the lesser known (these days, at least) demigods.

Impressively staged inside DTLA’s The Count’s Den — which has long been a home away from home for experimental experiential theatre — creator Jackson Mancuso transforms the space into the kind of heightened reality that we used to get on the regular during the high flying days of the start of the LA immersive scene.

My one note on the production, which I saw in preview so there’s always a chance the show settled in, is that the performance at the center of it all started in a theatrical tone which undercut some of the heightened reality that came later. A little more runway in terms of intensity of tone would have served the piece well, as the staging and story supports that kind of potential high.

At $40 for up to five at a time, Limos is the kind of snack-sized experience that I just wish we had more of in LA these days. It’s still more a break-even proposition than anything, but these types of small shows help creators hone their voice, and develop the moment to moment chops that make more substantial productions sing.

— Noah Nelson, founder & publisher

Ophis — Transcen|Dance Project
$79–$113 CAD; Toronto, Canada; Run Concluded

Transcen|Dance Project returned to The Great Hall in Toronto for Ophis, a retelling of Medusa. Like their previous two immersive dance entries, Ophis takes heavy inspiration from Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More (going as far as directly citing this reference on their company website). Upon entry, we received a mask that we were instructed to wear throughout the performance. An opening scene informed us that “the bold and curious may be rewarded” (an obvious rewording of Punchdrunk’s “fortune favors the bold”). The similarities continue throughout the structure: the audience chooses between multiple characters to follow, some audience members were pulled into one-on-ones, performers do not speak, and the story loops. However, more so than their past shows, Ophis feels like Transcen|Dance Project is starting to define itself outside of what it means to be inspired by another production.

Unlike Transcen|Dance Project’s previous offerings, which relied heavily on multiple very different narrative arcs, Ophis clearly centers on the Medusa myth. This focus made the story easier to follow — even during my first loop, where I only spied the Medusa performer for a brief scene at the very end, I walked away with a satisfying story arc that felt more robust, and thus more memorable, than some of my other Transcen|Dance Project experiences. Though the singular plotline did introduce occasional lulls, especially when trailing secondary characters, it resulted in a show that was easier to follow, giving audiences a more reliably positive experience.

While The Great Hall venue remains familiar, having previously housed their latest two shows A Grimm Night and Eve of St. George, Ophis marks a visual evolution, with the most built-out scenic design we’ve seen them create in this space. Environment-based storytelling can be tricky in a temporary space, especially one that your audience has already become well-acquainted with through past shows, but the addition of various structures: a dark cavern, a magical tent, and a strikingly crafted tree, helped transform the recognizable spaces of The Great Hall into something richer.

Choreographically, Ophis shines most during its confrontational sequences. The Grey, a mythological creature represented through a trio of dancers sharing a single eye and tooth, stood out as a highlight with a physicality that captured something both alien and eerily expressive. Other standout vignettes included various blindfolded scenes — a play on the Gorgons’ ability to petrify anyone who makes eye contact with them, and Medusa’s transformation into a Gorgon, performed in silhouette behind a backlit sheet. Joey Arrigo, the vengeful Athena who curses Medusa to her monstrous fate, is always a standout during Transcen|Dance Project shows, but their expert physicality is especially a treat to behold in silhouette.

As Transcen|Dance Project continues to develop its voice within the immersive dance space, Ophis feels like a step toward something more distinct. The choreography is inventive, the worldbuilding more textured, and the narrative more cohesive than in previous shows. Though the production still leans heavily on its influences, Ophis marks meaningful progress in the company’s journey toward a voice that feels uniquely its own.

— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

Spies Among Us — Spies Among Us
$34 per person, for 1–4 players; Los Angeles, CA; ongoing

We’re standing in [REDACTED] plaza, on a sunny afternoon in downtown Los Angeles, trying to make ourselves seem trustworthy so our new contact [REDACTED] at The Agency can guide us in finding a spy who has gone rogue. Suddenly, the phone rings. I’m listening intently when I start to laugh because our contact instructs us to “act more normal” among the crowd. I glance over to my right and there’s a family sharing a Korean style crispy corn dog, the kind covered in potato cubes. Next to them are some cosplayers waiting patiently in line at the Sanrio store nearby. Someone else crosses my path, carrying anti-Trump protest sign. Sure. I’m the one who needs to “act more normal.”

This is Spies Among Us, an immersive outdoor game where players receive phone calls and text messages, solve puzzles, interact with a custom built site, and encounter a live actor, all while carrying out their mission for the mysterious organization known only as The Agency. But don’t be concerned that your orders are too serious; the vibes for Spies Among Us lean more Get Smart than James Bond.

If you’re an experienced escape room player, you may find the tasks to be relatively straightforward, but in this setting, that’s a feature, not a bug. The gameplay here is cleverly designed to be approachable for players of all ages and varying experience levels. And I also appreciated that — for the most part — every person in the group gets a copy of every communication from The Agency so you’re not necessarily peering over someone else’s phone. Plus, any audio/video content in Spies Among Us is also quickly followed up by a full written transcription, making it easy for the whole family to get involved with the game and neatly accounting for any connectivity or volume issues. The game masters take a light hand with hints, popping in only when absolutely needed, and the pace of the experience means you’re never going long stretches without something to do or somewhere to dash off to. (Though my ego did take a small hit when my SpellTower-obsessed husband solved a puzzle involving missing letters far more quickly than I did.)

The neighborhood that Spies Among Us takes places in is well chosen; Little Tokyo is one of my favorite areas to explore simply because it offers a large variety of interesting businesses, densely packed, with places to sit and rest, and various nooks and crannies to surreptitiously take a phone call or watch for an undercover agent trying to blend in with all of the foot traffic. Of course, it did not hurt that we had chosen a beautiful Spring afternoon to play. It was thrilling to be receiving multiple messages with instructions as to where to go next and who to look out for as we dodged dog walkers and zigzagged through couples who were out for a stroll. Our target, [REDACTED], could be any of these strangers crowding the sidewalk! The roughly 90-minute experience seemed to go by in a breeze as we wandered the neighborhood, completing our super secret spy tasks, with nobody else the wiser.

So if you’re looking for a fun, outdoor espionage adventure this year, I’d say, go play Spies Among Us. Just don’t say who sent you. That’s top secret.

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

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