NoPro’s 2021 Gift Guide for Immersive Fans & Makers

Find the perfect gift for someone special or, you know, YOURSELF. You DESERVE it!

Our 2021 Guide is over 5000 words, so we won’t tary,
There are more goodies than any one can carry,
And while true immersive fans never need to be lead
Here are the sections that lie ahead:

• BEAUTY
• EXPERIENCES IN A BOX
• LIVE ACTION AND TABLETOP GAMES
• VIDEO AND MOBILE GAMES
• TECH
• BOOKS
• GIFT CARDS
• COLLECTIBLES

And if these are not enough the 2020 and 2019 Gift Guides are pretty good.

Let’s get into it.

BEAUTY

RPG Series perfume by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Scents
Price: $4.60–19.75

Perfect for: Nerds With Noses

Wizards of the Coast recently updated Dungeons & Dragons to represent a wider array of belief systems, gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, and cultures. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab celebrated this change by releasing 7 scents that reimagine traditionally evil D&D races as normal folks with normal jobs. Drow Yoga Instructor perfume is “as serene as a twilit shadow.” Lizardfold Park Ranger has notes of pine needle and sweet birch. Looking for something bespoke? Outfit your crew with alignment, class, and race-themed scents that match their characters. My princess-barbarian half-orc smells like winning!

— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent

EXPERIENCES IN A BOX

Box ONE by Neil Patrick Harris and theory11

Narrative puzzle box with ARG elements
Price: $29.99

Perfect for: Escape Room Fans, Alternate Reality Game-heads, Puzzling Pals, Couples Having a Date Night at Home

Magic is real. I know. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. I’ve held it in my hands. And I know it comes in a strange box with a giant keyhole punched into the cover and Neil Patrick Harris’ single eye peeking through the opening. I wish I could say more about Box ONE without spoiling it, but, let’s just say: Box ONE appears to be a set of simple challenge cards centered around some mundane pop culture trivia at first, and then eventually reveals itself to be much, much more than that. The experience has notes of, dare I say it, transmedia and alternate reality games as well; there’s more than meets the eye here. (ARG-heads: think Subtext meets a puzzle box designed by magicians.)

Fiendishly clever, artfully produced, and lovingly designed, I found myself falling so deep into the Box ONE rabbit hole that I had trouble sleeping the night I finished it. And even though it’s designed for just one player, it also works well with two and can even theoretically work remotely.

But, really. Don’t take my word for it. You should go do Box ONE for yourself. And then when you’re done, follow the instructions to reset the game and pass it onto someone else. It’s literally a gift that keeps on giving.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

Hunt A Killer: Murder at the Motel

Narrative puzzle box with evidence from the scene of the murder
Price: $29.99

Perfect for: Escape Room Fans, Puzzlers, Murderinos

This escape-room-in-a-box indulges players to investigate a classic whodunnit scenario at a slightly seedy motel. Half the fun is in sorting through all the high quality, contextually relevant documents like keycard records, discarded receipts, handwritten notes, the maintenance man’s labor log, guest complaints and more. The game’s storytelling is so well-crafted that the puzzles never feel like puzzles, but instead just part of the day’s work for the detectives on the case. Be aware of a tiny typo identified in my full review, but don’t let that turn you away from getting this box (or any of Hunt A Killer’s multi-episode sets) for your favorite true crime enthusiast.

— Danielle Look, Denver Correspondent

Welcome Home by Shine On Collective

Narrative mystery box containing artifacts and ephemera
Price: $55.00 before shipping

Perfect for: Mystery Fans, Puzzlers, Telephone Repair Specialists, Noisy Neighbors

Having fallen head-over-heels for the at-home box genre these last couple of years, Welcome Home has been by far and away my favorite for two reasons.

Firstly, it’s simply a well-crafted experience. The story is tremendously captivating and incredibly moving. I think about the ending and its message constantly. Additionally, while light and straight forward, the puzzles allow players of all kinds to feel clever in executing their solutions.

Secondly, and more importantly, it’s that each box is being assembled on demand. While there’s nothing wrong with a mass produced and sold boxed experience, you just can’t beat the fact knowing someone took the time to craft and prepare this box for your usage.

It also probably helps that those bite sized, baked sweet treats included are fantastic too!

— Patrick McLean, Chicago Curator

LIVE ACTION AND TABLETOP GAMES

Field Guide to Memory by Jeeyon Shim and Shing Yin Khor

LARP meets solo journaling game
Price: $30 for Digital Copy

Perfect for: Role-Playing Fans, Journallers and Letter Writers, Crafty Folks, Appreciators of Nature

(Disclosure: sometime NoPro correspondent Jessica Lachenal was a guest writer for this game.)

The creators of Field Guide to Memory describe the experience as a “keepsake game” and a “connected path game.” If those genres don’t sound remotely familiar to you, it’s because they’re terms coined specifically to describe this unusual and beautiful solo-journaling-as-LARP experience. The story goes like this: your mentor — the beloved cryptid researcher Dr. Elizabeth Lee — has been finally declared dead. It’s been five years since she went missing in search of the elusive prong horned desert rat.

Now you, as her mentee, must carry on her legacy. You will do so by creating your own character and writing down field notes (as an accomplished cryptozoologist yourself) as well as crafting your responses to the non-player characters in the game and making the occasional drawing. The game, which was originally delivered as a series of daily email installments, is now available as a single compiled PDF, lovingly designed for at-your-own pace play, allowing players to go as slowly or quickly as they wish (it lasts just under three weeks if you choose to play daily).

What starts as a mystery gradually evolves into something else, but to say too much more would be to rob future players of discovering Field Guide to Memory’s charm.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games — Edited by Sharang Biswas and Lucian Khan (2020)

Erotic LARP anthology that shakes up what art (and intimacy) can be
Price: $14.95

Perfect for: LARPers, Lovers, LARP Lovers

Honey & Hot Wax previously showed up at NoPro as the source of the delightful Pass the Sugar Please, by Clio Yun-Su Davis, in which players described a BDSM party the night before through tea party metaphors. The whole anthology is a delight though, providing intense and artistically challenging explorations of intimacy through play. While certainly a gift best suited for a romantic partner, it’s bound to delight both the senses and the mind, even the more difficult to play, conceptual games beautifully delivering mechanics as metaphor. Honey & Hot Wax is a perfect saucy warmer for the coming cold winter nights.

— Blake Weil, East Coast Curator at Large

Pandemic Legacy Season 1 by Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock

A board game with lasting consequences
Price: $59.99

Perfect for: Boardgamers, Storytellers, Co-operative Fan, Game Designers

The co-operative board game Pandemic has taken the world by storm over the past few years, with multiple spinoffs, expansions, and editions available. Working as a team, players have to eradicate diseases that appear across the globe in a frantic race against time (the original board game ($22) is a blast which I would highly recommend every household should own).

Coming out in 2015, Pandemic Legacy was a breakthrough for the “legacy” game design, where the board game became a campaign series of games, with each session affecting the cards, story and even the board itself, meaning no two playthroughs will be exactly the same. Many other board game series have adapted themselves to have Legacy editions now, but Pandemic was a worthy trailblazer in the genre, earning it high praise from reviewers. It still remains one of the highest rarest games on Boardgamegeek of all time, with its fantastic adaptive storytelling.

Now with three “Seasons” to playthrough (Season 2 from 2017 and Season 0 from 2020), there is so much more disease crushing fun to be found, where your choices, successes, and failures, all have lasting consequences on your board game map. It’s on the nose I know, but there is something incredibly satisfying about working together as a team to conquer a fictional version of a global pandemic that we all need right now.

— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent

Social Alchemix

Card game
Price: $28

Perfect for: Cocktail Lovers, Burgeoning Alchemists, Conversationalists, People whose Love Language is Quality Time

Previously, this card game was the foundation of the live experience, A Cocktail Party Social Experiment, and was only available to experience in person. But now game night aficionados and conversationalists alike can own their very own copy. This game encourages players to practice deep connection through the vehicles of cocktails, alchemy, and conversation. With a bit more nuance than typical conversation starter cards, Social Alchemix is a great gift for anyone who seeks something between casual conversation and profound meaning from their get-togethers.

— Allie Marotta, New York City Correspondent

VIDEO AND MOBILE GAMES

Detective Mimo on iOS/Android

Fourth-wall-breaking point-and-click adventure with ARG elements
Price: $2.99

Perfect for: Escape Room Enthusiasts, ARG Players, Cat Lovers, Easter Egg Finders

Detective Mimo starts out as a fairly traditional point-and-click game: in a cat world, you are a cat detective investigating a cat bank heist. But things take a turn for the weird when the infamous Cat Rogue hijacks your phone to force you out of the game. As you attempt to wrest back control, you’ll revisit old scenes that peel back new layers of outside-the-box gameplay. Eventually, if you look hard enough, you may even end up following a trail outside the app, into password-protected PowerPoints and more. Think Doki Doki Literature Club — minus the horror, plus cats.

— Lauren Bello, Adventures & Escapes Writer, LA

Holovista for iOS

Augmented reality photo game meets social media simulator
Price: $4.99 in the App Store

Perfect for: Instagrammers, Walking Sim Fans, People Who Like Snooping Through Other People’s Stuff

In a near-future world, junior architect Carmen, the newest employee at the mysterious Mesmer & Braid, has been sent on a strange work assignment: photographing the inside of an unusual and opulent home. And, of course, things are not always as they seem at first glance with the Autohaus….

Holovista is a fascinating mobile game which mashes up an augmented reality photo-taking mechanic and with an in-world social media platform that bears more than a passing resemblance to Instagram. The square photographs you take inside the app show up in the protagonist’s social feeds (alongside her written captions, where she seemingly has very little filter) and are also interspersed with Carmen’s friends’ photographs (pro tip: do read their comments).

One part of what makes Holovista so fascinating is the usage of your smartphone as a portal into another world; the environments inside of the glowing rectangle are often so convincing that I had to keep reminding myself that I was still in my own apartment, and not actually inside of Carmen’s world, as I used the in-app camera to take photos and progress the story along. Aficionados of games like A Normal Lost Phone will feel right at home snooping through Carmen’s direct messages and social feeds, all while losing themselves in the game’s top notch writing, eye-popping aesthetic, and chill but hypnotic soundtrack.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

Inscryption for PC

Part card game, part immersive experience, part ARG, part escape room
Price: $19.99

Perfect for: Escape Room Enthusiasts, Tabletop Gamers, The Immersive-Curious

The short description up there touches on the main ideas that this PC game is playing with. Hopefully that’s enough to intrigue you into picking up Inscryption because this really is one of those things where you want to go in as cold as possible.

Like a good immersive experience, ARG, or escape room, it has secrets and layers to reveal as you sink deeper into the story. After a few of those surprises and layers, I wondered if and how the game could bring it all together. And Inscryption manages to do just that by taking big swings until the end.

— Kevin Gossett, LA Reviews Editor

GAME. OF. THE. YEAR.

— Noah Nelson, Founder/Publisher

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit for Nintendo Switch

Augmented reality racing game
Price: $99.99

Perfect for: Mario-Loving Gamers, Augmented Reality Geeks, Video Game Aficionados

Turn your home into a real life racing track with this add-on kit for the Nintendo Switch or Switch lite. Mario Kart Live works with the handheld console to provide an augmented reality experience from the driver’s seat where you’ll see your IRL course come to life within the game. You can even use objects from your home to customize the tracks. How does it work? Your remote-controlled physical Kart — starring Mario or Luigi — has a small camera hidden inside of it which allows it to combine your real life environment with the digital elements of the game like environmental foregrounds, coins, arrows, as well as the other racers. (Do note, you will need about 12 square feet of open space to race.)

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition by Bioware for PC/console

An RPG of galactic proportions
Price: $59.99

Perfect for: Sandbox Immersive Lovers, LARPers, People Who Love Making Difficult Decisions

In this remastered classic video game trilogy, you’ll play as Commander Shepard, the only soldier prepared to deal with a technologically advanced alien invasion. With your ragtag team of squad mates, there’s no corner of the galaxy you won’t explore, affecting numerous lives along the way.

More so than other video games, choices made actually matter. Approaching a diplomatic engagement calmly produces allies, or when mishandled creates enemies. Electing to secure an objective no matter the cost sees communities lost. You can pursue a long term romance spanning all three games, or constantly meet and leave lovers.

Nothing embodies this more than the famed “Sucide Mission” at the end of the second game. Even with preparing your ship and gaining your crew’s loyalty, in the heat of battle, you can simply make wrong choices that cost lives. Possibly including your own.

And after your unique Shepard completes their journey, you can create customized art to commemorate the experience.

— Patrick McLean (aka “Commander Emma Shepard of the Normandy SR-2”), Chicago Curator

Neurocracy

Solve a mystery in a cyberpunk dystopia, all by navigating a custom wiki
Price: £15.00

Perfect For: Mystery Lovers, Metaverse Skeptics, ARG Fans

For those of you whose primary pleasure in an ARG is having a peculiar new world intersect with your lived reality, Neurocracy provides it in spades. With each part of the Omnipedia wiki that serves as the stories platform, everything from article edits to the privacy policy is a clue to the truth of this brave new world. Falling somewhere between an ARG and a visual novel, Neurocracy is a fun techno-paranoia thriller that manages to tell its story primarily through seemingly disparate hyperlinks. Learning about a universe’s troubles with AI through its wiki pages on trashy reality dating shows is a smashing good time, and the exploration of format in Neurocracy is thrilling to any fans of ARG storytelling.

— Blake Weil, East Coast Curator At Large

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension on iOS/Android and MacOS/Windows

A meta, highly referential point-and-click adventure game
Price: $4.99-$12.99

Perfect for: Rule Breakers, Romantics, Phone App Aficionados

There Is No Game really, really doesn’t want you to play it…and that’s its charm.

From the moment you open the game, the game’s gruff narrator wheedles, insists, commands, and implores you to stop. But if you persist, finding ways to “outsmart” the app, you’ll eventually be permitted to embark on a surprisingly sweet adventure, dragging the reluctant narrator along with you.

I hesitate to say more: the joy of discovery is key here. But expect shout-outs to popular point-and-clicks, painfully accurate parodies of cheap apps, and a heartwarming adventure that acknowledges you, the player, as central to the game.

— Lauren Bello, Adventures & Escapes Writer, LA

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate; for PC, Xbox and iOS

An (as yet) unmatched video game subscription library
From $14.99 a month

Perfect for: Gaming Veterans, Gaming Noobs, Indecisive Gamers

Microsoft have perhaps made the biggest strides into the next generation of console wars with the incredible library on offer with Xbox Game Pass. As of writing there are over 300 games available for immediate download, with many more being added on a regular basis. These include top tier AAA games, classic games from the past, and independent games of every conceivable genre.

It means that this year alone I have been able to try out and play through so many games which I otherwise might have questioned purchasing. There are so many wonderful shorter games which once might have caused me to ponder whether it was worth the investment, but now I will happily download and play through a game in a weekend with no qualms at all. So many unique stories await, with a majority being released “day one” to ensure that you are up to date with the latest in-game experiences.

And now with Xbox Cloud Gaming coming out of Beta testing, having games take up precious gigs of memory will soon be a thing of the past. Being able to remotely play through titles on my laptop, tablet or even on my iPhone (yes Microsoft is even playing nice with Apple now!) while on the move is a game changer, and something barely imaginable even a few years ago.

If, like me, you’ve been away from the console wars for a few years now, this may be the perfect time and excuse to jump right back, catch up on some of the games you’ve missed, and look forward to the upcoming titles!

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— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent

unmemory (2020) on iOS/Android and Steam

An immersive noir thriller novel-game hybrid
Price: $5.99–9.99

Perfect for: Escape Room Enthusiasts, Readers, House of Leaves Devotees, Lovers of Moody Rainy Detective Movies

This eerie, Memento-inspired interactive tale follows an amnesiac boyfriend’s quest for revenge. A blend of dynamic text and usable digital items (phones, briefcases, televisions), the game devotes each chapter to a different sensory memory trigger, dwelling on the effect that music, touch, taste, and more have on our memories. Play through the core story, or spiral down the rabbit hole as far as you like: there are enough hidden ciphers and secrets to sustain replays.

— Lauren Bello, Adventures & Escapes Writer, LA

TECH

META Quest 2

The best deal and most accessible VR option
Price: $299.99 for a 128 GB headset

Perfect for: Anyone, truthfully

Regardless of how you feel about Facebook, the Quest 2 is an amazing piece of hardware, providing a fulfilling and engaging VR experience that’s incredibly accessible. But I feel those aspects are no longer the Quest’s strongest selling points. It’s now the catalogue of what you can experience on the Quest that make owning one a must.

This year alone the catalogue has expanded in new and exciting ways. For adventure junkies, there’s Wraith: The Oblivion — Afterlife, Sam & Max: This Time it’s Virtual!, and the rest of Star Wars: Tales From the Galaxy’s Edge. Puzzlers will love I Expect You To Die 2 and Flow Weaver. Those looking for thoughtful and cinematic narrative experiences have Baba Yaga and Goliath: Playing With Reality. And that’s on top of all other great experiences we’ve deemed essential.

At this point, there’s truly something on the Quest for every type of immersive fan.

— Patrick McLean, Chicago Curator

VR Cover and Lens Cover for Oculus Quest 2

Headset accessories
Price: $19 / $9

Perfect for: VR Gear Heads, Supernatural Athletes, Beat Saber Masters

Worried about your headset getting smelly or sweaty over time after a bunch of Beat Saber or Supernatural sessions? This simple, inexpensive cover for the Oculus Quest 2 provides a barrier between your face and the foam on your headset. It’s great for workouts and other intense games since it’s made of 100% cotton and machine washable. And, they come in packs of two, which means you can toss one in the washing machine and put a fresh one on your Quest whenever you want.

The same company also makes a simple custom lens cover for the Quest 2 as well, to protect from direct sunlight, so grab that, too, while you’re at it.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

BOBOVR M2 Head Strap for Oculus Quest 2

Strap replacement
Price: $38.99

Perfect for: Anybody with an Oculus Quest 2, VR Warriors

Spending a lot of time in VR? This third-party replacement for the official strap or Elite Strap greatly redistributes the weight of the headset while you’re wearing it so the Quest won’t press into your face as much. There are also multiple nodes that can be adjusted for the right fit dependent upon the shape of your head. Plus, it feels well-made and the built-in cushions are nice and comfy as well.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

BOOKS

Cain’s Jawbone by Edward Powys Mathers (originally published 1934; current publication 2019)

Fiction
Price: $9.95

Perfect for: Puzzle Lovers, Escape Room Junkies, Amateur Murder Mystery Detectives

This vintage murder mystery puzzle novel gained popularity with modern readers over the pandemic and has recently become a TikTok obsession. The book accounts the details of six murders and it is the reader’s challenge to figure out who murdered who. But the catch is, the pages are out of order. With millions of possible combinations of answers, this book allows murder mystery lovers to live out their detctive dreams. Cutting of pages encouraged (literally, each page has a dotted scissor line at the spine) to create your own murder string board!

— Allie Marotta, New York City Correspondent

Don’t Read This! The Private Diary of Piper Pastore from the House of Eternal Return

In-World Ephemera
Price: $19.95

Perfect for: Meow Wolf Lore Junkies, Narrative Snobs, Immersive Creators and Designers, Anyone Planning to Attend (or Who Has Already Attended) House of Eternal Return at Meow Wolf Santa Fe

A copy of this book can be found inside The House of Eternal Return, but someone is always looking at it, and it’s just not the best use of time to sit and read while visiting the original Meow Wolf location in Santa Fe, NM. The journal is realistic, beautiful and tells the story of how Piper and her family “used their otherworldly abilities to rip open a hole in space-time and become lost in the Anomaly.” It’s an essential read for anyone wanting to steep in the rich, layered story of what exactly went down in that house.

— Danielle Look, Denver Correspondent

LARP, Boris Leist

Coffee table, Photography
Price: $40

Perfect for: LARPers Who Had Games Canceled in 2021

If your loved one is pining for the days when cosplayers ran free in the woods and masks were only worn by rogue assassins, consider getting them Boris Leist’s coffee table photography book “LARP.” It’s filled with lush, full-page portraits of Live Action Role Players in their element, along with stories about each character in the players’ own words. Wistful would-be LARPers will enjoy pouring over detailed game descriptions while planning for a future where we can once again gather safely in large groups… to whack each other with foam swords.

— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent

Odyssey Works: Transformative Experiences for an Audience of One (2016)

Non-Fiction
Price: $21

Perfect for: Immersive Creators, Experiential Artists, Odyssey Works Fans, Performance Art Nerds

Beloved experiential creators Odyssey Works detail their creation process and practices in this handbook for experience. With a combination of research and practice based methods, this practical text is a must have for any immersive or experiential creator’s library. Bonus: pair it with a membership to Odyssey Works’ Library of Experiences ($115), which is a dynamic catalogue of digital experiences and experience instructions, to see the theory come to life and have the chance to follow the instructions of another creator’s curated experience for someone in your life!

— Allie Marotta, New York City Correspondent

Planning Your Escape by L.E. Hall

Non-fiction, History
Price: $17.99

Perfect for: Immersive Enthusiasts, Game Designers, Escape Room Fans, Aspiring Puzzle Creators

Not only is Planning Your Escape a great primer on how best to approach and enjoy escape rooms whether you’re an expert or a newbie, but the first half of the book is an amazing survey on all the influences that came before modern day escape rooms even clicked into place their first combo lock.

Author Laura E. Hall gives a fantastic and approachable history of themed and immersive entertainment leading up to the present day: everything from pagan festivals, World’s Fairs, game shows, ancient maze toys, Dungeons & Dragons, LARP, the first theme parks, video games like Pong and Myst, Edgar Allan Poe’s newspaper puzzles, and more. This summary, combined with practical escape room play and design tips, makes Planning Your Escape is a must-read for any immersive art and entertainment fan.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

The Punchdrunk Encyclopedia by Josephine Machon (2019)

Non-fiction, History
Price: £32.99

Perfect for: Immersive Junkies, Theatre Designers/Creators, Art-Inclined Bookworms

The big bad boss of international immersive, boiled down and bound to pages. A gorgeous coffee-table format that describes in detail the history and process of the company as well as provides a comprehensive dictionary of industry terms and their application.

This book is excellent reading material for anyone looking to take a deeper dive into the mechanics of why immersive theatre is breaking into the mainstream, and an essential reference for folks who are making their own.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

The Smell of a Rainbow — Dawn Goldworm (2021)

Children’s board book
Price: $11.99

Perfect for: Kids (broadly recommended 2–5 years), Austistic Kids, Vision-impaired Kids

The Smell of a Rainbow is a delightful sensory exploration for kids. Each color is embodied by illustrations and descriptions of feelings and smells. This book goes beyond classic scent-color pairings and the relationship between color, scent, and emotion is a key component. Rubbing the boards warms them and releases the custom-made scents, which are beautifully layered; there’s complexity to each and yet none are overpowering. Author Dawn Goldworm is an expert fragrance designer and her holistic approach is evocative and thoroughly fun.

— Laura Hess, Arts Editor

Snow Crash (2021 update)

Science Fiction, the Metaverse originator
Price: $15.64

Perfect for: Everyone, I guess? The metaverse is coming for us all.

We weren’t planning on featuring this again, but as always, Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel remains prescient. With Facebook’s rebranding to Meta and every corporation out there trying to launch their own metaverse, you and everyone you know might have heard about this concept and want to learn more. Snow Crash is the place to start as it coined the term.

A word of warning, you may become distressed while reading as you realize that a bunch of rich assholes took the satire of a corporate-dystopian-always-online-shithole as the way forward (while also, somehow, making it boring).

— Kevin Gossett, LA Reviews Editor

Tamara: A Play

Theatre
Price: $19.99

Perfect for: Anyone trying to figure out what a script for an immersive play looks like.

Tamara, which had its 40th anniversary this year, is one of the forerunners of the current immersive renaissance. More to the point: it is one of the very few scripts, let alone published scripts, that lays out how a multi-track production could look on paper. You can read Tamara like a choose your own adventure story, or with a producers eye. Better yet: flip back and forth between modes. An essential part of any immersive makers library whether you are making theatre, games, or something else.

— Noah Nelson, Founder/Publisher

GIFT CARDS

Satellite One Gift Card — Chromasonic

Immersive light and sound bath in Los Angeles
Prices start at $35 for a single public session

Perfect for: Immersive Art Fans, Science Nerds, Sound Engineers, Wellness Buffs, Vibrational Enthusiasts

There’s an experience in Los Angeles that is meditative, restorative, and energizing: Satellite One by Chromasonic. Encased in an ellipsoid, Satellite One is a full-body immersion into color and sound and delivers an extraordinary sensory trip. The Venice installation is a permanent fixture and will include evolving programming. For anyone seeking a profoundly “inner-body” and also utterly transportive experience, this is for you.

— Laura Hess, Arts Editor

The Nest — Scout Expedition Co.

Intimate immersive experience in Los Angeles
Price: $150 for two guests

Perfect for: Immersive Theatre Enthusiasts, Escape Room Players, Walking Sim Fans, People Who Like Snooping Through Other People’s Stuff

Know anybody living in Los Angeles or planning to travel to Los Angeles in the new year? For possibly the first time ever, you can buy them The Nest. That’s right: purchasers of gift vouchers for this award-winning, critically acclaimed immersive experience about a woman’s abandoned storage unit will get first priority for booking shows in Spring 2022. And Scout Expedition Co. will physically mail an adorably themed certificate to hand to the lucky recipients of this gift. Vouchers for The Nest are good for up to two guests, as all bookings are private.

Heck, if I hadn’t already seen (and loved) The Nest, I might even be tempted to buy myself this gift. So: go ahead. We promise not to tell Santa.

— Kathryn Yu, Executive Editor

The Burnt City Gift Card

Immersive productions in New York City, London, and Shanghai
Price: $5- infinity

Perfect for: Immersive Junkies, Jet-setter-go-getters, Your Cool Friend from Europe

Look, we know we’re not supposed to run the same item run previously. But Punchdrunk only puts out a new show perhaps twice a decade, and The Burnt City in London is going to be big. Real big. The kind of big where you wish you’d known about Sleep No More before it hit the mainstream and started showing up in tv shows.

If your loved one is going to be anywhere near London in the next year, help treat them to The Burnt City. You will be the coolest. The ticketing web site takes all major credit cards, so pick up a Visa/Mastercard/Amex gift card of your choice and tell your loved one you want it to go toward sending them down the rabbit hole.

— Shelley Snyder, London Curator

COLLECTIBLES

Blaseball Merch

Rep your favorite team
Price: various

Perfect for: People Who Won’t Shut Up About Blaseball, Those Who Have Visited the Immaterial Plane

Blaseball proper might be on an extended break right now, but you can still participate in the cultural event with merch from your favorite teams, characters, and commissioner. The wide variety of options captures part of Blaseball’s appeal and is all fan-created; some of what’s available is based off of things that happened during Blaseball’s run while other pieces (including character designs) are based off of fan art. There’s a lot to take in if you’re not familiar (and even if you are!), but maybe you’ll find something for that special someone or want to dive in further (you can check out the more accessible Short Circuits, running periodically).

— Kevin Gossett, LA Reviews Editor

Daikon Pal Plush

Toy
Price: $34.50

Perfect for: That Friend Who Keeps Sending You Omega Mart Commercials

Sure, it’s a stuffed radish. But this little guy comes from the fertile fields of Omega Mart’s Plenty Valley. Your plugged-in friends will get all the references to Meow Wolf’s Las Vegas installation while your kids, pets, and clueless relatives will appreciate their new friend’s jaunty greens and an eyeless face that’s always watching — never judging. Daikon Pals are cute and possibly better than therapy. Make your loved ones go “huh?” this holiday season by sending them one today.

— Leah Davis, New England Correspondent

Merry Christmas Flipbook

Book/Toy
Price: $23

Perfect for: The Whimsical, The Inner-Child, The Person Who Has Everything

Shown to me at an escape room fan event, this delightful little flipbook always has a place in my winter jacket come Christmas time. Short and sweet, this delightful little gift has a charming surprise tucked away inside, which never fails to produce a smile.

This sweet little book will delight every member of your family around the Christmas table, from the youngest to the youngest at heart, this is a great trick to have tucked up your sleeve.

— Edward Mylechreest, New York City Correspondent

Who Told You This Was Butter? Spray From Omega Mart

Collectible
Price: $12.99

Perfect for: Surrealists, Prop Collectors, Foodies

Run no risk of getting someone something they already have with this fever dream of a merch line produced by Meow Wolf, representing their strange, new immersive experience fronting as a grocery store. Whether your recipient has visited Omega Mart or not, they are sure to feel a one-of -a-kind delight as they unwrap a spray bottle of Who Told You This Was Butter?. Somehow, Meow Wolf has something for everyone.

— Leah Ableson, New York City Correspondent

Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, new home of NoPro’s show listings.

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