NOW PLAYING: Spies Among Us
DTLA’s Little Tokyo becomes a stage for intrigue
Spies Among Us’ director Prescott Gadd first hit our radar in 2022 when he was part of that year’s Los Angeles Immersive Invitational and the ad hoc team that put together an utterly brilliant piece. Scores of people that weekend spent time rescuing him from a “well.”
So it’s little surpise that Gadd’s Spies Among Us has been delighting players in LA’s Little Tokyo for some time now, with our own Kathryn Yu giving the game a thumbs up in her recent review.
We put director Gadd under the lights and got him to divulge a few of Spies Among Us’ secrets. Plus: the Gadd and the Spies Among Us team will also be competing in this year’s Los Angeles Immersive Invitational, with showcases on May 4th.
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NO PROSCENIUM: Tell us a little bit about your experience! What’s it about? What makes it immersive?
Prescott Gadd: In Spies Among Us, you and up to three friends wander Little Tokyo while seeking an undercover spy walking amongst the general public. Multiple agents text and call you with light puzzling and earnest attempts to influence you.
Pretending to be a spy while seeking out an undercover agent amongst so many unknown bystanders just feels so immersive! You look and act perfectly normal. Your target also looks and acts normal. And yet you’re both in on this secret. You’re playing a game of cat and mouse and all the people around you have no idea.
NP: What was the inspiration for your upcoming experience?
PG: The video game Hitman definitely inspired me. In that game, more than half the time you are wandering around a public area, whether it’s a NASCAR race or a fashion show, and just trying to blend in while completing your mission.
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I made a similar experience on the East River Ferry in NYC, where a new spy would board the ferry at each stop and your team had to find each one based on clues found by the previous spy. It was a little too complicated but you could feel the nugget of something there.
NP: What do you think fans of immersive will find most interesting about this latest experience?
PG: Spotting the spy for the first time. You’ve been collecting little tidbits about their clothes, what they are doing, where they are going. And then you see them and you’re running down the checklist of what you know about them. Ding, ding, ding, all correct. It’s gotta be the spy. But then you still have to approach this stranger and there’s still that tiny chance you’re wrong. It’s very exhilarating and it’s been so fun watching people go through that process.
NP: Once you started designing and testing what did you discover about this experience that was unexpected?
PG: Most people HATE being texted by two numbers at once. When playtesting by myself, I found it exciting that multiple characters found an issue so important that they both were texting me begging / demanding that I pick their side. About twenty playtests later, the feedback was please get rid of that. We’ve toned it down about 80% but there’s still two moments I think demand the intensity of multiple texts coming through.
Also, easter eggs are so disruptive! The original experience was peppered with little rabbit holes players could go down. But then they would fixate and get mired down in them. We ended up separating them into two sections: some were made more explicit and incorporated into the main show while others were made so subtle that only a tiny number of players ever find them.
Finally, what I consider a cowboy hat is apparently not a cowboy hat. But it’s now a fun reoccurring bit where players tell me how wrong I am.
NP: What can fans who are coming to this, or thinking about coming to this, do to get into the mood of the experience?
PG: Get paranoid! We try to make you feel like multiple agents are watching you throughout the mission. It’s more fun if you go in with that fear. Considering the surveillance nature of the show and the sporadic moments of humor, I recommend a visit to the film Enemy of the State.
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