Review Rundown: The One With The Shifting Rules (6/2/21)

And we’re back with the Rundown, our weekly look at what the Review Crew has been exploring for the past week. This time out we’ve got IRL adventures in Brooklyn, online Escape Games, VR theatre, a look at the current state of the granddaddy of Selfie Palaces, and a beloved VR puzzler.

Want to go deeper? The Review Crew meets every Wed night in the NoPro Discord, at 8PM Eastern, 5PM Pacific. Tap into the Discord and listen live, or get the recording as a NoPro Patreon backer.

Need more? Check out last week’s edition!

Collider — Single Thread Theatre Co.
VR (Altspace) & Online; Free; Sold Out

Presented in part by Upintheair Theatre and FOLDA for the rEvolver Festival, Collider is quite possibly the strongest ensemble performance in Altspace I’ve ever witnessed. There isn’t much competition in this space, but Single Thread Theatre sets a significant bar for any new entrants to indie VR theatre.

The show allows fifteen VR (or non-VR) participants to explore a long-abandoned particle accelerator in the American desert, tracing an unknown signal deep within the Earth and uncovering what (or whom) remains. In 60 minutes you make remarkable distance in a world that continues to expand and surprise. While Altspace’s limitations mean the environments are primitive, the sense of scale is spectacular.

Single Thread uses this world as a test-bed for plenty of experiments — some that translate well like movement and pantomiming — and others that leave a bit to be desired (fight choreography being one). But the overall journey is a fascinating one that engages without many words at all. In fact, the moments without words are some of its strongest.

If you want an eerie expedition scattered with laughs, you’ll find that balance in Collider. If you really want to fall further, I recommend it in VR even more.— Will Cherry

Escape from the Lab of Shifting Rules — SCRAP
Online; $192 for up to 6 Players ($32/player)

At-home escape rooms often feel like a consolation prize during the pandemic era; while at-home theatre often begins its life designed for the home, at-home escape rooms frequently struggle with adaptation, losing their tactility and capacity for environmental storytelling. Escape from the Science Lab of Shifting Rules by SCRAP is a breath of fresh air — designed to only be possible at home, the room is a high-concept magic trick, thrilling and challenging in equal measure.

The central gimmick is the rule-changing machine. Like a physical version of Baba is You, you slap together a few words to fill in the blanks (for example: “RED becomes BLUE”) and suddenly, your player character spins around — every red object in the room has turned blue! The puzzles all center around this mechanic, quickly spiraling into fiendishly difficult lateral thinking puzzles. The NoPro team escaped with only minutes to spare — “aha” moments were immensely satisfying, and the puzzles felt like they weren’t the same old same old “find the key that matches the lock” puzzles you certainly run into.

This would have been enough on its own, but the room is also strikingly funny. The machine affects everything around it, leading to a number of gags and Easter eggs that make incorrect solutions delightful in their own right. At-home play isn’t inherently secondary to what can be accomplished in person. Escape from the Science Lab of Shifting Rules is an innovative must-play game that could only happen in the era of at-home entertainment.
— Blake Weil

Museum of Ice Cream
Manhattan; ~$50

Last Saturday night, I attended the Museum of Ice Cream for the first time for a friend’s birthday celebration. Often touted as the peak of the Selfie-Museum trend, I looked forward to experiencing all the vanity-laden sweet goodness that the museum had on offer. Instead, I left with a sour taste in my mouth.

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We are starting to slowly come out of some COVID precautions here in New York City, but it was still surprising and disturbing to have no temperature check or any sign-in method into the space. We were ushered in with a large group of around 25 or so, and it was up to attendees to self-monitor distancing protocols. There were several moments of forced wait time to proceed, which only resulted in bottleneck situations with large groups congregating in small areas. Several of the installations are in tight spaces, and seeing groups quickly usher each other along in them was a little stomach churning, when thinking of audience safety in a “only just post-pandemic” world.

The Museum itself appeared neglected in places, with what felt like a severe lack of staff in the space to monitor audience interaction, particularly with social distancing in mind. Ice cream stations were out of ice cream or had no staff member working, leftover food samples were left in and on the “art,” and post-show clean-up material was in plain sight of the attendees. Some of the installations were either not working, not turned on, or failed to attract our weekend audience, leading to a rather quick paced “tour” of the Museum.

For an installation focused on image, the Museum of Ice Cream needs a touch up.
— Edward Mylechreest

Taxilandia — Modesto Flako Jimenez
Brooklyn; Free-$25; Run Completed

Spending an hour and a half to travel one mile in the back of a New York City taxicab might sound like a nightmare to most, but in Taxilandia this was an incredible journey of discovery and exploration of both myself and the surrounding Bushwick area.

Presented by Oye Group, New York Theatre Workshop & The Bushwick Starr in Association with The Tank, Taxilandia is a multi-part installation. Created by writer and performer Brooklyn native Modesto Flako Jimenez, it includes several art galleries, a text message-based performance, and this highly personal tour of Bushwick in the back of his taxi. Decked out with speakers and a multimedia screen, this is no ordinary backseat experience. New York is an ever transient city, and this is displayed beautifully by Flako as we cruise around the streets. Borders can change. Rules can change. Names can change. “Not all change is bad,” he is eager to point out, “but not all change is good either.”

Over the course of this one-on-one experience, we talk about the various ethnic groups that have lived in Bushwick, the cultures that claim rather than care, the area’s rich history of graffiti (now referred to as “murals” by incoming folk) and its apt symbolism, the buildings that have come and gone, the burning and the rebuilding of the community, and how Bushwick is adapting and changing today, particularly with the gradual push into post-COVID life. It is as hard-hitting as it is in-depth and Flako does not mince his words, although his background as a poet is clearly on display with his descriptive and impactful oration.

This was a deeply impactful experience, not just as a piece of theatre but as an exploration of the history of this unique city. It is so important to not just choose to move somewhere but to choose to be an active part of the community of the area. I am so thankful to Flako for creating and curating this beautiful piece, as Taxilandia that will have an impact on me for a long time.
— Edward Mylechreest

Vacation Simulator — Owlchemy Labs
$29.99; VR (Oculus)

Having traveled nowhere beyond Chicago’s suburbs these last 14 months, playing Vacation Simulator was the charmingly relaxing and utterly goofy time that I so desperately had been seeking.

In the game, the player is working with robots who are struggling to figure out what vacations are and why humans love them. The robots digitally simulate several generalized vacation locations, asking the player to explore them to create memories that will then be examined. Each location is filled to the brim with challenges and puzzles for players to generate memories through typical vacation activities laced with a nutty twist.

I was shocked by the diverse offerings of things to do in Vacation Simulator. While some activities amounted to little more than being fetch quests, there’s a plentiful amount of well crafted dexterity or critical-thinking challenges peppered throughout the game. Most importantly, when setting aside the just noticeably limited activity variety between locations along with the inability to move freely outside of set positions, each activity makes the most of VR’s immersive capabilities in size, scope, and gameplay.

Additionally, Vacation Simulator’s story and tone is in the vein of a Pixar film. While I’m definitely outside the ideal age range for this game, I was smiling from start to finish. Where children might think the large cast of robots are just being wacky, there’s a subtle humor at work that any adult can quickly pick up on for their enjoyment.
— Patrick McLean

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