ARCADE is the latest immersive audio experience from Darkfield. Using the nostalgic aesthetic of 1980s video games, ARCADE’s interactive narrative explores the evolving relationship between players and avatars. Over 30 minutes in a completely dark shipping container, this choose-your-own-path experience will fully immerse the players using 360-degree binaural sound, sensory effects and a bespoke Darkfield Arcade machine for each player. Players will be asked existential questions about free will and consciousness in a world where some may win and some may lose…
Would you mind giving us a brief insight into what your show is?
ARCADE uses the nostalgic 8-bit aesthetic of 1980’s video games to tell an interactive narrative exploring the evolving relationship between players and avatars. It is a choose-your-own-path experience in a completely dark shipping container, employing 360-degree binaural sound and sensory effects.
Players guide their avatars through a world ravaged by endless war. There are many routes and many different outcomes.
Tell us about the creative team and the process involved?
The content is made by David Rosenberg and Glen Neath, who co-write and edit. ARCADE has our largest cast by far: Ozzy Algar, Nigel Barrett, Chris Brett Bailey, Samuel Brewer, Gemma Brockiss, Rosie Caveliero, Debbie Chazen, Safiya Eyton-Adams, Alistair Findlay, Wendy Fisher, Linseigh Green, Nicki Hobday, Lloyd Hutchinson, Lanna Joffrey, Simon Kane, Nathan Lang, Tom Lyall, Mercy Ojelade, Liinus Oliver, James Sobol Kelly and Prashant Tailor. The show has over 130,000 cues, programmed by Simon Jackson. We have a great team who helped design, test and make the arcade machines. We also have a larger circle of people who help us land the containers and then make sure they’re running smoothly.
How does it feel coming to the Fringe?
We love coming to the Fringe. Edinburgh has been a great place to showcase our work and we’ve been every year since 2017, with the exception of Covid year 2020. We generally premiere a new show at Summerhall and for the last three years have also managed to open some of our other containers outside the Pleasance Dome.
There are over 3,000 shows at the Fringe. So, what sets your show apart?
Our shows have been successful at the Fringe because they offer something different – they’re short and intense and audiences can fit them in between other shows they’re watching. They run at various times throughout the day, which helps when people’s schedules are full. Our shows are recognisable – they all come in 40ft white shipping containers and although the shows are very different from each other, returning audience members know something about the quality.
Is there anything specific you’re hoping the audience will take away?
We want our audiences to leave the container excited about the size of the world they’ve been moving through, interested in what other journeys other audience members have been on, and keen to give it another go.
Your ideal audience is in attendance, who’s watching? Or more importantly – who isn’t there…
We want audiences that are open to having an experience that might not match what they think a ‘play’ is, people happy to give something different a go.
It’s an intense month, so where you’re able, how do you plan to relax, and are there any other shows you intend to see or want to recommend?
David and I are only in town for a few days to open the shows – check they are all running as they should be. Then we leave all the daily work to our brilliant technical managers and front-of-house staff.
We try and see a few shows in the short time we have though – last year the stand out was Dark Noon by Fix+Foxy. We’ll be hoping to catch something as good again this year.
In your ideal world, how can we improve the Fringe, of performance, and the industry?
Bringing a show to the Fringe is too expensive – the accommodation is very hard to come by and extortionate.
ARCADE runs at Venue 26: SUmmerhall (60 Pleasance, EH8 9TJ)
Photo Credit – Katie Edwards
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