The British immersive theater company Punchdrunk teamed up with the MIT Media Lab to create an online platform connected to their hit NYC show Sleep No More. In the live show, masked audience members explore and interact with a rich environment, discovering their own narrative pathways. We developed an online companion world to this real-life experience, through which online participants partner with live audience members to explore the interactive, immersive show together.
We worked closely with the creative team from Punchdrunk to develop the story and experience. I was the primary developer of the interactive fiction engine that we created to structure the online participant's multimedia experience based on their own behaviors, their partner's experience, pre-scripted story content, the guidance of a human "operator," and events occurring in the live show. I also was one of the primary text content creators for the online experience.
Media coverage of this pilot experiment can be found at:
The Guardian, "Innovation in arts and culture #4: Punchdrunk -- Sleep No More"
The New York Times, "Sleep No More Enhanced by MIT Media Lab"
Gizmodo, "Sleep No More: What It's Like Inside the World's Most Interactive Play"