The Lights Out project was pitched in Spring 2016 by students Andrew O’Rourke, Alex Amorati, Annie Wang, and Dasol Park with no client. It was carried out in Fall 2016 by Alex Amorati, Dasol Park, Annie Wang, and Dale Wones. The premise of the project was that it was nonvisual, multisensory, and location-based. The semester was split into two parts: 8 weeks of rapid prototyping in this strange design space and condensing our findings into one final design (delivering a Playtest Book) 8 weeks of building out and testing a full experience to show at the ETC Festival and at…

With Soft Opening this week, Lights Out has undergone some testing and changes that put us in a pretty good position for Festival and Showing Days next week. At Soft Opening, projects show their deliverables to the faculty for feedback. We were able to have faculty members go through the experience for 7 minutes (a shortened version of what will be a 20 minute experience when we show it for real) and get their thoughts. It was clear that some of the puzzles needed tweaking - and that the wood needed a little work to not give people splinters! The…

Over the last two weeks, the Lights Out project has made some serious progress. Walls have gone up, puzzles have been tested and built, cameras and speakers have been installed, and the story has been finalized (with the help of Alina once again!). In the Lights Out experience, guests will be geared up with lab coats, which is of course what mind doctors like themselves wear. The mind doctors will be transported by a machine into the mind of a man who has forgotten happy memories over the years, becoming grumpy and selfish. If they can collect pieces of all…

It's been a busy week! We had several visitors this week, including Scot Osterweil (MIT Comparative Media Studies), Patrick Curry (previously from Unity Austin), and Seth Sivak (Proletariat / ETC alum). They reminded us of the importance of story and gave some advice on balancing meaning with red herrings in a puzzle-based experience. We also met with Alina Striner (Disney Research), who is helping us work on our story because we had once again gotten lost in the mechanics rather than the experience as a whole. We are meeting with her again next week for more input. We have also…