#[Immersive Experience]

[the-uncanny-dag]

[amnhnyc]

Explore nature’s hidden realms, and discover how all life on Earth is connected in the Museum’s immersive experience Invisible Worlds. Plan your visit!

[schmergo]

Petition to replace all uses of the phrase 'Immersive Experience' with 'Pretend,' because I think that would fix a lot of problems in our society.

"Immersive Experiences" conjures up the following concepts: expensive, state-of-the-art, limited-time-only, once-in-a-lifetime, a staggering artistic achievement, sophisticated entertainment for adults, severe FOMO if you miss out. That's a tall order to live up to.

"Pretend" activities are fun, childish, require you to use your imagination, and don't claim to be anything more than what they are. If it turns out to be something even better, then it's just a pleasant surprise!

Any element that breaks the 'immersion' instantly deflates an 'immersive experience' like a pin popping a balloon, like glowing exit signs, exposed warehouse ceilings, staff members wearing New Balance Sneakers under their wizard robes, velvet ropes you have to stay between, but all of those things are perfectly welcome in, say, a haunted Halloween maze or a theme park ride because the whole point of those things is to be pretend. An 'immersive safari attraction' that doesn't completely fool my five senses into thinking I'm outdoors on an African savanna is a failure at a immersion but a pretty great "Pretend Safari" ride.

This is especially true if you're not good at or simply don't like pretending. Why do all of the same people who post about hating playing pretend with their kids ALSO book overpriced tickets to every "immersive experience" that comes to town?

Somehow it feels normal to charge $75 for a "King Tut's Tomb Immersive Experience" in a "secret location" that ticketholders only get directions to after booking, yet absolutely stark raving bonkers to charge $75 for a "Pretend King Tut's Tomb" located in a warehouse on the outskirts of town that shares walls with a Greyhound station and a lawnmower repair company, but they're the same thing, baby.

(And yes, if you're wondering, I did watch that new Jenny Nicholson video, or at least the first half of it. Hard to imagine charging $6,000 for "Pretend Star Wars.")

[evermoreparkbadger]

Timestamped responses to Jenny Nicholson's new Patreon ramble about Evermore.

You'll have to be subbed to her Patreon to have any context for these, but Patreon is also pretty bad at sorting and finding comments so I'm reposting it here for a bit more visibility.

4:34 I hadn’t heard of him either, despite the fact that I was a performer during time he was supposedly a manager. This isn’t really surprising, ground-level employees scarcely received communication from or about anything above their department’s management.

6:55 Hi Bob! He was actually a cast member at Evermore for one season. This was after he had already been reporting on Evermore for a while, and AFAIK none of his content even during or after that period was endorsed by the park. I can attest he is as friendly and genuine in person as he is in his videos, and a great guy.

7:07 There were several others during the first few years. After Evermore announced in early 2021 that they were discontinuing all stories, quest, and characters they had done up until that point and changing to a more story-light experience, several of the most dedicated fans and frequent guests stopped engaging with the park, including any who made content about it.

8:32 Yeah. They did reorganize and lay people off several times, but only below a certain point in seniority. Obviously Ken himself and any business partners or investors that had any stake in the company maintained control. Though, if they ever “managed” anything, it was done in a very hands-off way and dictated through several layers of employees.

9:55 This kind of toxic positivity is rampant in Utah. Any type of criticism or discontent towards any leadership, usually rich, straight, white men, is highly frowned upon. Literally, in this case. The people who dare to express negative opinions or challenge the status quo (who are often not rich straight white men) are then viewed as problematic and practically shunned. Anyone who criticizes or challenges is bad, bad people are untrustworthy, therefore their criticisms and opinions are invalid.

10:23 Also strange since he did create a TTRPG company. If anything, I think that would qualify someone as a “nerd” themselves.

10:45 Exactly!

11:12 Ken held strong control over a lot of aspects of the park and the business, but it’s obviously far too big of an operation for one person to micro-manage so much of it. Another example is he wouldn’t let anyone change the Evermore website. It was commonly suggested to use the website as a way to communicate storylines and background information for new guests but it never happened. It’s unclear if Ken outright refused that, or if he didn’t mind the idea but wouldn’t do it himself or let anyone else have access to do it.

13:25 There were times when the food at the park was good. I don’t know if they were only able to have better food by cutting corners, operating without being under code, and then changed once they were under scrutiny (remember when one of the buildings lit on fire?), or if they just cut costs.

17:40 I think [Jenny is] probably right, and I don’t think this was the only time it or something similar happened. There were several times Ken would try to bring new money in, and sometimes people would bite-only to quickly back out after learning how bad the situation was.

18:50 That would require admitting fault or failure from park leadership, and thus would have never happened.

22:50 This aggravates me lol. Changing the official Facebook page name for the park changed all my “worked at” and tagged posts to say “Thecrookedlantern” instead of “Evermore Park” and it looks awful and drives me crazy.

23:30 I’m definitely biased here but I do think that some of the intellectual property that Ross now owns does have some value, or at least at one point had the potential to, but ironically it was all but abandoned after the aforementioned 2021 announcement. The worldbuilding and characters had their moments, and the Evermore Realms card game, while a relatively small project, was reportedly actually profitable for Evermore. There was an entire second set of cards designed and ready to print that never saw the light of day. Furthermore, even though Ross technically owns all the intellectual property from Evermore, he might not even be aware of most of it. Even if he was it probably wasn't properly archived anywhere. He’d have to dig through old employee emails Google Drives to piece it together, if that data even still exists or he has any way to access it, or rehire someone who worked on it to attempt to recreate it.

25:25 An Evermore property only designed to look nice and not actually facilitate people or events there? Consider me shocked. /s

30:00 Beyond the Gates is not the first former employee/fans spiritual successor that has been attempted. I was briefly involved with a group called Mynheras larp that was also the same concept. Their goal was to not have the same problems Evermore had and then almost immediately began falling apart because they were having the same problems Evermore had-at least on the creative side of things. They didn’t have any money. I haven’t worked with Beyond the Gates but there are good and talented people who are involved and I wish them the best.

31:20 I’d like to think most of us are appreciative towards the work [Jenny] did and agree with all the criticism [Jenny] made (and more), and I know several of us are, but it is Utah. I would be disappointed, but not surprised, to find a handful who hold undue resentment towards [Jenny].

39:00 I don’t know anything about this exhibit in particular, but there were so many incredibly talented people who were exploited, burned, and abandoned by Evermore. Several sculptors and creature-creators worked for months to years before the park opened, and then were laid off within months of the park opening. I’m glad to see some of their efforts and creations survived and are being put to some use.

42:30 I’m getting emotional and nostalgic seeing these omg ;_;

44:25 oh I’m so glad you had the opportunity to speak to one of them directly!

44:50 YES. This was actually a part of a big and surprising problem with Evermore’s development and how there was no intellectual property developed (e.g. story and characters) before they had to start building them. I’ll go into this in more depth in my eventual video about my experiences at Evermore if I ever finish it

45:28 yep yep yep

46:20 YEP YEP YEP

47:00 I actually didn’t know a lot of this either and it explains a lot.

47:20 and while I’m sure this all true, a lot of the puppets and creature suits did fall into significant disrepair and were never fixed.

51:20 I never personally saw any of this behavior but I did hear about it from others who I 100% believe.

52:00 My impression is that he’s not evil or malicious per se, but is someone whose ego far surpasses his competence and refuses to acknowledge or accept his failures or shortcomings. When confronted with them, he lashes out.

EDIT: I have since seen his recent Twitter replies. He has gone full alt-right Musk bro. Evermore was something of a haven for a lot of marginalized communities in Utah, not to mention -he has queer children himself-, so him revealing those opinions is a complete betrayal. I try to afford some benefit of doubt where possible, but he’s shown his true colors.

55:00 this is hilarious and I never heard these details before. While, I believe, none of the displays were intended to be specifically religious, several of the antiques were originally religious in nature and several sculptures made for the park were themed similarly. It all felt very classically Catholic or Anglican, which is funny to do in Utah where the population is very religious and conservative but specifically (and proudly) NOT Catholic or Anglican. Mormons. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

56:55 lmao we literally called that building “the barn” the first couple of seasons.

57:55 I was under the impression that the tavern was one of the few that was an original design, but maybe that was just the interior.

59:10 As far as I know, they never attempted to sell liquor on the park premises outside of the premium special events and Vander’s Keep. Corners were cut constantly, but I don’t think they were ever this bold with it. I’m sure he wanted to, but it would be impossible to get away with in Utah. It would stand out so much compared to any other similar attraction in the state, and enough of the population would actually be shocked and offended at the presence of alcohol that some suburban parents with too much time on their hands would report them immediately.

1:00:30 I don’t recall any specific details but there were several liens and lawsuits from contractors who weren’t paid even in the first year Evermore was open.

1:01:40 I’m not an authority on this subject but I don’t actually think this was the case for this building. The upper floor did have “pillars”, but they weren’t put in until several years after the park opened and were clearly fake and not structurally integral. There were antique stone columns in the park (and I once heard they were actually the oldest artifacts on site), but they were across the graveyard from the building around the weird shrine with the antique statue of Saint Apollonia, the Catholic patron saint of dentistry. To be clear, the mausoleum could easily have not been up to code but it wasn’t because there were marble columns in the upper floor. I’m not trying to defend the park by any means, but I’d like to try to keep the facts straight to paint an accurate picture.

1:03:50 These details are also new to me and also not a surprise. Infrastructure throughout the park was very limited. Again, I’m not an expert and don’t know the specifics, but the idea of hosting mid-sized performances and concerts was brought up several times almost immediately when the park opened, and I was told the infrastructure couldn’t support anything like that. Not even electricity for proper lights and sound.

1:04:50 As far as I know this is correct. I’m sure new owners wouldn’t want to inherit all the problems, debts, and negative reputation Evermore Park the company has, but it is sad that the park and the intellectual property have been separated.

1:12:13 I’m getting flashbacks to hbomberguy revealing that Tommy Tallarico wasn’t actually on MTV Cribs

1:16:00 While I’m also not particularly optimistic, this is still a much better outcome than having it all be demolished and bulldozed for condominiums.

1:20:00 This isn’t the first time this has happened in Utah. They seem to be copying a trend of semi-high-profile scavenger hunts that have taken place in the state over the past several years. Unsurprisingly, the winners are always the people who can afford to commit the most time to it (i.e. not working a day job), which aren’t the people that could use the money the most.

1:32:20 Amongst the several, several red flags around Realm Town (and that terrible, terrible name), the one point of optimism I’ll give is that the man in this footage here (he’s not as public as the owners so I won’t name him but for all I know he introduces himself in one of their videos) is the former “Project Director” at Evermore from late 2019 until the layoffs in 2021, and was in a senior creative position for at least a year before that. He was creatively involved in all the storylines and “gameplay” that existed during what is considered to be Evermore’s peak, and experienced firsthand all the traps, shortcomings, frustrations, and challenges in developing and operating Evermore. Him returning to the land formerly-known-as-Evermore is something of a redemption arc, or could be. I would say that because of his direct, firsthand experience that he is one of the more qualified people who could direct this project, but judging by everything you’re pointing out here I worry he is in a similar position under the Foxes as he was under Ken. But I also wonder, because of the new ownership’s apparent cluelessness and aimlessness, if he and/or other people passionate about the park were the ones who encouraged them to purchase the land in the first place.

1:50:40 Meh. If they didn’t know what they were getting into when they purchased the land then you’re just educating them about it now. Anyone reasonable would be grateful for it, but maybe it’s unrealistic to expect that anyone who owns these projects to be reasonable.

1:52:10 Oh! There it is! The card game. I am forever bitter about it because the characters I played weren’t included in the initial set that was printed but were going to be in the finished but unpublished second set. Someone who had connections to its development very generously leaked the art to me and it’s amazing and I don’t know if I can even legally share it.

I moved states after my last season at Evermore in August 2023, so I don’t have too much more insight into Realm Town or any other ongoing developments. What small relevance I’ve had here is quickly diminishing haha. I mentioned in another comment that I’m working on a video describing my experiences at Evermore. I say this not to self-promote, but hopefully by making myself accountable to some other people I might be encouraged enough to actually finish it. Big thanks yet again to Jenny for her earnest and thorough approach to this fascinating topic (and to all the topics she covers on her channel) that means a lot, or meant a lot, to several passionate and talented people and for encouraging large-scale creative endeavors to meet their potential by offering helpful and specific criticisms and ideas.

[infinitestarsdev]

Crafting Engaging Narratives in Games

Great games aren't just about mechanics or visuals—they're about stories that pull players in, immerse them, and leave a lasting impact. But what makes a gaming narrative truly engaging?

Here are some of the elements that we used in Infinite Stars to delight our players:

Player Agency Matters

The best stories let players feel like their choices shape the world. Whether it's a branching dialogue system or moral dilemmas, agency creates a sense of ownership and forms a connection to what is happening on the screen. It gives them a reason to care.

Relatable Characters

From heroes to villains, characters need depth. They're not just avatars; they're the story's emotional core. Villains shouldn't be evil just because they're evil. A good villain should (believably) be the good guy of his own story. A good hero should have flaws, potentially being the villain in someone else's story. Your characters should make players feel emotions (more on this further down.) They should be raw, 'human' and unforgettable. Incidentally, this is why stories about an emotionless rock or a lifeless spaceship don't do well. People need to relate to your characters, and unless you personify that rock or spaceship, no one is going to care about it.

Immersive World-Building

A compelling narrative is as much about the world as it is about the characters. Use the environment to tell the story, and use that tip from earlier: personify your world where possible. You want your players to want to explore every corner of the world you've crafted. You want to leave them wondering and theory-crafting. Be careful, though. Too much lore overwhelms all but the most dedicated players, and too many unanswered questions leave them feeling: "What's even the point?"

Emotional Resonance ❤️

Players remember how a game made them feel. Horror and Romance are popular because they make people feel something. The narrative of your game should make your players feel something. Emotions drive connection, and you want your players to feel connected to your game.

At the heart of it all? Your story should put the player first.

What are some of the most compelling gaming narratives you've experienced?

[innocentlymacabre]

EVERY STORY EVER TOLD REALLY HAPPENED.

Stories are where memories go when they’re forgotten.

If you've got eyes and ears in the right places, you're likely to come across rumours of a man who will find these memories. He’ll go off a-hunting, foraging for the stories you’ve forgotten.

I bring them home and show the world, distilling them into pretty little glass vials for you to peruse the wonders of the cosmos.

Take a look. Have your pick. Peruse the collection.

Keep up to date with new brews

Premium brews

Free curated tasting flight Frozen Summer: Stories from the dark and twisted crevices of the universe

About Me / Writeblr Intro / WIP Intros / Resources

[grimmoireproductions]

Beneath the neon glow of 1980s Hawkins, WI, something dark is stirring. The kids are talking about strange happenings, whispers of a sprawling evil lurking in the sewers, and the air crackles with a tension that feels all too real. Hawkins is your invitation to a thrilling live-action interactive theater retreat where the only thing scarier than the monsters is the thought of facing them alone. For one unforgettable weekend, you’ll step into a world that blends the eerie charm of Stranger Things with the bone-chilling horror of Stephen King’s IT. Hawkins is packed with drama, excitement, and fun as you navigate a story filled with mystery, monsters, supernatural twists, and nostalgic 80s vibes. As the line between reality and nightmare blurs, you and your new friends will band together to uncover dark secrets, face unimaginable horrors, and prove that the only way to survive is by sticking together. Get ready for an experience where every laugh is a momentary escape from the creeping dread, and every friendship is forged in the fires of fear. https://grimmoire.productions/hawkins/ WHAT: A weekend-long immersive larp experience set in the 1980s

WHERE: Wisconsin Dells, WI, USA

WHEN: October 2-5th, 2025 TICKETS: On sale January 26th!

[petitwrites]

HORIZON, the musical: "RETURN TO MERIDIAN"—or a feeble attempt at fanfiction.

Chap 4 is out guys! Enjoy 🎵🏹

[Musical TW: emotions incoming. Proceed with caution]

Happy scrolling!!

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🇬🇧 >> 🎧 MUSIC-GUIDED version // 📖 TEXT-ONLY version 🇫🇷 >> Original French version over here: 🎧 LECTURE EN MUSIQUE // 📖 TEXTE SEUL

****

Feel free to explore—and let me know what you think! 😉

[lordpetit]

HORIZON, the musical: "RETURN TO MERIDIAN"—or a feeble attempt at fanfiction.

Quick update! Chap 4 is now available in French 🥐🍷

Don't blow your Blaze tho, English translation will drop next week—still polishing a few shards here and there.

Stay tuned!! 🎵🏹

****

🇫🇷 >> Original French version over here: 🎧 LECTURE EN MUSIQUE // 📖 TEXTE SEUL

🇬🇧 >> English translation over there: 🎧 MUSIC-GUIDED // 📖 TEXT-ONLY

****

Feel free to explore, and let me know what you think!

[nerdy-sunflower]

Immersive Van Gogh

2022

[fogaminghub]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Game Gem (@gamegem_channel)

💅🔥 Emily in Until Dawn—love her or hate her, you can’t deny she’s one of the toughest in the game! 😱 Her quick thinking and fierce attitude kept things intense the whole way through. 💥 Who else had a rollercoaster of emotions with her? 👀💀

Drop a 💅 if you were rooting for Emily (or not!) and let’s hear your thoughts on her survival in the comments! 👇👇

[ecoharbor]

📍London, England 🇬🇧

[theawkwardgenie]

Totally NOT PIRATES! 😏

Working on refining an idea for an immersive experience (see character art by Aeris). The Naturalists' Society is a cabal—or perhaps a collective—of entirely honest and unquestionably legitimate airship and steamship crews.

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Playing the Best Version of Myself

I’m not intending to permanently turn this blog series into a “Sophie listens to podcasts and talks about the Starcruiser” thing, but�� this week I found myself once again listening to a podcast episode about Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. It was The No Proscenium Podcast this time, and the episode was titled “Last Call at the Sublight Lounge.” One of the panelists, Kathryn, said the following about Halcyon passengers:

“I believe that a lot of the people on the ship were roleplaying that idealized version of themselves… Maybe you’re braver, bolder, more confident, more willing to stand up for what you believe in. Maybe it’s a version of yourself that you want to wish into being, but you’ve never had a chance to articulate it before.”

Funnily enough, this wasn’t the first time I’ve heard someone express this idea about the Starcruiser. On the final night of the show, I met up with a bunch of the performers after closing time. Emotions were running high, understandably, but a lot of those emotions were positive. There was so much love and gratitude in that space – for each other, and for what we had created and accomplished. Everyone kept talking about how much we’d grown because of the Starcruiser. Late in the evening, one of the performers attributed that growth to how we’d created a space where everyone who participated, everyone who came to play, could come be “the best version of yourself” – and playing as the best version of yourself changes you forever.

It gave me pause, when that performer said it, and I’m thinking about it further after hearing Kathryn bring it up again – because when I entered the Starcruiser as a guest, I didn’t think I was playing the best or idealized version of myself. I fully intended to not be myself. Sophie Katz knew too much about the Halcyon and its characters. I spent six months running around that ship, making sure that everyone else knew everything they needed to know about where to be, why they were there, and what to do while they were there. The beats of the whole two-day show are imprinted on my brain. So I thought that in order to have fun, and to avoid ruining anyone else’s fun with metagaming, I had to separate my guest-self from my writer-self.

Shira Alderaani Khesed was a character I made up almost two years ago. I wrote a poem about the destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars, and afterwards I fleshed out the character behind that first-person perspective. She was a woman without a homeworld, the daughter of Alderaanians who just happened to be off planet on their honeymoon when the Empire destroyed their lives. And as far as I could tell before my voyage, playing Shira would be about as far from acting as my real self as I could get without outright sacrificing my morals. Shira was a mechanic; she’d never had the good fortune to be able to pursue art as a career. She was cynical and cowardly, weighed down by the trauma she’d inherited and unable to imagine a better future – in direct contrast to my real-world optimism. She didn’t have a family or community to support her; her late parents kept her intentionally ignorant of her culture, believing that would protect her from her people’s genocide – unlike my real-life parents, wonderful and alive, who raised me to take pride in my culture. I wouldn’t have called Shira my ideal self; I certainly wouldn’t wish to be her or live her life!

I thought I’d successfully separated my real self from my Starcruiser-self.

But the performers on my voyage were quick to prove me wrong.

I mentioned last week that some of the performers dropped hints that they knew me. Gaya said I looked familiar. Raithe said he knew I understood what was going on better than anyone. Lenka outright added a bit to my backstory, saying she remembered how I helped repair the ship before this voyage.

There’s another example of this that I should mention now.

Captain Keevan’s path did not cross much with mine, but at one point late on the first day, I was standing with a friend in the lower concourse when the captain came out of the dining room. She approached us and asked how we were doing, mentioning she’d heard that I’d had some issues with Sammie the mechanic. I responded in character, explaining that Sammie had asked me to do something that I wasn’t comfortable with (lying to First Order Stormtroopers, which from Shira’s cautious-and-cynical point of view was a good way to get killed).

The captain told me that I shouldn’t have to do anything that made me feel uncomfortable or unsafe. Half joking, I looked at my friend and said, “Does that mean telling my friends to not sing anti-First Order fight songs?” (Which, yes, is another thing that happened. Video evidence here. Sophie loved that scene; Shira did not.)

“Well,” said Captain Keevan, “something like that could be a useful distraction, at times. I find that some people work well on the front lines, and their actions make it possible for others to do the important work they need to do in the background.”

“I do well in the background,” I said.

And she smiled and replied, “And I know you’re good at keeping things on schedule.”

As she walked away, I realized something about Shira. I’d thought that by making her a mechanic, I was making her unlike me. I’m not a hands-on hard-science building-things sort of person. I’d even been a bit nervous that someone might ask me something technical that I wouldn’t be able to answer.

But as Lenka had pointed out, as a mechanic, Shira was someone who had helped prepare the ship for this voyage. And as Captain Keevan had pointed out, Shira was someone who worked well in the background, supporting the people who were visible on the front lines.

In other words, Shira was the me I aspire to be, as a professional creative writer – not the person in the spotlight, but the person who makes it possible for other people to do well in the spotlight. The person who builds the world, who takes care of the details in the background, and who, if I’m doing my job right, goes unnoticed. You don’t notice a mechanic unless something breaks; when things go smoothly, you praise the captain. Similarly, you don’t notice a writer unless the dialogue is bad; when shows make you laugh and cry, you praise the actors and directors. That’s how it is. That’s the space I work well in and take pride in. Sure, I want people to know what I can do, and I want to get credit when I do a good job – so that I can continue to do this work that I love and make a living with it. I don’t dream about being a big flashy hero with crowds chanting my name. I want to be quietly essential.

I realized that Shira had an opportunity here – to learn to be that quiet, essential background player.

And as the show progressed, moments kept coming up that developed her story in that direction. When Lt. Croy ordered that a restraining bolt be put on beloved droid SK-620, Shira whispered to Sammie that he needed to go through it, despite the boos of the crowd, to keep the ship safe. The next day, Shira helped lure Lt. Croy and the stormtroopers downstairs to give Lenka and Saja Fen a chance to rescue SK. During the heist, Shira didn’t get one of the many “noisy distraction” jobs; instead, Raithe secretly passed Shira the gem, and she stood far away from the action, quietly keeping it safe while Captain Keevan ordered Raithe to turn out his pockets. Moment by moment, act by act, decision by decision, Shira was learning how much of an impact she could have on the galaxy from the background, even if – perhaps even because – most people didn’t know she was there doing the work that needed to be done.

Everything culminated in a scene that caught me off guard just as much in reality as in character. Shira wound up in the middle of the atrium, with a whole crowd of people’s eyes on her, telling Lt. Croy a series of objectively terrible lies.

It would be impossible for me to exaggerate how uncomfortable I am with improv. I’m fine with public speaking – I’m honestly pretty good at it – but I always prepare a lot in advance. If you’ve ever heard me say something cool, it’s because I spent at least ten minutes beforehand planning it out. I did not plan for this moment. And so, in that moment, even though I objectively knew that no real-world harm would come to me, my fear and Shira’s were one and the same. All I wanted to do was run away.

But I didn’t run away. I kept talking – babbling, really – because I had to keep Croy’s attention on me, so he wouldn’t turn around and see Raithe sneaking up to the mezzanine to steal the coaxium. Because that’s what Shira would have done, after everything she’d been through on that ship. She would play her part. She would make it possible for other people to do the more obviously important and visible job. And, as soon as the job was done and it was safe to do so, she would run away… straight towards Raithe, who promptly handed her the suitcase of coaxium. He knew he could trust her with it.

And me? I want to be trusted. I want to be someone that people can rely on. I may not literally want to be Shira Alderaani Khesed, but I want to have the kind of impact she had on the story unfolding around her, just by being me, hard at work in the background. Building worlds, preparing experiences, and keeping everyone around me on schedule. Relied on and appreciated by the people who matter most. Quietly essential to a life-changing experience, and given the chance to be so again, and again, and again. That’s the best version of me.

You wanna know the best part? Those two days I spent as Shira was not the only chance I had to be that best version of me. I now understand that the role that Shira played on the Halcyon was the role I played with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. I see it now more clearly than ever before. We don’t often get the chance to see ourselves so clearly, and I am so grateful to this cast for helping me see. They gave me such a gift. They gave everyone who set foot on that ship the gift of getting to be – and to learn that we are – our best selves.

I know what I can do for others – for a creative team, for an audience, for the world. I want nothing more than to do it again, and again, and again.

Let’s do it again, together.

[chris-ostkreuz]

Augmented Reality: Where Sound Installations Get a Virtual Ear!

In a world where digital and physical realities are increasingly intertwined, augmented reality (AR) emerges as a transformative force, particularly in the realm of sound installations. Imagine walking through an art exhibit where the silent sculptures whisper to you, or a park where the trees hum your favorite tunes. This whimsical blend of sound and visuals presents endless possibilities,…