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This week Electric Gamebox opened on the South Bank. It was open for a bit before lockdown, but that doesn't count, does it?
Dreamed up by Will Dean (the bloke what created Tough Mudder), Electric Gamebox is a sort of cross between a retro arcade (specifically the ones that had air hockey and the like), the Crystal Maze and... virtual reality maybe?
Participants have a choice of five games, each one taking between 30 minutes and an hour to complete. They all take place inside special rooms that use projection mapping, touch screens, fancy surround sound and motion tracking technology. So there's a lot of jumping around, prodding floating screens, puzzle solving and absolutely no clunky headsets. If that all still sounds a bit confusing, you can watch a video showing it all in action here.
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Organisers do point out that participants get given 'cool visors' on arrival.
'But what are the games?' I hear you cry. Well, I'll tell you about a few of them: Alien Aptitude Test: London '84 (can you impress our new overlords?); Rescue The Royals (take part in an intergalactic game show to save the Queen); Ticket to Mars (mine stuff on the Red Planet to help establish a colony); Temple of Coins (dodge ghouls and collect power ups).
Apparently the games demand 'a challenging mix of speed, reactions, teamwork, and a bit of brain power' which means I am fundamentally unsuited to all of it. But you might be well good at that kind of thing, in which case you should get yourself down to the South Bank and get involved. After months of nothing the idea of arseing about with five mates in a flashing neon room sounds pretty good.
Book tickets for Electric Gamebox (Arch 3, 83 Scoresby Street, Southwark, SE1 0XN) for groups of up to six.
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