Lessons for Sports Builders from a Live-Action Star Wars Simulator

“The buccaneers are concealed within a nearby nebula,” a senior officer informs us. “We can either investigate them one at a time, risking the detachment from the convoy, or we can deploy probes into each nebula – although that will certainly notify the pirates of our existence. Alternatively, we might continue to our meeting point and hope we aren’t ambushed.”

We find ourselves on the bridge of the USC Havock. More precisely, we are situated beneath a railway arch near Vauxhall in London – the site of Bridge Relate, an immersive experience operated by interactive displays company Parabolic Theatre that immerses groups of visitors in the narrative of a Sci-Fi space-faring starship.

The options presented to us come toward the conclusion of our mission. Unlike many online game narrative choices that mandate players to follow a specific path, we can change course at any time. We could cease sending out probes and investigate the nebulas ourselves. We could deploy our shuttle crew, equipped with their mini-bridge setup, to cover additional ground. My friend, who has been designated as chief engineer, shouted amidst the inevitable chaos: “If you all don’t get your act together, I will press the self-destruct button.” Almost anything is an option.

It might appear simple to allow this type of interactivity in an immersive theater setting; after all, human actors, like our senior officer, can improvise and adjust far more creatively than a computer ever could. But here’s a revelation: strip away the props, the blinking lights, the simulated sounds of alarm, and the NASA-style jumpsuits we’re all donning, and Bridge Relate is fundamentally a video game.

The various touchscreen bridge stations – helm, weapon control, navigation, etc. – operate on a modified version of EmptyEpsilon, a bridge simulator available on Steam. That simulation is illustrating the nebulas, unseen pirates, and our allied vessels on the primary display screens in graphics reminiscent of the original Homeworld or earlier iterations of EVE Online.

Bridge Relate co-creator and Parabolic Theatre’s creative director Owen Kingston acknowledges that the show is still free from many of the limitations faced by game developers – and overcoming these boundaries is essential to making an experience like this successful.

“There are individuals who create immersive experiences who essentially replicate the decision tree method typically used in a role-playing game or choose-your-own-adventure book,” he tells GamesIndustry.biz. “The challenge with applying that to a live setting is it’s a system that’s not designed for that.

“If I’ve authored a choose-your-own-adventure book, I don’t have the ability to go to each person’s location and edit the book live for them. I really have to offer them a logical sequence of choices that I’ve predetermined, and they have to select one of them because there isn’t any other way for it to function. And if you’re playing a video game, you inherently understand that this is how it must happen because there isn’t any other effective approach.”

“However, in a live experience with real actors present who can react dynamically, it’s somewhat silly not to capitalize on that. That’s the unique selling proposition at the end of the day.”

“We possess individuals who can respond instantly in the moment. If you can somehow discover how to achieve that in a video game environment, that could be immensely valuable.”

Kingston elaborates that instead of utilizing the decision tree strategy typically found in video games, Bridge Relate scenarios are crafted around a series of emotional high points. The cast/actors can then incorporate additional scenarios to enhance these emotional beats, all while adjusting to how the participants respond.

“Our principle is, if you formulate a suggestion that seems logical to you, as long as it stays true to the world of the show, we will proceed with it,” says Kingston. “We will adapt the narrative around that. A decision you make might lead us to introduce an entirely new, unique plot element, but it will coincidentally align with the emotional intensity of perhaps one of the elements we have planned just in case something doesn’t materialize.”

Again, this poses a challenge for game developers to replicate. However, Kingston believes that gaming could eventually move beyond the decision tree framework and offer more responsive narratives.

“Decision trees inherently present a significant customer service issue encapsulated in the ‘computer says no’ dilemma,” he explains. “If you approach your bank for assistance, and they respond ‘Sorry, we can’t do that, the computer says no,’ it’s utterly infuriating – yet we often embed this into games without realizing it by shutting down options that seem rational to players simply because we cannot accommodate every single possibility.

“So there’s something intriguing there, and while I’m not certain if it can be remedied through AI integration, the ability to adapt to what seems reasonable for the player rather than having to tell them, ‘You can either do A or B, but not C’… The first video games that manage to tackle that will likely reap substantial rewards.

“Everyone participates. You need the skills of every individual to make the ship function effectively.”

“If you can develop a method to dynamically generate option C based on what seems logical to the player, that’s a remarkable feat. We can achieve it because we have live actors who can react variably in real-time. If anyone can figure out how to replicate that in a video game setting, it would be extraordinarily beneficial.”

Bridge Relate also provides potential inspiration for developers engaged with a genre of gaming that remains relatively uncommon: asymmetrical multiplayer.

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