BENGALURU : Monotony and virtual communication fatigue is in the air, with work from home and self-restriction on activities. To encounter this, city-based WeMove Theatre has devised a murder mystery game of sorts, ‘GameEve’, which combines gamification and elements of theatre. It’s a game which can be played by 25 people (divided into a group of 4-6), and the participants are given a murder scenario over a video conferencing call. Each group gets to interact with and interrogate the suspects, investigating officers and concerned officials. “All of these roles are played by our actors.
The idea is that participants find out the murderer,” says theatreperson Abhishek Iyengar who has put together the show. The play has been conceptualised by Naik and Sindhu Hegde, and written by Pavan Sharma.It all started with actor-writer Aditya Naik whose works revolving around crime were to be staged by the group sometime this year.
But with the pandemic playing havoc, they decided to turn this into an interactive game. “We had a bank of stories that we hoped to turn into physical plays this year but then the pandemic struck. Staging them was not a possibility so we thought of converting it into an escape room type of game,” he says, adding that the last round involves the participants to get the criminal to confess. Through the game, they are given evidence like FIRs, WhatsApp chats, call recordings, all of which can help them out.
While corporates have been lapping up this employee engagement programme, these are also open to the public. Scheduled for the first week of December for the public, each show sees the actors swapping roles. Following the improv format to a certain extent, the actors have no idea of knowing what question might be sprung on them. But knowing the characters and their traits in detail, the actors give answers that are in line with them. “It’s engaging and there’s equal participation from the audience,” says Iyengar.