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Comment by valiafetisov | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what is the reason to make the game in the real world if it's played fully online? Wouldn't it be possible and more cost-effective to create same room and scenarios within let's say Unity and stream videos from there? Or is it something about the pricing?

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If we can re-use an existing environment from one of our in-person rooms, the costs to get something like this up and running is marginal. We'd wind up getting a second playable experience, with a potentially wider audience, for not much more spend.

That said, this experience was purpose built to experiment with the remote game concept. (At the time, we weren't sure how to adapt our existing in-person games.) It's a small physical space (approx. 11ft x 9ft), and we used a ton of props we already had.

Also, after going through this process, we've come up with a few ways to adapt our existing games for remote play without an in-room game master.

I was thinking the telepresence aspect of it--coupled with teamwork--was really intriguing. Imagine if office buildings were equipped with whatever advancements will come of this concept, everyone with office jobs could go back to work together but remotely.

Kinda how Second Life was too disconnected from reality, it immediately became a fantasy world. If telepresence is tied to a real location (for some definition of real, and likely to change over time), it may bridge the uncanny valley and succeed. Strange that it took a virus to get us there.

Perhaps it's a really good render and they're just saying it's IRL! Give it a couple of years ...

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