A tour of the town takes players through the market community of Wildon, into four mysterious rooms that seem to come from another, very dubious dimension.
The freshly painted, colorful façades of the small market town of Wildon cannot hide the fact that things are crumbling all over, that everything is falling apart behind the walls and in the dusty interiors. A second Wildon exists, removed from space and time. Many inhabitants have survived, but the first of them are starting to disappear. Silence is spreading like an ulcer. Little by little, life is vanishing through the slits in the fabric of time—only the echoes of the missing can still be heard. It’s a shady dimension hiding behind a mask of normality containing many a riddle to be solved.
This excursion through the town lasts two hours, moving between reality, science fiction, mystery, and radio play. Strange calls, text messages, and clues accompany the performance game, opening the doors to eerie buildings, leading to dangerous deviations and curious encounters. Acting in small groups, visitors investigate mysterious rooms, attempting to master tasks and make decisions that influence the evolution of the story.
In KINGDOM, machina eX fuses mobile communication with radio play, text message with text adventure, guiding players to four different locations where they have to break in to solve puzzles and find clues, in traditional machina eX style.
Premiere / Seasons
Premiere in October 2014 as part of the Steirischen Herbst in the town of Wildon
Colette M. Schmidt, Der STANDARD
A computer game in which you walk for miles, inhaling the mustiness of abandoned bathrooms as well as the fresh forest air: yes, it exists. machina eX, a collective of young German theater makers and media artists, builds computer games where you walk through virtual rooms and solve puzzles using trial and error to get to higher levels, to the fixed-format world.
Concept: machina eX,Jan Philip Steimel, Yves Regenass /// Lead Game Design: Jan Philip Steimel /// Programming and Tech: Lasse Marburg, Yves Regenass, Jan Philip Steimel /// Dramaturgy: Yves Regenass /// Sound Design: Malu Peeters /// Scenography: Franziska Riedmiller /// Scenography Assistance: Elsa Chinese /// Production: Jan Philip Steimel /// Text: Olivia Wenzel /// Helping Hand: Eike /// Speakers: Juliette Eröd, Yves Regenass, Lorenz Kabas, Paul Panzenböck, Christoph Rothenbuchner, Stefan Suske, Philip Steimel, Olivia Wenzel /// End Music: Remix of „Don’t call us, we’ll call you.“ by Tin Men and the Telephone /// Special Thanks: John Wasser from the Arduino Forum
Produktion: machina eX and Steirischer Herbst