Sherlocked

Next week, Francine will be sharing her insights from the Rijksmuseum Escape Game project at the MuseumNext conference in London. Designing adventures for and with museums is something we love doing, as it adds layers of excitement, story, intrigue and engagement to already amazing spaces. What museum do you think we should design an adventure inside of next?

Looking forward to continue this partnership on other opportunities with Playful Solutions! Are you looking to spice up your event and make your message land on a deeper level? We're happy to explore the possibilities.

Our colleague Francine Boon just came back from an adventure in Nairobi, Kenya, to bring some creativity and playfulness to the CGIAR ‘Week of Science and Practice of Scaling Agri-food System Innovation’. Basically, a gathering of 100 researchers, corporations, and government representatives, looking into how to make sure African countries still have food and water in the coming (and already very present) climate crisis. For this particular conference, Francine worked together with Konstantin Mitgutsch. Working together, we combined our experience with pushing boundaries, bringing magic to conferences and immaculate design with Playful Solutions’ experience with corporates, hosting creative workshops and finding - as the name says - playful solutions to just about everything. So what did we do? These kind of conferences have limited time to do a lot of work. Often goals are multi-layered: from sending information, to networking, decision-making and sharing of knowledge. Humans can only process so much information in a short period of time, especially when the format stays relatively the same. Participants zoning out is a big problem, and often during the week more and more laptops find their way onto tables while people are speaking. By designing playful interactions that weave into the regular program, we help people to stay connected, active, engaged, happy and surprised. We also translate the core messages of the conference into interactive ‘games’, helping the message land on a deeper level. And by getting people to play and think out of the box, they automatically interact with each other from different perspectives, building trust, and helping everyone network outside of their normal bubble. As a cherry on top, they got a way more interesting story to tell their families back home! Are you curious if we could do something similar for you? Reach out to Francine Boon via francine@sherlocked.nl and she’s happy to jump on a call to explore the possibilities. #playfulness #conference #events #Future #innovation 

🔦 Time to shine a little red spotlight on Thomas Lievestro, creator of our very own 𝘼𝙙𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙚, the software that runs 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙡𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩. Thomas has been an honorary member of Sherlocked since literally Day 1, when he was the very first player to enter our first escape room 9 years ago together with Milan, Mike and Erik. Over the past 2 years he's been working steadfast on the magic brain that runs our latest immersive production, The Alchemist. The 𝘼𝙙𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙡 𝙀𝙣𝙜𝙞𝙣𝙚, or ACE, is a beautiful piece of software that strikes the perfect balance between automation and facilitating the human touch of our games masters. For us, that human touch is crucial for immersion, flow and safety; there's a lot in the game that requires a certain sense of timing or engagement from the host. At the same time, automation is crucial too, as otherwise our host would have way too much to do and wouldn't have bandwidth to do the things that actually need them. Why did we decide to build our own system completely from scratch? 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙡𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙨𝙩 has a pretty complex design, and hosting it could potentially have been a nightmare for our game masters. In order to keep some of our more far-fetched ideas, we wanted to be able to completely shape the hosting experience. We're not done with that yet actually; we're constantly collecting feedback from our game masters on how to improve their workflow. I suspect we'll be doing that for a while :) Another thing about Thomas: he doesn't do half work, and he goes out of his way to make his own life harder, to make others' easier. For instance: he decided on his own it would be better for everyone involved if ACE wasn't just a show running system, but an Editor as well, so we ourselves could adjust everything. It was a lot more work for him, but in the long run this would also make his life more fun, as we now don't have to ask him to change every little lighting cue we want to change. There's a lot more to share about the technology that runs The Alchemist, like the amazing team responsible for all the hardware controllers connecting everything, but that's a post for another day :) Update on The Alchemist: we're starting to get some amazing reviews and sales are picking up along with it (it's already a challenge for people to book a slot on a Saturday in 2023!). If you want to experience it, head to https://lnkd.in/eGeABfKK and book a date!

I want to give a shout-out to the two artists who we've worked with across 2,5 years to craft perhaps the craziest element of our new creation, The Alchemist. Over this long period, they've built a gorgeous and rather massive machine that I'm not revealing here, so that you may experience its magic fully if you ever visit The Alchemist in person. Thijs Rijkers, a driven and talented artist with a passion for metal and mechanical engineering, along with the wonderfully versatile creative technologist Mark Ridder have come together to bring a wildly complex vision to life. Our idea for it was inspired by *computer generated* imagery in a sci-fi movie. They made it physical reality. It's been a long road, with obstacles at every turn, but the result is something truly magical and I couldn't have wished for a better duo to do this with. To experience it for yourself, you can now book a ticket to our collective creation, The Alchemist: https://lnkd.in/eGeABfKK Also, check out Thijs and Mark's other work, at: www.thijsrijkers.nl https://lnkd.in/ecEys6hZ In the coming weeks, I'll be sharing more details from the team that created The Alchemist, and I'll be sure to keep it mild on spoilers.

We are looking for enthusiastic Interns with a knack for storytelling to lead our award-winning escape room adventures -The Vault, The Architect, The Alchemist, Time Crimes- in different positions: 🎭 Game Masters 🛠️ Maintenance 🗓️ Operations Perks: - a vibrant, positive and passionate group of people caring for our Guests; - the chance to learn from professionals with decades of experience;  - fun nights-out playing board games with your new colleagues. If you are reliable and self-reliant, live in (or near) Amsterdam and like to spend 6 months with us, send your cv to join@sherlocked.nl