ARCADE

Tuesday 5th August 12.00

⭐️⭐️⭐️

For our next show we head to the Plaza outside of Pleasance Dome to be locked in a pitch black shipping container for 30 minutes.  DarkChat have been letting Darkfield do this to us for a number of years now, starting with the excellent ‘Flight’ at Summerhall many years ago.

This year we were attracted by ARCADE, an interactive choose your own path experience “using the nostalgic aesthetic of 80s video games”.  My chance to show my two 16 year old kids how great the 80s were, and revisit a bit of my youth at the same time, what’s not to like?  We enter to find 2 banks of Arcade machines lined back to back, reminiscent of the arcades of my youth and I am transported back in time, I don’t think the kids are as enthused as I am….yet.

After some instruction we are plunged into darkness, wearing headsets so that we can hear our instructions and hear the game that we play. Obviously I won’t spoiler the game that you play, and as I find out when we leave, every game is completely different so it might not matter anyway. The show delivers what it promises and (as with most Darkfield experiences) there is probably nothing else like it at this year’s Fringe.  The downside however is that with such limited time to play the game (each ‘performance’ of ARCADE is only 30 minutes long with around 25 minutes of gameplay) none of us reached a clear outcome (we think), and for me there was a feeling of dissatisfaction that there was no ending.  The kids however did enjoy their first Darkfield experience and a feeling of something very different to anything else they’ve ever done at the Fringe (even though they’ve been coming since they were 3 years old).  They are definitely more enthused than I am. (CB)

ARCADE is playing multiple times a day at Potterow Plaza throughout the festival until August 25th - details here