Metal Feline

On Sunday I took part in a thing called Aluminum Cat.  It is a totally unique (in my experience) online experience where four players take the part of fresh recruits on a futuristic spaceship called the Aluminum Cat.  An actor plays the roles of everyone else on the ship, and the only way each player can interact with them and with each other is by moving their icon around the screen and changing what their icon looks like.  It is hard to describe, but highly intuitive the moment you try it out.

Also it is really fun.

The actor really got into the roles, rapidly switching from person to person.  It was largely comedy, but all of the people playing with me seemed to take it seriously, and they tried to stick to the role and fit into the world being created for us.  It is funny to be able to get so much out of a single icon moving around the screen, but we were able to communicate pretty well, I found.

The production values aren't high.  The costumes are simple, there were a few technical glitches, and the backgrounds were just basic drawings.  However, it turns out that none of that lessened the experience at all.  That simplicity and the rough edges aren't surprising because it is still a new sort of endeavour, but the joy of the show was undiminished on that basis.  It was the interaction that was the fun part - it kind of reminds me of old BBS games in that way.  Even though the view wasn't that exciting, the experience overall was great fun.

The overall effect ended up being somewhere between a play and a roleplaying game.  Much of the plot had to happen, but we did have some real choices, especially near the end.  We also got to set the tone and pace and have some fun with it which I enjoyed.

I don't know that I would do this on a regular basis.  I do know that I am glad I tried it, and it feels great to be part of an experiment in new ways people can interact with technology.  I would recommend giving it a try to anyone, really.  Pinkie Pie was intrigued by it for sure, and even younger kids could certainly play.

Link:  https://escape-character.com/

One thing I would note is that if you sign up, you just need to check your email a couple minutes before it starts to get the link to click to join the group.  I missed that originally, and spent some time searching trying to figure out how I actually do the thing.