You’re trapped in a locked room with just 60 minutes to find your way out.
Just then, a voice crackles from a speaker in the wall: ‘The clock is ticking…’
Freedom lies behind a series of fiendishly difficult puzzles, demanding every ounce of your physical and mental agility.
If the above sounds familiar, you’re either a huge fan of early 2000s horror movies, or you’ve experienced first hand the nerve shredding tension of an escape room.
The premise is simple. A team of players is is locked in a space and required to beat puzzles, crack codes and solve mysteries in order to escape – all within a strict time limit. They allow us to step out of our daily routine and immersive ourselves in new, exciting worlds. They’re competitive and challenging but most of all, they’re really, really fun.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where Flux comes in.
Porsche wanted to find a new audience, on a new platform, to unveil its first ever Formula E car. It decided that Twitch was the best place to build that buzz and that Flux was the best team to bring their ideas to life.
The plan was to challenge the Twitch community with a “live RPG, an escape room meets Bandersnatch… a real-life game where viewers control a real-life human being”.
Now, Flux loves escape rooms. Our current London office even used to be one back in the day. So from the second we heard about this world first concept, we were in.
The plan was a 4 hour live stream to be filmed at the Porsche Digital GmbH premises in Germany. Participants from all over the world would work together to solve interactive puzzles and complete challenges to unlock the Formula E car.
Our challenge was simple – stream every option, decision, failure and success to a global audience. For weeks on end leading up to the broadcast Flux and the incredible team at Twitch worked through every possible outcome and solution to create a unique player controlled experience, this had to be paired with a flawless technical delivery from cameras and graphics to make the whole experience engaging from start to finish.
We wanted to build tension in the escape room to keep the viewers engaged so we used body mounted HD cameras to create a truly immersive ‘first person’ feel that reflects traditional FPS video games.
Supporting this was a custom built graphics solution we made with twitch that was extremely adaptive to match the way the audience could manipulate the narrative of the broadcast.
We also made sure viewers could see the immediate impact of their choices, building the buzz when each problem was solved.
Over 2.6 million joined the adventure, controlling the players as they hacked computers, snuck through workshops and stole secret plans to beat the game. With 30,000 hooked from beginning to end, the excitement and achievement when the car was unlocked was unbelievable.
Ultimately, this is the kind of brief Flux loves – innovative and challenging, with a global reach.
If you have an idea you want to share with the world, get in touch.
Watch Porsche Formula E Unlocked from Porsche on www.twitch.tv