Interactive quests in Lander23: these elements of this latest Punchdrunk you can also use.

Spaceship Lander23

Imagine standing in a dark alien place. And your team captain whispers in your ear which direction to go. 

As a visitor, and thus also as a participant, you are part of the crew of Lander23. A spaceship that lands on an unknown planet. One group stays in the spaceship, and another group puts on tactical vests and goes 'outside' to explore. They communicate with each other via voice and screens. Everything essentially revolves around the mission that the team members accomplish together. It's a form we don't often see in the sector. 

“I always describe it as partly LARP, Live Action Role Play, and partly a simulation of a post-apocalyptic call center.” Tom Keane is co-founder and creative lead at Meaning Machine, a company specializing in games and interactive AI characters. He collaborated with Punchdrunk and knows how to craft real-time conversations into an exciting game. “It's a unique hybrid form; essentially, we've created a game that takes place in a theater space.”

This form is different from what you're used to from Punchdrunk. Their theater experiences are indeed innovative, but you are still a spectator. In Lander23, you actively participate, but in a story reminiscent of Alien or Terminator: you have a mission, and the story is built around it—call it an interactive quest. 

Having their own agenda 

Keane sees a revolution coming, where these kinds of 'gamified' conversations seep into the real world thanks to AI. "In game design, the focus is initially on what the player wants to do. But that's not enough; players must really feel that their choices have meaning.” 

And to achieve that, Tom says, you need to create characters that come to life—characters with their own personality and, most importantly: their own agenda." 

This 'questification' (turning your content into a mission) works excellently within heritage, as Keane demonstrates with an example from the Egyptian Gallery at the Bristol museum. 

The gods on WhatsApp 

A traditional exhibition that hadn't changed in ten years received a temporary digital layer. Visitors scan a QR code and suddenly find themselves in contact with Egyptian gods via a sort of WhatsApp. The gods specifically ask for help: "I need to guide this woman to the afterlife, but I'm looking for specific jars. Can you check the hall to see if you can find them?"

You then search the gallery for the correct objects. If you ask whether this is what the god is looking for, the god replies: 'Yes, I need that one, but I'm also looking for something to store the liver, for example.' 

Engaged participants

The result was stunning. Visitors who would normally walk through the hall in a few minutes now stayed to study objects intensively. After all, they had to accurately relay the details to the gods. 

The exhibition itself remained the same, but the interactive context transformed passive passersby into deeply engaged participants. Suddenly, there's an incredibly interesting digital layer that 'gamifies' the museum experience. 

Emotionally charged goal

From his expertise, Tom advises and contributes to groundbreaking hybrid experiences within the cultural and museum sector, including Lander23. If you want to work on an interactive quest yourself, here is his key advice: 

“A quest only truly works if the characters you interact with have their own emotionally charged goals. Only when choices feel meaningful to the player does genuine engagement emerge."

Curious about the episode of 'Culture Shift' where Anic van Damme, Splinter Chabot, and interactive game experience expert Hayo Wagenaar from his company IJsfontein discuss this approach? In this video, you can watch the entire podcast episode.