ARCADE: A Sensory & Disconnecting Interactive Experience In The Dark (Fringe review) 3 Stars ***

DARKFIELD specialise in immersive experiences designed to test your senses in the dark. ARCADE is one of three – the others being FLIGHT and COMA at this year’s Fringe. An interactive experience inside a shipping container where you are placed in complete darkness with headphones on in front of a 1980s style arcade game, you are guided by voices in the headphones through a series of questions where your answers are either ‘yes’ when you press the button or ‘no’ if you don’t press at all. That leads to a unique experience where you either end up pursuing peace or joining a cult filled with promises of a better reality.

You stand throughout as if you are in an arcade in the 1980s, playing Asteroid. From there the relevance of the 1980s arcade is lost as you hear interactions with different characters taking you through scenarios where your choices take you on increasingly violent and challenging set pieces. No spoilers here but it is a sensory experience which really does push your boundaries.

Structurally, everyone in the container follows similar pathways but stay at the same terminal, your audio guide taking you through the narrative. There are quite a number of arcade booths in the container which means the structure needs to have the same numbers of questions and options because we all finished at the same time, though each of us had different options going round this soundscape. It’s quite clever, allowing us to begin and end at the same time, even while depending upon whether or not you are going to press the button and say ‘yes’, or leave it alone and choose ‘no’. My own journey was therefore unique. I however kept on forgetting to press the button, so there are a lot of nos that probably could have been yeses.

Focusing your attention and your nerves in a place where you’re not allowed your phone or anything that may light up disconnects you from the reality of life where you are constantly exposed to media. A warning: If you do not like having your visual sense being taken away, ARCADE is not for you; but if you want to experience something slightly unusual, almost avant-garde, it’s half an hour out your day; if that’s your form of entertainment, then this is the container unit for you. 

ARCADE is at Pleasance Dome until 31st August