The mixed reality adventure game Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City provides players with an immersive way to dive into the Batman mythos. Players are tasked by The Joker, who serves as something of a narrator to the adventure, to uncover mysteries from across Gotham City and identify the culprits behind them. Along the way, they effectively step into the shoes of Harley Quinn. Having found redemption, Harley is back working at Arkham Asylum as an expert on the unstable denizens of Gotham City. She soon finds herself tasked with solving plenty of puzzles to better understand (and, in some cases, confront) her patients. This requires intricate problem-solving that further drags players into the world of Batman and his infamous rogues' gallery.
During an exclusive interview with Animal Repair Shop's Chief Creative Officer Alex Lieu, CBR got to playtest the upcoming Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City (whose Infinite Rabbit Holes Kickstarter officially opens May 31). Fully immersed in what can only be described as a truly absorbing and unique mixed reality experience, Arkham Asylum Files provides a wild dive into the world of Batman, The Joker, and Harley Quinn that honestly makes it feel like players are actually figuring out mysteries in Gotham City. The result is a compelling puzzle adventure that is well worth attention.
Some challenges are conducted with physical items, forcing players to uncover hidden clues in mundane items from the world of Gotham City. These items can include newspapers, criminal files, police reports, cards, and a host of other deep-cuts to the DC Universe. Others are completed using a phone or tablet through mobile augmented reality, revealing a host of hidden elements throughout and constructing a lively version of Gotham City on the physical board. In these moments, the ARG elements truly come to life. Thanks to the full experience around the digital elements, it all feels connected and with honest weight to the puzzles and environment.
Arkham Asylum Files works extremely well, thanks in no small part to the collection of tactile and impressive craftsmanship from Infinite Rabbit Holes -- the boxed adventure arm of Animal Repair Shop. Playable by one to six people at a time, the mystery really does feel like getting pulled into the DC Universe. CBR got the chance to playtest the first chapter and walked away astonished at the experience. By following the provided story and clues, the player gets a genuine Gotham City experience -- with the numerous tools and tricks making the player feel like the World's Greatest Detective for overcoming them. Officially approved by Warner Bros. and DC Comics and designed specifically so players of all ages can enjoy the experience, Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City utilizes the vast experience this team has gained over the years -- including designing the Why So Serious? ARG campaign for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight -- to craft an amazingly absorbing experience.
Reflecting on the massive success of the Why So Serious? campaign, Lieu noted how other companies took the wrong message from the concept. "One of the fundamental things that [other studios who've experimented with ARGs] don't understand is gaming -- the importance of the player experience," Lieu expanded. "They get enamored by the stunt, or they get enamored by making the puzzle so hard that nobody figures it out. We've done it for long enough, and we understand the sort of trials that people will go through and what that reward feels like. If players aren't figuring things out on time, that's not their fault. That's the designer's fault."
"Ultimately, we're serving the story. In the back of our minds, we've always been like, 'There's something really special here. There's a different kind of storytelling that's happening.' It's sort of the CSI, mystery kind of thing coming together, where people have influence and get to be part of it. Over the years, we sort of developed this idea. We thought to ourselves, 'What if we took a bunch of artifacts that would normally have been online clues and put it all inside of a mysterious box? Instead of millions of people around the world talking on message boards, you have a handful of friends or family working together.' What's fascinating, when we go through this... age doesn't matter. It's engaging, and it's interesting."
Comparing the massive scope and attention to detail within the Arkham Asylum Files to other various puzzle games, Lieu noted how "we're looking at puzzle boxes and things that are out there, but usually the ones that we've seen, a lot of them are like poor quality or the value that you're getting isn't worth the price. The thing that mostly they don't do very well is [the players] don't care about the story, and we're all about the story."
This is all completed through the puzzles and challenges, which can be genuinely tricky -- but importantly, never feel frustrating. The presentation certainly helps, giving players a chance to act out their dreams of solving crime in Gotham City. As Lieu explained, "Our team is some [of the] foremost experts on puzzle design and level design and stuff like that. I mean, really, that's all we've done. It's just there's a different scale of it... From an experience point of view, what we want to do [is to make it] feel like you're uncovering the story. We're not trying to frustrate you because it's not about frustrating people."
"We've also found [that] because we've made games at Warner Bros. and Disney Online... most people don't use guides or hints. They don't want to because they want to solve it themselves... We've designed it so that obviously someone, if they bought a box and they wanted to go through, they could do it by themselves. We've found [that] once you have like three or four like friends, we all innately, even if we're not saying it out loud when we're watching other people, we're puzzle-solving in our heads. We're going like, 'What if you tried this? What if you tried that?' So the experience ramps up in fun when you're with somebody else."
All in all, Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City is something special, a truly interactive experience rather than just a straightforward game. "What we really wanted to do was [to] tell a story differently," Lieu explained. "It's not about replacing a video game. It's not about replacing a movie or a board game. It's a board game that meets an escape room with interactive moments. It's really taking augmented reality and giving it a purpose. There are two billion phones right now that have this capability on them, and nobody knows... So the idea was always really immersing Batman fans into an awesome story, and making Gotham City come to life on their dining room table, in their house, and then letting them be part of it."
The Arkham Asylum Files: Panic in Gotham City is live on Kickstarter now. As a special bonus, everyone who backs the project in the first 72 hours will get a bonus physical copy of the Harley Quinn: The Arkham Asylum Files comic book with a limited Alt cover... free!