None Come Back is a horror themed escape room experience with a difference. By linking a series of escape rooms, None Come Back forms a maze. In each room players choose a portal to unlock, and when successful, go through it to find another room and another series of choices. The experience combines escape room style puzzles with route finding and other, more physical, challenges. None Come Back is currently in development.
Orpheus and Eurydice
The objective is to navigate to the centre of the maze, discover what lies there, and return safely to the upper world. The game is based loosely on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus journeys to the underworld to plead with Hades and Persephone for the return to life of his dead bride. This is granted him but he must lead her back to the light without looking back at her, otherwise she is lost to him forever.
None Come Back is a journey into the land of the dead – each room presents a new challenge that must be overcome before you can reach the King and Queen of the underworld. The challenges are a mix of puzzle games and physical challenges. You might have to solve a cryptic clue to unlock a secret trap door, but behind it is a dark, narrow tunnel leading to deeper, larger voids.
None Come Back is not about jump scares. The underworld is sensuous, seductive even, but disorientating. Characters you meet give clues to the way forward, the challenge is to interpret them, or decide if they are to be trusted. The further you venture into the maze, the harder it is to find your way back. Can you remember every door and the ways of unlocking them? Is it possible to go back the way you came? In this way the journey will tell the story of your death. Will you find the rulers of the underworld and convince them to show you the way back to the light, or will you remain there forever?
Technology
None Come Back is a series of automated escape rooms. Players use the game app on their phones to scan the rooms and discover hidden clues and keys to the locked doors that lead deeper into the maze.
The game app tracks your progress and uses augmented reality to deliver the puzzle layer. The game challenges will be triggered by the duration of your time in the maze, and the characteristics of each room. The game logic will utilise machine learning to throttle difficulty levels, ensuring each player has a uniquely challenging and exciting experience.
None Come Back is a hugely innovative project that uses cutting edge technology to create a dark, transgressive experience of death and rebirth.
Team
The game is being designed and developed by Karno, led by Simon Evans, one of the creators of 2.8 Hours Later. We’re starting work on the build in the summer of 2020, once restrictions arising from Coronavirus (COVID-19) have been lifted. Right now we are creating a community of people to help shape the experience, either through contributing to the design or development, helping to test or participating in staging the game.
Play None Come Back
We want to launch the dark maze in Bristol during the autumn of 2020 but we need to know if this something people want to do. Sign-up to the game waiting list to let us know you want to play once we all get out of quarantine!
We’re offering 50% discount off the ticket price to all sign-ups and the first 100 to register get free tickets! None Come Back is being developed by Karno