Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

Call From Restricted & We’ve Been Trying to Reach You Combine Into One Epic ARG

Special thanks to Madeline Nelson for her contributions to this article. Below is a review for Shock Theater and Haunted Hills Estates Screampark’s combined experience: We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted.

 

I double-check my assignment and dial the first phone number given to me. My heart races in anticipation of giving my message to a complete stranger. But the warning is dire and must be heeded – at all costs. The stranger I’ve dialed answers their phone. With no real need to disguise my voice, I do it anyway to help get the point across. In as scary a voice as I can muster, I yell into the phone: You can’t save Mandy! and hang up before the stranger on the other end can respond. Mandy is the key, and she’s in grave danger…

 

Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

 

There is no easy way to categorize the We’ve Been Trying to Reach You and Call from Restricted combo. Painstakingly created by Shock Theater and Haunted Hills Estates Screampark for over a year, these productions were initially created as two stand-alone concepts. The two companies then joined forces and combined the productions into one endlessly entertaining experience that lasted thirty, busy days. Even though this remote production was billed as “Extreme Horror,” it also included LARP elements, a fabulous use of humor, an ominous sense of dread, a dense ARX narrative, and so much more – over multiple social media platforms and profiles.

 

We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call From Restricted was divided into four separate phases, each marking a different primary type of game play, mood, narrative shift, and a culling of players. Each phase was filled with strong audience agency, and required participation and interaction – which included phone calls, posting videos/photos, texting, and emailing – and this determined how much narrative got uncovered. Participants were expected to open every area of their life to the experience: their phone, time, social media, thoughts, and opinions. A great deal of the experience took place publicly or in collaboration with others, adding to the sense of organized chaos, and the discomfort of being put on display under pressure.

 

Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

 

A SMORGASBORD OF GAME STYLES

The We’ve Been Trying to Reach You prologue began as a Lynchian mystery, ably creating a sense of dread with distorted phone calls and progressively threatening emails from supernatural companies that were dueling for players’ allegiance. Participants received the task of creating stories of their past lives (with the creators poking fun at them by sending unattractively photoshopped pictures from said past lives as confirmation), and ultimately had to choose which company to follow: one which promised future life cycles if participants complied, or the company that wanted to gain freedom and unlimited life cycles by dismantling the established cycle system.

 

While there were no puzzles to solve during this prologue, the freedom to come up with wild stories from past lives was a fun exercise that I would have liked to have seen come into play in subsequent phases. The ominous phone calls and distorted videos urging players to pick/avoid a certain company served as the experience’s most horror-inspired element and were successfully unnerving. The email interactions between players and the companies added some levity to the experience with snarky comments and the aforementioned photoshopped images (see below for one of my nightmare-inducing past-life portraits).

 

Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

 

The first tonal shift of the experience marked the beginning of the combined narrative as the two shows joined together. As players committed to their supernatural company of choice, they found themselves acting as investigative researchers and going undercover in a cult of Lovecraftian origins. Here is where Call from Restricted shined in its twisting narrative and deep well of lore. However, this phase also marked the ramping up of chaos (appropriate for the Lovecraftian vibe); players were given conflicting orders of what emails/profiles to respond to, which to avoid, and were purposely misled and misguided. Tasks included research, video proof, reading Lovecraft, and reciting incantations – all of which carried with them an air of foreboding, even in the “safety” of one’s own home. The line separating reality and fiction blurred in the interactions between players, actors, and other participants; it was never quite clear whether someone was playing a character or their real-life self. Was I only spying on the cult, or actually becoming a part of it?

 

Phase Two of Call from Restricted focused mainly on the transformed narrative; players were now working for a new and shady company called the Aurora Institute. Game play during this phase required participants to call, text, and direct message other participants, often under the orders to say/text a given phrase and then immediately disconnect. The narrative of the Aurora Institute, the mysterious experiments they perform, and the case of a missing girl named Mandy threaded the phases together nicely and encouraged players to dig deeper, ask questions, and buck the “system” by demanding answers.

 

Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

 

Phase Two also introduced Spectre, an online mini-game that the creators brought back from a previous experience and remade to fit into and expand on Call from Restricted. This portion of Phase Two was absolutely delightful in its creativity and humor. Hidden within a series of extensive, ‘80s-styled YouTube mix videos were puzzles and questions that players needed to solve to become a full member of Aurora. Ghosty, a two-bit ghost cartoon, acted as a guide and social facilitator for participants as they collaborated in their search for clues and answers. The puzzles were presented with a unique levity that contrasted with the formality of Phase One. Participants who had played Spectre in its previous iteration had to wait for newer participants to catch up before new content was released, as many puzzles were reused. The puzzles in the Spectre mini-game series were easy for the observant participant, but still clever and fun. The structure generally involved a question from Ghosty and a subsequent attempt to find the answer in one of the videos.

 

After the lighthearted puzzles of Spectre, Call from Restricted returned to assigning participants several (again, sometimes conflicting) tasks via email, most requiring at least an hour of effort within a very tight deadline. This, according to creators, was to thin the herd and focus on the players who appeared the most invested. With this intention as context, the creators wholly succeeded. I spoke to several players who called it quits around Phase Three due to the lack of time required to participate. The new path of tasks centered around real-world experimentation, history, and psychology. While quite fascinating, and strongly telegraphing the type of shady company participants suspected Aurora really was, this portion was intentionally demanding.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

 

Call from Restricted began Phase Three with a barrage of instructions breaking down a Magic-like game to be played over Facebook. Players were to collect “cards” with different abilities – defense and offense – by scouring various company sites, and duel other players online. When games started, participants played their cards, attempting to take the lives of others and defend themselves from attacks in order to end up the last person standing. This was an entertaining concept, but it became hard to follow as each game ended up being played across many personal pages that not everyone could access. It would have been much easier to understand if a specific game board/location was utilized so that all players could see who was alive, dead, and where monsters were attacking from.

 

Transitioning from Phase Three to Four, Call from Restricted assigned remaining players a new “boss” for each day for about a week – bosses could be other participants or other haunt companies. Each new boss presented players with five tasks, to be completed by the end of 24 hours. These tasks varied depending on the boss (Extreme Screams went the promotional route, while HVRTING went, well… with hurting). Tasks ranged from posting thoughts on horror films to hurting oneself either emotionally or physically to making a pumpkin out of household items – but all were creative and geared toward increasing interaction with both the creators and other players via social media, while being anything from silly to vulnerable in the process.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

 

The five tasks for each day, while framed as mandatory, were cleverly flexible so that players could participate in a way that they felt most comfortable. While I have zero problem posting a video of myself being silly on social media, players who did had the option to post a text response to one of the other tasks instead. This gave players the option to either push and challenge themselves by completing a difficult task, or to play lightly and well within their comfort zone. Personally, I tried to complete everything I could for the fun and challenge of it. My favorite task was preparing for Aurora’s karaoke night by singing “The Monster Mash!”

 

This penultimate style of game play was also a nice way to re-cement the new bonds created between participants. Since most players had already interacted in some capacity, or were even friends now on Facebook, when one player posted their assigned video, the other participants would comment and like it. Players were all working on the same tasks, so sharing the results and laughing together online provided a special bonding experience.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

Cheese makes a good jack-o-lantern, right?

 

WAIT… IS THAT IT?

As the conclusion to Call from Restricted was hyped up by the creators from the beginning, participants were probably expecting a climactic battle with a Lovecraftian god, or perhaps some intricate unspooling of the mystery of the Aurora Institute, or even call-backs to events that occurred back in Phase One. However, participants who lasted the duration of the experience were treated to a video for their loyalty and resolve. This video – keeping with the distorted and grainy aesthetic of videos prior – informed players that the entire experience had been a simulation of an extreme horror experience; participants were revealed to be a focus group of play-testers for Aurora Interactive’s new productions. And players had one final task from the experience: a video testimonial for the new productions to be used on their social media.

 

This intentional slap-in-the-face conclusion had participants both frustrated by the lack of answers and delighted by the twist; those who were still participating were well aware of the sardonic nature of the experience. Call from Restricted, in the end, was a test for new games, but it also promoted other haunts, helped a new company with player feedback, and kept people very busy and distracted during stay-at-home orders.

 

Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

 

A PUZZLING PREDICAMENT

Due to shelter-in-place and the ensuing restrictions, the puzzles and tasks of the experience were simple and easily contained, but some tasks still managed to push personal boundaries. Another major aspect to the puzzles was searching through various social media profiles for pieces to a whole, which ultimately had no effect on the narrative. Most tasks during the month-long We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted involved researching a topic online and providing your thoughts, which was time-consuming and enlightening but not very “extreme.” However, when various bosses (which could be a player as much as a creator) demanded that players call or text other people, it bordered on crossing personal boundaries.

 

For example: When I expressed my desire to return to the game (after a much-needed mental break) and a need for help catching up on the narrative, a creator instructed all the players to contact me and offer their help. I received a bombardment of online message and friend requests. While appreciated in this context, that many players directing their energy toward someone who is not looking for the attention could lead to some sour interactions.

 

Nightgaunt | Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark

 

ISN’T THAT CUTE?

Not unlike many other remote experiences during this time of shelter-in-place (iConfidant2020, Velveteen Ribbons, nocent), We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted ultimately aimed to help participants build connections within immersive horror/ RX communities. By interlacing a myriad profiles, social media platforms, and horror-based companies, We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted made it nearly impossible for one player to find everything needed to understand the plot and continue forward. Additionally, several of the required tasks were to get in touch and directly interact with fellow participants (all remotely, of course). This opened the door for players to converse about the experience, commiserate over puzzles, and help one another fill in narrative gaps.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

We were tasked with making our dinner into a crime scene

 

A REMOTE ENDURANCE TEST

While connecting players through an immersive experience seems like a wholesome goal, We’ve Been Trying To Reach You / Call from Restricted did so with underlying mischief and intentional confusion. To say the narrative (and even the experience as a whole) was difficult to follow at times is an understatement, but that was all part of the plan. The intention of the creators was to confuse and overwhelm participants with the sheer quantity and variety of tasks, allowing them to encounter the unique horror of the bizarre, and the near-guarantee of failure.

 

In the early phases of We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted, participants were subjected to the pressure of a “three lives” system, in which they lost a life for each task not completed in the given 24-hour period. An aspect of the intentional confusion was that it was unclear to players early on who had the authority to remove lives. In later stages of the game, participants were able to “come back from the dead” with little more than an apology and a recommitment to a high level of engagement. I, myself, dropped out during one particular game-play style that I could not keep up with, and re-joined afterward by promising to participate and catch up with the twisting narrative.

 

The confusion about game play was by design in order for creators to thin the participant pool. Only very active participants need apply. At first easily delineated by the three-life rule and relatively straightforward email tasks, the system quickly devolved into creative chaos. Any hope of perfectionism had to be quickly abandoned in favor of effort, enthusiasm, and tenacity. As the tasks ramped up in both quantity and intensity – like a full thesis on real-life psychological experiments – it became impossible to tell how many lives, if any, a given participant had. Some participants struggled with this mechanic; one player thought they might be dead, so they gave up trying, another was very anxious about staying alive when basic and consistent effort would have been sufficient.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

 

WHO ARE YOU AGAIN?

Throughout the month-long event, it had been difficult to tell who was a participant and who was an actor – it turns out that it was both all along, which gave players ample agency to affect the narrative as well as other players’ games. Phase Three, especially, had the potential to go very badly if the participant acting as a daily boss took advantage of their role by having players do their bidding. This improvisational freedom given to players was at times problematic, as not everyone was on the same page as to what events/plot points were happening, when, and where to find them. However, this did lead to a sense of community among the players; we had to not only ask each other for hints to puzzles but occasionally catch each other up on confusing narrative threads. I was both happy and puzzled that many other participants had the same questions I did about what was happening.

 

On the other hand, letting other players dictate the required tasks for other participants could open the door to potentially dangerous situations. The creators of We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted made a point to thoroughly vet every boss – as well as the tasks they assigned other players – so there was never any question of safety, either in or out of game. Without a vetting process, if a participant (while acting as a daily boss) gave out someone’s phone number and instructed the players to call and text it without that person’s consent, that could open the door for players using being “in-game” as an excuse to harass someone. That example is on the tame end of the potential dangers of letting participants assign tasks.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted started off legitimately compelling. The creepy Lynchian ambiance and shady corporations were expertly crafted, and the lore and world-building absolutely fascinating. However, the level of player agency made the narrative threads almost impossible to follow, and the tasks became more like work (similar to Quaranteam) than the fun escape some players might have been expecting. I appreciated the creativity of the daily bosses, and the nostalgia and light-heartedness of the Spectre game, even if it ultimately didn’t matter narratively.

 

Much like the “It was all a dream” trope, We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted takes pride in its record-scratch-inducing ending, which admittedly was frustrating for some players. But a satisfying ending wasn’t really the point in the first place. We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted aimed to satirize corporations, confusing legalese, and marketing research while facilitating connectivity amongst its players and offering them entertainment during shelter-in-place orders. In these aims, they succeeded exponentially. Despite the stress I was under while completing some of the more daunting tasks, I now find myself (Facebook) friends with several like-minded haunt enthusiasts after having to interact with them online.

 

Although I wish I had been able to get more involved – or perhaps that the tasks/lore had been slightly less frustrating so that I could have learned more about the narrative – We’ve Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted definitely stretched my limits and mental capacity for an ARG. Everyone involved must be commended for their extensive creativity and fascinating, layered lore that kept participants challenged, entertained, and guessing until the very end.

 

We've Been Trying to Reach You / Call from Restricted | Shock Theater | Haunted Hills Estates Screampark | Aurora Interactive

 

Special thanks to all surviving Aurora Institute staff, additional thanks to HVRTING, nocent, Extreme Screams, Blackheart Collective, and Haunted Honeymooners.

 

For more information on Aurora Interactive, follow them on Facebook. For more information on Shock Theater, follow them on Facebook. For more information on Haunted Hills Estates Screampark, follow them on Facebook. Check out our Event Calendar for more immersive, remote, and horror entertainment throughout the year.

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About The Author

Lacey Pawlowicz
Ever since seeing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video, Lacey has been obsessed with all things horror and Halloween. Now, she watches, produces and acts in horror films, and is lucky enough to attend haunts/immersive events and write about them. Groovy!

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