The last couple of years saw physical escape rooms surge in popularity, great for a birthday outing with friends or corporate team-building exercises. There are several virtual reality (VR) titles devoted to this particular puzzle genre, but none have managed to mix the two until now. Today, VR studio Adventure Lab has launched its first product, a multiplayer experience called Dr. Crumb’s School for Disobedient Pets.
This isn’t your average escape room videogame as Dr. Crumb’s School for Disobedient Pets is built around bringing that traditional physical escape room experience into your living room. This means you actually have to book your adventure and select a time slot, because each session will feature a live host.
Suitable for between 2-4 players, the host will initially guide players, showing them how the various mechanics work before the main gameplay starts. The host will then take the role of the story’s central villain, talking to the group to make the experience interactive and individual, repeated sessions will see different hosts appear.
In Dr. Crumb’s School for Disobedient Pets, you’ll play as newly recruited secret agents for the Virtual Intelligence Agency, with the mission being to investigate Dr. Crumb disguised as animals. You and your team will then have to complete a succession of rooms in an allotted time to succeed, having a maximum of 40 minutes to finish it all.
Dr. Crumb’s School for Disobedient Pets is the brainchild of Adventure Lab co-founders Maxwell Planck (CEO), a 10 year Pixar veteran and the technical co-founder and CTO of Oculus Story Studio, and Kim Adams (COO), a producer at Pixar and Head of Production at Oculus Story Studio.
“At Oculus Story Studio, we experimented with VR as a great storytelling medium. We now believe VR is better for making shared memories through adventure,” said Planck in a statement.
Currently supporting Oculus Quest, to book time slots for Dr. Crumb’s School for Disobedient Pets head to Adventure Lab’s website. Due to the live nature of the presentation, currently, only one slot is available each day which costs $100 USD, so for the best value make sure all four places are filled.
Adventure Lab plans on expanding the experience by adding support for Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and Valve Index, more performers and puzzles in the near future. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the studio, reporting back with its latest updates.