By Jim Rossignol on June 16th, 2008 at 2:21 pm.
This bizarre story shows you what happens when architects attack: they try to create Myst-style adventure games in the real world. Thanks to the deep pockets of the owners of a 5th Avenue apartment in Manhattan, a chap named Eric Clough was able devise an apartment-wide puzzle, complete with original ciphers, a clue book, and various obscure puzzle mechanisms. (SOUND FAMILIAR?)
“furniture and some of those walls conceal secrets — messages, games and treasures — that make up a Rube Goldberg maze of systems and contraptions conceived by a young architectural designer named Eric Clough, whose ideas about space and domestic living derive more from Buckminster Fuller than Peter Marino.”
Or perhaps they derive from John Walker’s nightmares about the return of Cryo.
(Photo: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times. Fair use! Probably.)
OK, I read Peter Marino as Paper Mario. I’m pulling my ethernet cable out.
report
See this? You have WiFi.
report
This sounds like they’re going to rip off oblivion screenshots.
report
@Valkies
Don’t worry, I read it as Paper Mario too.
report
I want a house like that
report
I read Paper Mario too.
report
I was thinking about reading it as well, but I heard the characters were rather two-dimensional.
/coat
report
It would be interesting to see the place; the architect could make another and transform it in a museum, I believe lots of people would like to go in there and explore :)
report
Wonder how much the whole thing cost, but then again, money doesn’t seem to be an issue.
report
I was remarking to a friend the other day about how I can see a market for architects creating secrets and hidden meta-games in this way when you hire them to hack your home, but no one would ever get the unexpected experience of this family.
If I had the capital, I would start a firm that specializes in this. We could call it intertecture or something awful.
report
how soon til they start charging for the pleasure of going through the riddle yourself while renting?
report
According to an article this morning on IGN UK, J.J. Abrams is going to produce a movie based on this.
report