2017, You Were The First

Well friends, it’s that time again; the New Year, a new adventure, a fresh start, and a clean slate. With all this emphasis on the new, it inversely shifts our gaze to the past and the impact it has made on our journey. 2017 may have been a lot of different things to many people, but to us at Aviki Games, we'll count this year as the first in many of successful experimentation. 

Of course, one of the most striking memories of this past year was debuting our first mini game, Escape the Dressing Room, in June at an Artists Collective event generously hosted by Intrepid Theatre Lab. I (Liz) was nervous, excited, and super curious to see how players would respond to this new kind of game, a pop up escape room. While setting up before the event, triple checking the padlocks, thoughts raced through my head, “Will they have fun? Will the puzzles be too hard, or too easy? Will players be into the concept of a portable puzzle game?” My fears melted away once the first players stepped into the "dressing room". The group consisted of a mix of experienced escape artists and newbies whose first escape game would be with us, Aviki Games (no pressure right?). Once they solved their initial puzzles, everything fell beautifully into place. Players had so much fun! The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and they especially loved the idea of us hosting games on site. It was so gratifying to try out this idea and see it come to life! 

​This process of experimentation is wild because you don’t know how good a game will be until players try it out. Much like an elaborate theatre production, it boils down to setting the stage for creating that magical spark fueled by equal parts careful orchestration and spontaneous interaction. You just don’t know what’s going to happen, and it’s a little scary but really exciting. 

Kevin & I repeated this process of experimentation as we built our first full hour game, The Newsroom, in August. We were anxious but trusted the countless hours we spent designing and building it for maximum delight. Players have given us such a positive response and we couldn’t be happier! 

We feel so lucky to have the opportunity to experiment while we dream up and build these awesome games. They have grown and evolved from the feedback and it has been a thrill ride to see where this process us takes us. 

​We hope that you’ve created just as many delightful experiences this past year and wish you even more in the next. Cheers to trying stuff out, to learning and growing, and having an adventure!

- Liz & Kevin

A photo of a fond memory from this summer, "We found a horse!" We are with a dear friend, Sawyer (another fabulous game designer & overall awesome human).