Tracking ‘All of Them Witches’ (A NoPro Adventure)
Cara’s look at the 2019 Overlook Film Festival Immersive Game Experience from the creators of ARCANA
Writer’s Note: This article was largely written prior to current social distancing circumstances. We debated whether or not to release it during this time but ultimately decided it would be an interesting retrospective look back on an extraordinary experience. We are also very excited to announce that the team behind this experience is collaborating again. You can find details of their new endeavor in the press release linked here.
The Overlook Film Festival has come to be known just as much for its immersive entertainment offerings as it has its horror film selection. Chief among these offerings is its 4-day long immersive game. The game has taken many forms over the years, particularly the last two years wherein the festival has opted to try a new “artist in residency” approach to the game’s design. What follows is my first-hand account of last year’s game from the point of view of a Platinum Immersive Pass-holder, a ticket level offered for the first time for those interested in diving deep into the game.
From the moment it was announced that the team behind this year’s game would be Mali Elfman (returning in the role of Overlook Game Producer) alongside writers Eva Anderson and Eric Hoff, immersive production company E3W Productions, and interaction/path designer Tommy Honton, we knew we were in for something pretty remarkable. And indeed we were…
PRE-FESTIVAL
It started with a couple of emails. The first, a fairly standard correspondence from The Overlook Film Festival requesting I sign my game release in order for my journey to begin, which I did.
Later, another more intriguing email came to me from “The Hierophants” alerting me to a forthcoming package I would be receiving and instructing, “Take the earth that was given to you and let us know when you’re ready to be seen.” “The earth, huh?” I wondered. I figured that would make more sense once said package arrived.
I also started getting a few new Instagram followers but didn’t take much notice. It was a hectic week and I didn’t get a chance to investigate who any of them were. I’d been getting a lot of random followers lately so it was probably just a fellow dog or squirrel enthusiast or perhaps another life hack follower. (I follow a lot of weird stuff on Instagram.) One of these new followers commented on a previous post of mine about The Overlook Film Fest:
Not out of the ordinary. Whenever I’ve posted about events in other cities, I tend to get comments from local businesses or tourist sites hoping to capitalize on our travels.
A day later, I returned home to find a mysterious package sitting on my doorstep. The sender was listed as “The Hierophants.”
GAME. ON.
Inside the package was an intriguing collection of items:
The latest issue of Fangoria (The ‘US’ issue).
A painted rock with a strange bullseye-like symbol on one side and the letter ‘E’ on the other.
A Tarot card (The Devil) with some odd bloodstain marks around the edges.
And finally a note from “The Hierophants” with a request to meet a person with a candle on my first night in New Orleans on a particular corner.
“O Exquisite One, Your Presence is Requested,
At 10 in the Evening on the 30th of May.
Meet at the corner of Royal and Desire.
Wait for Friend with a Candle.
-The Hierophants”
My first thought was, “Oh, how nice. Fangoria (one of the festival sponsors) must have sent this gift to all the festival attendees.” That is until I opened the magazine.
Upon opening the Fango, I quickly noticed that there were three separate pages dog-eared. Certainly, this was no accident. I began to scour those pages looking for any information that might be useful to me.
THE POSTAL ZONE — As I began reading the letters to the editor page I noticed one entry that seemed particularly interesting. A woman named Rosalyn was complaining about the string of desiccated bodies that had been washing up on the shores of New Orleans and lamenting about why the police weren’t taking this more seriously. Hm… New Orleans… noted.
Next was a random earmarked page in the middle of the ‘zine. After reading this entire page I began to suspect that the only information needed was actually just the symbol at the bottom. A circular sigil-type symbol that I immediately assumed must be some type of puzzle. But try as I might to decipher it, I ultimately decided I just didn’t have enough information yet. There must be more info to come, I assumed.
THE CLASSIFIEDS — I discovered a prominently placed ad in the classifieds from a woman named Anais advertising her upcoming art gallery opening in New Orleans. Ah ha! New Orleans! “Iz game!”
So I set about solving this mystery. After inspecting the symbol for a while more, I concluded that I didn’t have enough context to “solve it” if it were, in fact, solvable. I decided to wait for further clues.
Thankfully, those were soon to follow in the form of that new instagram follower I’d met, Anais, the artist with the new gallery opening in NOLA. She started teasing that she would be revealing pieces of her new gallery logo in the coming days leading up to her show.
Why, that logo seemed familiar looking. (It was at this point I realized this logo would be the cipher decoder I needed to unlock this Fango puzzle.)
And so, we waited eagerly as she posted a new piece of the logo daily…
Until finally the full reveal was posted…
I composited both images in Photoshop and set about solving. I’ll let you readers have your own fun if you’d like to solve for yourself…
NEW ORLEANS
It was finally time to head to NOLA and let the games begin! I packed up all my pre-game accoutrements and some comfy walking shoes (I’ve learned my lesson from previous years) and off I went to the Big Easy.
THURSDAY, MAY 30TH
Night one of the festival meant an Opening Night Party. We all gathered at the venue and the reunions began. We noticed in the corner was an art piece and sure enough, the artist was that woman Anais we’d met on Instagram. It turns out she was selling her piece and advertising for her upcoming gallery opening.
Anais also handed us a white candle and told us to light it later that night.
We also encountered a very angry woman in a cloak who thrust a flyer into our hands. It seems these murders we’d read about in the Fangoria magazine were still unsolved.
As requested in our pre-festival mail delivery, we knew our first task was to meet these so-called Hierophants at 10PM. And so, we left the party early and made our way over to a beautiful (and considerably spooky) house.
Sure enough, standing outside awaiting our arrival was a woman dressed all in black holding a candle. Now, we knew the woman to be Mali Elfman, producer of the Overlook game for several years running, but we weren’t sure if she was in character or just acting as herself. (A frequent dilemma in the immersive community. “Is this my friend or are they in character?”) It turns out, she was somewhere in between the two.
After entering the house, we were met with a lovely private cocktail hour while we waited for everyone else to arrive. It turns out this was to be the first of many exclusive offerings for those on the Platinum track. Once we had all assembled, we were given our on-boarding of sorts. It was explained to us that anyone wearing all black with a key around their neck, identifying themselves as a “Hierophant” was to be treated as an authority figure of the game. Sort of like a game referee to make sure we don’t go off the rails, both for our own safety and the safety of the poor unsuspecting tourists of New Orleans. If a “Hierophant” were to tell you the events of the game were done for the night, for example, that was to be taken as factual. (After having played this game for years and not having had the benefit of this type of out-of-game figure in some early installments, I can say it’s a welcomed and necessary addition to an event of this type. Otherwise you might end up, oh… say… giving a strange, older man your phone number while he filmed you on his travel blog because you were CONVINCED he was a character in the game you were supposed to correspond with. Not… that… anyone… did... that… or… anything………..)
We were then given wax-covered vials and told to wear them around our necks AT ALL TIMES throughout the weekend. It turns out these would indicate our Platinum status to any characters we’d encounter.
It was then time to head upstairs into an adorably decorated attic/apartment where we were instantly transported into the scary and mysterious world of the game. The lighting was rich and saturated (a signature aesthetic of E3w Productions), the soundscape ominous, and much to our delight, we encountered an Overlook Film Festival favorite, Clay Chapman McLeod, our storyteller for the evening. Words can’t do justice to what a storytelling experience from Clay is like so I’ll let the video speak for itself…
When the story was complete, he threw a pile of fabric at our friend Garrett’s feet. And with that, we were escorted out of the house. As we exited, we were handed a piece of paper. It was an invitation from our new artist friend, Anais.
The pile of fabric thrown at our feet turned out to be a cloak with mysterious symbols embroidered on it. After studying the cloak and not being able to make anything of the symbols, we decided to head back to our hotel. It was then that we remembered the candle we were supposed to light. Once lit, the white candle began to ooze red wax from within, almost as though it were bleeding. We messaged Anais this observation.
FRIDAY, MAY 31ST
We woke up early and headed out for our morning appointment with Anais at a local art gallery (not hers). She presented us with a series of strange tasks (read: puzzles) that we set about solving excitedly. (Have I mentioned we love puzzles?) We learned that Anais had a brother named Pierre, a filmmaker and that the two of them had been experiencing some strange occurrences recently. She invited us to go check out her brother’s film which was screening over at the Olivier House Hotel.
She then gave us our official invitation to her art gallery opening and sent us on our way.
From there we headed over to the Olivier hotel to see Pierre’s film but when we arrived at the room, things were a bit… off…
As the film concluded, out burst the angry, cloaked woman from the party the night prior. She chased us out of the room hastily and as we exited, we were handed a folder of information, clues to the murders happening around town. Apparently there was a detective working the case who was looking for our help in gathering information. And so our day’s task was set before us, time to commence the investigation. (Read: Puzzle hunt!)
We set off for an afternoon of running around the French Quarter solving puzzles, looking for clues, and trying to unravel the mystery of these washed up bodies. All the while texting with “R.B. Detective” and sharing our findings.
We learned of a local man named “Judah” who might know more about these dead bodies than he’s letting on. We were tasked with finding him at a local coffee shop and seeing what he knew. Judah revealed to us that he was actually a witch. (Yas)
Next, it was time to find Pierre, Anais’ filmmaker brother. It seems he and Anais were being harassed and his film premiere was the latest disruption. Pierre was shocked to hear about the cloaked yelling woman we encountered in his hotel room.
Pierre gave us a letter which led us to meet Roz, a local woman who we discovered to also be a witch. (Double yas) Roz shared a tale with us about she and Judah being kicked out of their home and the gentrification that was taking place in NOLA. She and Judah were not fond of Anais and Pierre for displacing them. She ended our encounter by handing us vials of green liquid and instructing us to bring them with us to Anais’ gallery opening.
Later that day, we would meet Roz and Judah at a bar for private tarot card readings. Roz warned me that the next 48 hours would “be hell” and she wasn’t kidding.
We gathered together and collected everyone’s Tarot cards. Sure enough, when stacked in a particular order, the bloody edges combined to spell out a message along the edge of the cards.
We headed across town to Anais’ gallery opening in a quaint home. We had been instructed by her to bring a found object to contribute to her up-cycled artwork. But as soon as we entered the space, we could tell something wasn’t right.
Pierre was there but he was behaving very oddly. His film was being projected on the wall only now, intercut with the film footage was surveillance video of each of our groups entering his hotel room earlier that morning. Very creepy! Suddenly Pierre grew ill and we were escorted into the next room to see Anais’ art.
She showed us a few of her pieces and asked us if we brought anything for her. It seemed that we had a choice to make: present her with a found object for her art, or give her the strange green vial. When I presented her the vial she panicked. She accused me of trying to poison her. She and Pierre had been feeling more and more ill. A chunk of her hair literally fell out in front of us and we were forced to leave out the back door and down the stairs through a basement.
Once downstairs we stumbled onto what appeared to be a coven of witches performing some manner of ritual. We were asked to kneel and bear witness to the ritual. Our foreheads were marked and we were handed pieces of another Tarot card. We received texts telling us that we were to report for a sunrise ceremony the next morning at 6am. It now made sense what Roz had meant when she said the next 48 hours would be hell…
SATURDAY, JUNE 1ST
We reported to the location at 6AM. There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to make that an easy task during a film festival but we did it none the less.
We arrived at an amazing outdoor performance venue (the Music Box Village)and were met by Sarah. She was weeping when we arrived and seemed overjoyed by our decision to join her and her coven-mates. We were taken inside the extraordinary venue and guided through an incredibly entertaining induction into our very own witches coven, the “Unholy Mess Coven.”
Suddenly our ceremony was interrupted by Judah bursting in carrying an ailing man, writhing in pain. This was a man we’d met briefly at the opening night party. He had purchased the art piece from Anais.
The coven informed us that Anais and Pierre were not, in fact, the innocent victims we’d been led to believe they were. Instead, they were witches that had gone rogue and turned to chaos magic. They were behind the deaths in NOLA and the torture of this poor young man they kept referring to as a “bloodbag.” It was up to us to stop them and end this poor young man’s suffering. We were told we needed to brew a potion and find a magic book to defeat the siblings.
We were instructed to open up the red, wax vials we all wore around our necks and lo and behold, inside each was a rolled up piece of paper. The pieces, as it turned out, all fit together to form another cipher for us to decode. It turned out to essentially be a treasure map. We followed the path and had to dig out a chest buried in the dirt!
Inside the treasure chest were empty vials we needed to fill to make the potion. And so we all spread out and set about gathering the ingredients.
Once we had everything assembled we were free to leave… but not without a good photo op first:
Next stop: the Mudlark theater.
Judah was there to greet us and instructed us to combine all our potion ingredients. We needed to smear the potion on Anais’ art piece and then take turns smashing the art with hammers in order to free the poor young man from the evil curse he was under.
Alas, we were unable to save him and he died… but not before giving us a location to meet the siblings. (Thanks for that, buddy! Sorry we couldn’t save you!)
We headed to the house and entered in small groups. We were met by Roz who instructed us to enter quietly. Inside we were met with a dreamlike tour through the lives and traumas of the Pourciau siblings set against another vibrant and disturbing environment designed by E3W Productions and team. We discovered that Anais and Pierre had killed their parents after enduring a series of abuses.
(Fun fact: Pourciau loosely translates to “piglet”)
When the tour was over we exited out the back of the house but those of us with red vials on were told to wait. Judah met us out on the steps and escorted us back inside, this time through a series of rooms we hadn’t yet seen.
In the final space we found Roz standing over Anais, hunched over a baby piglet in the floor, appearing to be in some type of a trance. Her hands were bound by strings that led back to a strange wooden box for which we had to decipher a puzzle in order to unlock. Inside the box, beneath a spiderweb-like arrangement of intertwined strings with bells attached to them, was THE BOOK. Roz informed us we had to silently retrieve the book without ringing any of the bells or else we’d break the trance and awaken Anais.
We succeeded! But just as we were about to leave, Anais awoke and jumped towards us screaming. We rushed out the back stairs to safety and were told to meet at the final location at midnight that night (after the closing night party).
Once at the closing night party we discovered the location for our midnight meeting was directly across the street. How convenient! We walked over just before Midnight and discovered the entire group of All Access players inside (those who had not opted into the “Platinum” track we were playing.) We realized that we’d had an entirely separate experience than they had. In fact, they believed Anais and Pierre to still be the hapless victims and had no idea about the chaos magic with which they’d been dabbling. We informed them that we were there to stop the siblings and put an end to this evil once and for all.
In a shocking turn of events, Anais and Pierre revealed that Judah and Roz were the ones to have taught them the chaos magic needed to kill their parents.
Suddenly Sarah appeared and, in a fit of outrage, banished them both from the coven. Anais and Pierre collapsed to the ground and Judah and Roz were sent away. It seemed our mission was complete. We stopped the bad guys! It was an epic standoff and we prevailed!
We thought the game was over. In fact, I even started getting some wrap up interviews with my fellow game players…
But then the Platinum players got a text telling us to meet the next morning back at the Mudlark theatre to decide the fate of the Pourciau siblings. Evidently they weren’t dead after all…
SUNDAY, JUNE 2ND
The next morning, we arrived back at the familiar location. Roz and Judah were not present, having been banished from the coven the night before. Sarah was there but she appeared to us in street clothes, no longer seeming to be a practicing witch. She informed us she’s done with the coven and tasked us with selecting a new leader for this new coven, now deemed the “Fresh Meat” coven. Without hesitation, the group selected our friend Rob, a wonderfully devoted player of the game and all around good human. Rob was outfitted with the smelly cloak we’d been lugging around for four days and into the the theater we went.
Inside, we found Anais and Pierre, still in their ceremonial garb, leaning up against one another on the floor, barely conscious. It was up to us to take a vote to decide whether we should banish them or show mercy. And wouldn’t you know it, the coven was split exactly down the middle: 50/50 banishment vs. mercy. And thus the tie-breaking decision was left up to our new fearless leader. And fearless he was. Without missing a beat, our sweet, kind-hearted friend Rob turned and BANISHED Anais and Pierre without even blinking an eye. (Dang, Rob.)
But we agreed that no matter the outcome, we were now a coven and would support the choice. “So mote it be!”
We exited the theater back onto the muggy hot streets of New Orleans and who did we stumble upon? A very drunk Roz and Judah wandering the streets. They seemed to have no recollection of us our of any of the events of the past 4 days. Perhaps this was for the best. They did, however, oblige us in posing for some selfies. Because without a selfie, did it even happen?
SO, WHAT NOW?
Well, I suppose that’s for us to decide. We banished the evil and inadvertently formed our own coven. What we do with this newly inherited responsibility remains to be seen. Perhaps the coven has served its duty and our task is complete? Or perhaps we have many more adventures ahead, game sanctioned or not. Regardless, I know that everyone involved left NOLA with an indelible memory of an extraordinary few days in the sun with a group of like-minded adventure-seekers. And in the end, that’s perhaps the most magical part of all…
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