Non-Player Character was part of this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, taking up residence in Imaginex at YOTEL Edinburgh, in association with ZOO. I reviewed from a digital copy of the show captured on 19 Aug.
Brendan Bradley is both a performer (the Non–Player Character) and instructor for this immersive and interactive show, which mixes elements of musical theatre, escape rooms, video games, and VR personalisation.
For the Edinburgh run, the four stage players were taken each night from the casts of other Fringe shows. On this night, it was the cast of Reject Me Already (Sean, Grace, Nick, and Colleen).
It’s a musical, recorded for streaming and available for purchase, Of course you only get a sense of the show as it will have appeared in a live environment, with audience interaction through scanning a QR code on their phones.
As the fout players wear VR headsets, Bradley has to explain and guide the action for them, working through the game – what is this, what does it look like, where does it go, what happens now?
Non–Player Character is very much about playing and inventing, and it is interesting to see a group of actors from another show improvising and out of their comfort zone.
The audience is looking at players wearing headsets who can see what they see on the big screen, with Brendan’s narration and songs throughout. The graphics are fun, but the story has a serious purpose.
The five levels of the game’s world setting represent the five stages of processing grief, set to a live soundtrack of songs inspired by musical theatre, pop teopes, and video game chiptune.
Non-Player Character aims to explore what VR can do to bring audience and performers closer together. Maurice Soque Jr provides the live music, Bradley the vocals, while tech director Michael Moran pulls it all together
As a musical, the songs are good enough to stand on their own, varied in style, and move the story along. The guest players are able to control what we are seeing by their movements and gestures, albeit given cues and starting points, like getting the NPC out of a maze.
Watching this from home, it is an entertaining experience, if a little hard to feel any kind of emotional connection. However, I didn’t really grasp the concept of the grief cycle at first, but then it suddenly clicked how the visuals and actions fitted in with how we process loss.
Non-Player Character is about moving on and about support networks. “You taught me that goodbyes don’t have to be scary,” says Brendan at the end, remaining as “part of the game.”
It doesn’t quite come off, but I liked this approach a lot, and I enjoyed seeing it in action.
***.5
You can find out more about Non-Player Character here.