The Under Presents

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The Under Presents
The Under Presents cover art.png
Developer(s)Tender Claws
Publisher(s)Tender Claws
Director(s)Danny Cannizzaro
Programmer(s)
  • Will Anderson
Artist(s)
  • Marcin Surma
  • Konrad Kaca
Writer(s)
  • Brian Evenson
  • Samantha Gorman
Platform(s)
Release19 November 2019
Genre(s)Magic system, Interactive film, Artgame, Cooperative video game
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

The Under Presents is an independent video game developed and published by Tender Claws. It released on November 19, 2019 for Steam VR, Oculus Rift, and Oculus Quest.

Gameplay[]

The Under Presents is composed of four distinct parts: the introduction tutorial (free), the multi-player main stage, the Timeboat experience, and The Tempest live actor performance. Players appear as dark forms with oval masks made of gold. No voice chat is available, with the exception of the professional actors who appear in The Tempest or at random times in the main stage. The magic system, used to manifest objects and restore scenes in the play area, involves holding the mask in one hand while performing a series of clicks and waves over it with the other hand.[1]

The Introduction tutorial[]

This component of the game is available for free and lasts approximately 20 minutes. The player is given a backstage tour and puzzles to solve by a non-player character known as the MC, who is in the form of a strange ghostly figure with a huge, misshapen gold mask.[2]

This game introduces the Scrunch Teleport, which is a unique form of VR locomotion where the player reaches out and pulls the center of the world towards themselves, and then releases it whereupon the rest of the world snaps into place so that there is always some part of the field of view that is fixed.[3]

The Timeboat experience[]

This is a prerecorded immersive theatre play that takes place between the crew and passengers on board The Aikman as it gets stranded in the ice and runs out of food. The player has to wind time forwards and back to chase down all the characters and storylines in a sort of improvised nonlinear narrative.[4]

The main stage[]

A dozen different short acts by the theatrical troupe PieHole[5] take place on the stage in a permanent loop each introduced by the MC. Players in the game can interact with one another (using hand gestures and movement, no voices), show off and teach one another the different spells, or venture out into the desert to explore remote areas of the map. Some of these locations require players to actively collaborate in order to unlock them and they reach places where it is possible to acquire different masks.

The Tempest[]

The Tempest was a first-of-its-kind, live, scripted, participatory play that players attended using VR[6] based on several scenes in Shakespeare's The Tempest. The performances usually lasted 40 minutes, and audience members were networked into groups of up to 8 per actor. Tickets were separately purchased for each showing, with the first ticket giving a player access to the multiplayer hub as well as an exclusive mask.

References[]

  1. ^ Kamel, Omar (25 November 2019). "The Under Presents - Review". 6dofreviews. 6dofreviews. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  2. ^ "Tutorial Walkthrough". Tender Claws. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  3. ^ "Tender Claws Ask Me Anything". 20 March 2021.
  4. ^ Damiani, Jesse (19 November 2019). "'The Under Presents' Is A Novel Exploration Of VR And Live Immersive Theatre". Forbes. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  5. ^ "Piehole - The Under Presents".
  6. ^ Soloski, Alexis (8 July 2020). "Theatre's next act? A Show That's All in Your Head". New York Times. Retrieved 24 March 2021.


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