Tony Porteous
Technical Designer
Triage
Triage - The Healers are the Heroes
Tech Enabled Immersive Theatre
2017 and 2019
Calling to arms all physicks, apothecaries, priests and witches of our great nations! Soldiers of our Empire fight a bitter winter war against brutal foes. Refugees flee the conflict on bare feet and empty stomachs. Dark practioners warp the very land with fight for with blights and curses.
The field hospitals are overflowing with casualties. Now more than ever the heroes of our Empire are needed to step forward, lend their skill and show the courage to make the hardest of decisions about who should live and die.
Role
Project Lead, Lead Designer
I Designed and lead a team of over 30 in creating a unique series of intense roleplay events.
- Game Design: I designed dozens of unique game mechanics involving puzzles, technology, and dexterity that were repeatable and masterable.
- Content Creation: I lead the team on content creation, defining briefs for over 800 patient scenarios and 40 plotlines per event, totalling over 50K words of creative content
- Coding: I designed and coded arduino devices to embed RFID and Bluetooth technology into some of the scenarios
- Leadership: I assembled the team, managed the budget and coordinated the development process across mutlitple disciplines.
Traumatic Wounds System
Game Management System
At the heart of this event was the Traumatic Wound System. Each NPC (Actor-role) was given a Traumatic Wound Card which described what makeup they would need, what costume, what symptoms and personality then needed to roleplay and if there were any special mechanics then needed to observe. Equally, this card had player information on what they would learn if they investigated the character's wounds.
This was a challenging system to design, as it needed to prime NPCs for a new role every 15 minutes, while at the same time giving the Plot, Wardrobe, SFX and the Players the information they needed in an accessible format
Crystal Wounds
RFID/Arduino Enabled Prosthetics
Some patients had strange crystal growths pulsing with light. These wounds responded to a set of rune stones in the hospital, either killing or curing the patient on exposure!
This game mechanic was an investigation into embedding technology into LARP. We needed to design and build a wearable RFID detector and Light emitter that would work beneath a prosthetic wound, and withstand the rigours of a live performance. We used NeoPixel LEDs in order to fine tune a responsive UX for when the players interacted with the wound.
Credits
- Lead SFX: Dan Tuck
- Medical Correspondant: Sarah Law
- Lead Wardrobe: Leanna Longo
- Tech Support: Spiros and Ben
- Catering: Kitty Dobson, Johnny Fisher
- Photography: Sofia Romualdo, Steph Morris
- Senior Wranglers: Harriet, Gavin, Kitty, Adam, Maria
- The Dead, Dying and Unclean: Countless Others