California Institute of the Arts Creates Virtual Reality Game TO REMEMBER A FRIEND

Amid a pandemic with all live performance shuttered, a team of graduate students from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) Experience Design and Production program create episode one of a multipart narrative virtual reality game for the Oculus platform. The new game To Remember a Friend will have a series of live streams of the beta playthroughs on Twitch as part of the CalArts School of Theater Festival 2021: Beyond the Stage on May 6th at 5 & 8 pm, May 7th at 6 pm, and May 8th at 2 & 5 pm (all times PST). The streams will be hosted by the creative team with special guest players, and the audience will have the opportunity to help choose the narrative direction through chat.

Game Description: The year is 2040. A young woman named Jane Watson has been murdered in her apartment. No one knows what happened... but you plan to find out. You play as Whitlock, a rookie detective undergoing an experimental consciousness transfer procedure in exchange with the comatose sole witness to the murder. In this virtual reality narrative adventure game, you must work to uncover what really happened to Jane Watson, but just remember that memory is fluid, and those around you all have an agenda...

"We wanted to create a VR experience around False Memory where the user would have to navigate a narrative space that was always changing. They would have to question the reality they've been placed into and try to uncover which memories are real to uncover the truth." - Kathleen Fox (Creative Director)

After the beta release, the game will be available for download from the team directly at www.torememberafriend.com and other platforms.

The game includes the voice and movement talents of BK Dawson (Voice of Jack/Motion Capture), Kion Heirari (Voice of Matt), Jade V. Robinson (Voice of Gwen), Kat Walker Shea (Voice of Jane/Motion Capture), and Socks Whitmore (Voice of Christie).

Kathleen Fox leads the creative team as (Creative Director, Programmer & Writer), Simon Magno (Creative Producer), Jared Pixler (Creative Producer), Bridget Rooney (Production Manager), Chun-Wei Wang (Set Designer), Violet Smith (Lighting Designer), Elliot Yokum (Sound Designer), Lydia Wang (3D Character Modeler), Henry Albright (Writer), Jack Frey (Programmer), Chris Duran (Concept Art), Catherine Frey (Graphic Design), and Cameron Leonard (Production Assistant). 

To Remember a Friend streams on Twitch starting May 6th at 5 & 8 pm, May 7th at 6 pm, and May 8th at 2 & 5 pm (all times PST) https://www.twitch.tv/torememberafriend.

Presskit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11BqbbXDuXslmXXAqSR2YH1xWnDz4KNjw?usp=sharing

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