Jekyll & Hyde
The Vaults
Reviewed – 25th February 2020
★★★½
“Fire Hazard Games offer a slick production”
Combining mobile gaming, real-world scavenger hunting, narrative storytelling and live performance, Jekyll and Hyde is the latest immersive experience from Fire Hazard Games.
Players meet the chemist Emerson Frey (Daniel Chrisostomou), the lawyer Jude Edmonton (Tim Kennington) and the psychoanalyst Aubrey Goldmann (Chloe Mashiter) who explain that last night you committed a terrible deed. However, you, Dr Jekyll, cannot remember what you did as you took a mysterious serum that both altered your personality and caused selective amnesia of the night’s events.
Players – either solo or in a team of up to three – must thus uncover their missing memories by solving online clues and make decisions about their future, all while under increasing time pressure.
The plot is relatively simple, and there is a fair degree of customisation depending on the choices made. However, it is rather easy for players to ignore the game’s story and focus only on solving clues, as one does not need to remember earlier information to solve later clues.
There are 21 locations with clues to solve around the Waterloo area. It is unlikely that players will have time to cover all of these which gives the game a fair amount of replay value. The most atmospheric locations are the Church (set in the spooky grounds of St John’s Church on Waterloo Road) and the Hospital (set outside the nineteenth century Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women). Other locations, such as Press Night (next to the Young Vic), do not set the scene so well, with blatant reminders – like a Sainsbury’s Local – that players are not in fact exploring Victorian London.
At select locations, Frey, Edmonton and Goldmann will appear to offer players a deal that will affect the outcome of their game. For example, at the Church, Frey makes a frightening appearance, encouraging you to come under his ward and continue the experiments with the mysterious serum. The trio do well to stay in character and are a helpful reminder to think beyond clue hunting and about the wider story.
Unfortunately, not every team will meet the characters individually as this is entirely dependent on the locations one visits. This is a shame for those participants who are especially interested in becoming immersed in the story and its world.
The mobile aspect of the game works well for the most part, though poor internet connectivity outside the VAULT Festival where the game begins does not fill players with much initial confidence. The game is dependent on a strong internet connection and significant phone charge and if these fail there is no way to rejoin. Frey, Edmonton and Goldmann can track players and their actions on their own devices which are cleverly hidden in empty book props. This also means that they can tailor their conversations if they do meet.
Jekyll and Hyde is a lot of fun and Fire Hazard Games offer a slick production that does fairly well to adapt a complicated and multifaceted experience to different interests and game play styles.
Reviewed by Flora Doble
Click here to see all our reviews from VAULT Festival 2020
