The Magic Circle

Flashback to Boston 2022, Cameron and I gave a talk on “The Magic Circle: Delivering Game Changing Immersion” at the Reality Escape Convention. It was part tell, part show, and everyone in that room left with a pledge to deepen their immersive experiences. One creator told me they implemented a key change that very day, and I’ve heard the term “Magic Circle” in discussions ever since.

It had a real impact.

With permission from the RECON team, ever eager to propel the industry as I am, I am presenting the core content of that talk here to share with a wider audience.

The immersion technique you’ll read about today you can implement without great expense, perhaps even before the day is done.

If you enjoy this article, RECON 2024 is coming up in Los Angeles, August 18-19. You’ll hear from thought leaders in the industry, on topics from game iteration and storytelling to marketing and managing contractors.

Let’s begin with a tale of two escape rooms…

Code Name: Eagle

Your game master greets you in the lobby. You sign waivers, use the restroom, lock up your stuff, the game master teaches you how to use a directional lock.

Once escorted inside the room, your team is immersed in a replica fine arts museum. It’s beautifully lit. You can see the brushstrokes on the paintings, and a statue looms over you. There’s a lightning flash through a window, and a thunderclap follows. The GM grabs a remote and turns on the TV above the door. You watch a 2-minute rules video. Then you watch a 2-minute scenario video, telling you are heist team, Code Name: Eagle, here to steal a painting.

“My name is Susan, call for Susan if you need a hint!” She starts the clock and leaves. When you ask for a hint, you get a memo on the TV. When your team successfully nabs the painting, Susan opens the exit door and asks…

“DID YOU HAVE FUN???”

Now imagine a different game.

Code Name: FALCON

Your game master greets you in the lobby. You sign waivers, use the restroom, lock up your stuff, the game master teaches you how to use a directional lock. You GM leads you down a hallway where you watch a two-minute rules video.

The GM hands you a backpack, opens the game room door, and quickly shuts it. Your team is immersed in a replica fine arts museum. It’s beautifully lit. You can see the brushstrokes on the paintings, and a statue looms over you. There’s a lightning flash through a window, and a thunderclap follows. 

Suddenly you hear a sound from the backpack:

“Schrk. Team Falcon. Are you in the nest? I repeat. This is your hacker, Phoenix. Are you in the nest?”

You open the backpack, find the walkie-talkie, and say, “We’re in, Phoenix. What do we do next?”

“First, you need to find a way to disable the cameras. Communication is risky, but let me know if you need my assistance. Over.”

When you ask for a hint, Phoenix is there for you over the walkie talkie. When your team successfully nabs the painting, Phoenix yells, “GO! GO! GO! I’ve got the systems down for the next ten seconds! Make your escape NOW!”

You rush out into the hallway, painting in hand, and then your GM aka Phoenix congratulates you on a successful mission.

Which would you rather play?

Do I even need to ask? I didn’t think so.

But these games and their customer journeys are close cousins. They have the same hosting ritual, the same rules video, the same set, the same puzzles.

What’s different is the commitment to the Magic Circle. The creator of Code Name: Falcon respects the world of the heist, taking it as a truth. Players experience the immersive adventure of a heist, just as the owner promised they would get on the website.

Here are competing schematics of the two games.

In Eagle, the greeting and lock tutorial are outside the circle, with the game inside. But the Rules Video, Scenario Video, Hint System, and Congrats, keep breaking the Magic Circle, constantly reminding the team that this is just a game.

In Falcon, everything that addresses the experience as a game takes places outside the game room. The Rules video is in a hallway. There is no scenario video, in its place is an in-world introduction. The hint system is in-world, even the exit from the game stayed in-world, with the out-of-world congratulations happening outside.

And the cost difference between a Magic Circle and no Magic Circle? A walkie-talkie, a backpack, and training GMs to talk like the Hacker Phoenix. Oh, wait, actually it may be net cheaper, as Falcon doesn’t require a scenario video. A little bit of script took its place.

This is a magic less about money and more about commitment.

the Magic Circle Defined

The Magic Circle is the boundary between the ordinary and imagined world. The border is a transition point, a threshold. Within awaits a new world with new rules and the need for new behaviors. Weddings, conferences, sports, board games, rituals, these are all Magic Circles we encounter in our every day.

I believe the term first appears in Homo Ludens (1938) by Johan Huizinga, a Dutch cultural historian. The book examines the importance of play in developing culture.

“Just as there is no formal difference between play and ritual, so the ‘consecrated spot’ cannot be formally distinguished from the playground. The arena, the card table, the magic circle, the temple, the stage, the court of justice, etc., are all in form and function playgrounds, i.e. forbidden spots, isolated, hedged round, hallowed, within which special rules obtain. All are temporary worlds within the ordinary world, dedicated to the performance of an act apart.” (Homo Ludens)

Take that in. Read it again.

If this sounds like I’m suggesting that the play of an escape room is in fact sacred, well, I am. We are talking about magic, after all. This is higher plane stuff, the stuff that makes life worth living.

Kids treat play seriously. Adults need play just as badly, but they need commitment from the designer to feel comfortable joining in. They need a leader.

We’ve all had that embarrassed game host, apologizing in body language or even in words for how silly all the make-believe they’re about to deliver is, only half committing to it. And then the experience itself keeps interrupting you with reminders it’s just a silly game. That higher plane couldn’t be further out of reach.

Be the lead kid. Dare to plant your feet and ask the question, “Will you play with me?” More than mechatronics or smoke machines, committing to the Magic Circle is the difference between a nicely decorated game and a cinematic adventure.

But that lead kid commitment must come from both the designer and the staff.

within the Circle

Once players are inside your world, you want to ensure consistency. Follow the simple rule of thumb, familiar to actors…

…except think of it on the scale of the whole world, rather than just the people in it.

You’ll want to start with a fully believable space. Finish your set, floor to ceiling. Leave no trace behind that you built this world from Home Depot.

Lighting fundamentally transforms your space into another world. Lighting is seriously powerful magic. If I could snap my fingers and improve one production value at every escape room facility, it would be the lighting.

Consider appropriate sound for the world. Are there any practical sound effects, like a fireplace crackling? Would score help create a sense of a plane elevated from the normal world? Yes, yes it would. Think about diagetic and nondiagetic sound.

Puzzles also need to fit in the world (see my post on immersive puzzle design). Make sure every puzzle has an author, a reason to be in the world.

To preserve the circle, you’ll also want immersive hinting, which means a character in the world who wants to see the players succeed.

But Magic Circles are not just production design. They’re also people design. Consider if you want actors in your experience. Just one committed actor is a giant immersive bomb.

Make sure you make a clear choice and communicate it to your staff: are you an actor, yes or no. I’m tired of being greeted by a GM who is half-acting-it. Half-acting is worse than no acting.

And actors aren’t for everybody. We get it. It’s a whole other art form to master. Should you opt not to have actors in the world, note that commitment to the Magic Circle makes a couple demands…

1. Your Magic Circle must begin at the game door (otherwise your hosts will need to act a bit, since the world spills past the door).
2. You cannot allow any out-of-character hosts in the game room.

This person does not belong to this world.

If I called you out just now, you’re not alone. Everyone does it. It’s inconvenient to brief teams in the hallway, and yes, I know logistics matter. But do they matter more than your guest experience?

The most exciting part for the guest is walking into the room for the first time. Throwing on the brakes to talk to them about the rules while they steal glances of your cool world like naughty children is an unmitigated disaster. It shatters their immersion immediately. Let the team ride that high and start their adventure the moment they cross that threshold.

Finally, consider script design. The best Magic Circles host beginnings and endings to the story within the world proper. It was the bookends that really brought the Code Name: Eagle game down, with the drawn out in-room hosting and the dreaded “Did you have fun?” ending. Craft an inciting incident to spur players to action, and deliver a fulfilling finale where players see the impact of their actions on the world.

What matters more than the magic circle?

When the experience goes well, you shouldn’t be breaking the Magic Circle. But sometimes things go a little sideways, and you need to break character. I’ll spotlight in a later post the Disney Parks 4 Key Hierarchy, but suffice it to say for now, we recommend training your staff to break character for the higher values of safety (#1) and courtesy (#2). Especially for safety or to correct an issue with the show, calling “Hold!” is most effective.

Where to put the threshold?

Every Magic Circle has a transition point, a threshold that you cross where you go from the real world into the ritualized play. Consider carefully where you want your transition to be.

Disclaimer: Some circles are larger than others. That does not make them better. More time in the magic circle is not a priori superior. The following lists in order from smallest to largest, but as you’ll see, the choice affects more than time spent immersed.

At the game door

This is the most common option for an escape room. This is where the Code Name: Falcon game has its threshold. This frees your hosts to be out-of-world and able to address guest needs best. If you run a business that needs to answer the question “What’s an escape room?” then at the game door is the best place for your transition.

At the game door works best for…

• Business model: street retail with walk-ins, an entry-level market
• Customers: new players and families
• Acting: none (unless hint mechanism is a live performer)

At the hallway

At the hallway is the best of both worlds: freeing you to have an out-of-world lobby, but allows you to create a deeper story that unites all your games. You can have rooms in a hotel or time travel portals or a gallery of magic paintings. Your briefing room can even be in-world.

At the hallway works best for…

• Business model: stand out in a crowded market
• Customers: works for new players but also appeals to a seasoned player base
• Acting: required only for hallway hosts, if any

At the front door

At the Front Door is challenging but rewarding.

The challenges: you can’t explain what an escape room is (and players will feel pressured not to ask out-of-character questions). It requires commitment from all staff—can you get that kind of staff? And the rules of the game have to be in-world.

The reward: you deliver the maximum sense of adventure, since there’s no onsite transition from being a player of a game to being the protagonist in an adventure.

At the Front Door works best for…

• Business model: by appointment only, obscure retail location, premium pricing
• Customers: experienced players
• Acting: all staff

A “cold start” escape room, which plunges you immediately into the adventure, skipping the lobby experience and all pre-game hosting, is a variant of “at the front door.” Recommended for educated player markets who don’t expect a bathroom when they arrive onsite (see: Spain).

After booking

The first email after booking, while not a physical threshold, is a threshold nonetheless. After booking makes otherwise bland communications special, heightens anticipation, and preps players for imaginary play.

At the website…?

We don’t recommend a fully immersive website. It leads to customer confusion. There is such a thing as being too immersive.

The Cross-Fade

Punchdrunk takes a more gradient approach to the Magic Circle threshold. Rather than a hard line, as I have depicted above, they think in cinematic terms of a dissolve from the real world to the fade in of the imaginary world. If you’ve been to Sleep No More, it’s not clear if the staff checking you in are in the world of the hotel or outside it. But they do have a certain attitude and a certain dress that guides you to think things are already special. Elevated.

Once you’ve traversed the dark maze and emerged in the Manderley Bar, the cross-fade is complete and you are inside the circle.

show, Don’t Tell

It was around this time in our original talk that the Raven Queen made an unexpected appearance, introducing the room to Exhibit A, an everyday citizen lost in the haze of his phone. Could the people in the room give him a reason to look up?

I could describe it, but like all good immersives, it was very much a you had to be there thing.

There was no physical threshold we could cross on the talk stage, but through changes in costume, lighting, sound, and character, we created a new world and spurred the audience to new behaviors. It really was magic.

Draw Your Circle

To quote the Raven Queen, to create is the power of the gods. Do not take that responsibility lightly. Respect what you create. We are all Exhibit A, and we need to play.

Hold true to the magic in your circle.

Just because it is fake does not mean it is not true.

Recon is the real deal

Credit for this post goes to myself (Haley E. R. Cooper) and J. Cameron Cooper with special thanks to the Reality Escape Convention 2022 team for helping produce the talk, from getting the lighting right to those envelopes we hid under all those chairs.

RECON gathers people most passionate about the escape room industry for a intense weekend of ideas and camaraderie. I never miss it. It’s full of surprises. Last tickets still available for August 18-19 in Los Angeles.