When the makers of Pokémon Go and Sleep No More tried to reinvent theater
Every night at 9 p.m., a pay phone would ring on a street corner in Mexico City. If someone picked up, they’d hear a question:
“Who is the mother of all wisdom?”
If they answered correctly — “memory” — a car would pull up. If they got in, a driver would take them on a tour of the city, telling stories about her daughters when they were young.
After an initial stretch, the passenger would realize they’re traveling in circles. The car’s radio would rewind and its clock would jump back in time. The passenger would see a woman outside on one loop, then see a younger version of her the next. The passenger would see someone who resembles the driver on one loop, then notice it was just a mannequin the next.
Eventually, the car would shake, the radio volume would escalate, and an otherworldly character would possess the driver in an all-consuming moment, after which the driver would regain consciousness and take the passenger back to the phone where they met.
Back on the street, the player would pull out their cell phone and return to the game that led them there, hunting for resources, looking for hidden objects, and trying to find other portals into this secret world.
Emphasis on “would.” Codenamed “Hamlet,” this theoretical project was a collaboration between Niantic, the tech-focused Google spinoff known for mobile sensation Pokémon Go, and Punchdrunk, the art-driven immersive theater company behind risqué Macbeth retelling Sleep No More. The two had grand visions of games that could fuse theatrical performance with modern technology and bring Punchdrunk’s storytelling to the masses, populating the world with actors and wild scenarios.
The two groups announced plans in 2020 to develop multiple games together, but they never
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