Arcade Stories

Somewhere under Battersea Arts Centre there was a cellar. In the cellar, there was a series of rooms. In the rooms, there was a series of puzzles. But to even get to the rooms in the first place, there were stories to read and questions to answer...

A small dark room with glowing blue powder on the floor.
A room in the Arcade, photographed by Kevan

For me, Arcade (a project by the Playbeards) was an excuse to wander down to BAC while other people strung ropes and ladders and remade the cellars; and to write a couple of ludicrously overconvoluted stories. Players needed online spaces to explore before they could gain access to the real-world space; so I created an urban explorer's view of the area; and a wildlife expert's report. And as for "ludicrously overcomplicated" — well, it's a bit difficult to explain, but the amount of story that's visible ebbs and flows with the tide, and the extra words that show through the "water"? They change every hour, and over 24 hours they form a poem that could otherwise only be found in the BAC cellars...

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