We Battled Zombies In Orchard Road And It Wasn’t What We Expected

Sorry, guys, this VR escape room experience isn’t for loners. Gather a team of two to six players who have an hour to spare (while gameplay lasts about 30 minutes, there’s a pre-game briefing and a post-mortem that are 15 minutes each). Don’t worry if your teammates’ only gaming experience is Candy Crush, or if no one’s ever gone to NS. You still can emerge unscathed.

Before you start playing, there are choices, choices, choices to be made. First, pick from one of two games available: Hunt down a psycho doctor and fight zombies in Deadwood Mansion or find lost treasure and battle pirates in Curse of Davy Jones. While both are exclusively developed for Sandbox, we’re told that the former is scarier and had a waitlist of six months when it was launched in Hongkong. Like true-blue Singaporeans who love a queue, we went with the zombies.

You’ll also be asked to select a team name. We speak from experience when we say choose wisely, or be forever immortalised on Sandbox VR’s Facebook page — where they upload videos of your battle — with the embarrassing moniker you pick.

As we try our best to make good decisions, there are blood-curdling screams from players in the midst of a game. Even the folks in the café next door are looking over in bemusement. We make a mental note to ourselves to not scream like lunatics. (Spoiler alert: We fail.)

When you’re finally led into one of the two gameplay rooms, each about the size of two HDB bedrooms, the staff help you to gear up (above) — literally — with an Oculus Rift VR head-mounted display, a Razer headset, a backpack PC, and a very cool haptics vest embedded with over 40 vibration sensors so you ‘feel’ every shot at exactly where you get hit during the game. Kinda like the iPhone home button, but more high-tech.

While you should wear comfy clothing — we’re no Lara Croft, but there still is a fair bit of action and movement involved — note that long sleeves and midi-length bottoms may sway and interfere with motion capture devices strapped to your wrists and ankles.

When we’re finally ready, we look like we’re going to a Halloween party dressed up as an amateur SWAT team, rather than the kickass-looking models in these pictures. But that’s okay because in virtual reality, we look totally cool, like Robocop’s, er, distant cousins (pictured).

It’s a shock to the senses when we’re first zapped into the VR world. Everything looks so…real. And just as we’re wandering around the room to get our bearings (you’re free to roam around; sensors alert you when you venture too close to an actual wall), a voice booms from…somewhere. We get instructions for our mission. Suddenly, zombies are charging at us from the mansion’s side door. Aaahhh!

All decorum flies out the (VR) window. The initial fear is real, you guys. We manage to shoot them down in a minute. Of course, that’s just the warm-up. I feel a thud on my back. My teammate has just shot me… just for kicks. This haptic force technology is beyond cool. I try to return fire when suddenly, countless undead appear from nowhere and everywhere. All hell breaks loose. We run around like headless chickens, shoot anything we see, scream as loud as we can. Aaahhhh!

The swarms of zombies are bringing along bigger, badder monsters. And then, thud. I’ve taken another hit. I whip around, expecting to see my teammate, but instead, I come face to face with a zombie with just a few (virtual) centimetres between us. Aaahhhh!

As the mayhem intensifies, our screams get louder, shriller. Pretty sure the diners next door are wondering what’s going on in here. I won’t reveal everything (where’s the fun in that?), but you should know that if a teammate dies, other players can revive them. The best part? If the whole team dies, everyone respawns and continues from where they left off with a fresh set of lives.

After the game, it takes some time to adjust to reality, which at the moment, is the glaring green of the walls. Surprisingly, we are actually perspiring despite the arctic temperatures in the room. We’re scrutinising and comparing scores on a leaderboard when we notice the game masters, who’ve been in the room all this while. Is it us or do they look a bit amused by our scaredy-cat antics? After we remove our gear, we’re shown our gameplay video highlights and if you’re like us, this is probably the emotional rollercoaster you’ll go through: Cringe. Laugh. Curse at friends who tried to shoot you. Laugh some more. Laugh until cry. We finally compose ourselves and are ready to step back out into the real world, with hoarse voices and newfound acceptance that we’ll never make it as action stars.

From $38 per pax. Sandbox VR is at #05-31 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Rd. For more info, go to www.sandboxvr.com/sg.

Photo: Sandbox VR