Turning that brand of theatre, already very much in debt to the style of storytelling found in video games, back into a game is a move that makes a lot of sense. In those productions, the audience is free to wander labyrinthine spaces, glimpse moments of performance and uncover a narrative through clues in the environment. Mink Ette and co-creator Dave Aldhouse have a background in immersive theatre, having both worked as set designers for Punchdrunk, the company behind shows such as The Drowned Man and Sleep No More. Even though there are clear parallels with video games, that sense of presence has a lot in common with theatre. Did I manage to uncover more about my team members in one hour of play than a year of conversation? I certainly learnt a lot about the different dynamics at play, and a great deal of that stems from the physicality of the experience. Well-oiled or not, we managed to escape with 9 minutes 41 seconds left on the clock.

Mink Ette tells me having that singular focus to get out of a trapped space brings a lot of implicit relationships to the surface. “All things” might be stretching it, but our troupe, including fellow journalists Vaughn Highfield and Jordan Erica Webber, definitely had at least one thing in common during our hour of being locked in a room.

The quote isn’t from Plato – I looked it up – but here’s one that is: “Friends have all things in common”. It doesn’t sound like something Plato would’ve said. “You find more about a person from one hour of play than in a year of conversation,” Mink Ette, co-designer of Oubliette tells me before I start the game. While Londoners will need to wait a little longer for a live version of that particular 90s throwback, experiences such as Oubliette show that the genre is evolving into something that goes beyond nostalgia. If you grew up watching The Crystal Maze, you’ll have some idea of the quick-fire logic chasing required, albeit in a much smaller space. The reason I don’t want to let any more details slip is because Oubliette is an “escape the room” game – the latest in a growing number of rooms where the aim is to get out of the sealed space by solving a mesh of puzzles. Horror, humour and purgatory: In conversation with BioShock and The Magic Circle developer Jordan Thomas

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