They say imitation is the “sincerest form of flattery… “

In may walks of life, that may actually be true. If someone is impressed enough to mimic an action you do, or dress in your style, or purchase an object you own, well, you must be doing something right. Unfortunately in the professional world, that is just not the case.

Especially when someone begins to use photos of your work – of attractions that you designed – in an attempt to bait new clients for themselves. Especially when someone wasn’t even involved in any facet of the design, from the backstory to the show script or any of the puzzles. Especially when you alone own the exclusive rights to those attractions and their associated intellectual properties.

In short, claiming otherwise would be Design Fraud. That’s right. In Brown text.

Unfortunately it came to our attention back in February of this year that this exact situation was happening with three of my games – The Haunting of Hyde House, The Legend of Atlantis and Christmas is Canceled. In the nine months that would follow, we’ve made several attempts to communicate directly and privately with the fraudulent party. We’ve received every answer from blatantly denying what was in writing on their own professional website to being told we should sue our clients and colleagues, because it was somehow “their fault.”

Everyone needs to get their start somewhere – and I’ll always be a big supporter of people following their dreams if they have a passion to be involved in the attraction design world. It’s how I got here. But the difference is, I worked my way to the spot I’m in. I cannot in good conscience turn a blind eye to someone using my work as their only actually produced resume pieces – especially when they were not even involved in the project in the first place.

To be clear, I, Chris Moschella, created the concepts for, wrote the stories for and established the puzzle flow for each of my games. I also exclusively own the intellectual property rights to each of them. From there, a talented team helped bring those concepts and stories to life: Nate Mitchell of N8-Creative, acting as project manager, also played a vital role in creating concept art at my direction which lead to the scenic styling of each game. Sam Glawe of Artistic Contractors tasked his scenic fabrication team with bringing these outlandish storyworlds to life in a tangible, affordable, and perhaps most importantly durable way. Tom Knabe of Knabe Labs used his technical savvy to establish the programming that somehow makes it all work – and work reliably every time.

Simply put, if you hear any other individual attempt to stake a claim in the creation of these games,

they’re just not being honest with you.

It became immediately apparent that it was time to make creating a professional site – one that can showcase all of the projects I’ve been fortunate enough to be involved in during my more than fifteen years with the attraction design industry – a top level priority. It’s easy for someone to claim credit for a work when you have virtually nothing posted to prove them otherwise. So, over the past several months, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to build up a site that documents and showcases my professional portfolio.

Today, we’re excited to share Chris +.

Over these past fifteen years, we have partnered with major design firms like Legacy Entertainment and On Track Themes to work on projects for world-wide brands like Universal, SeaWorld, Hershey, Trans Studio, the Lotte Group and more, across several different countries and continents. Separately, Chris + has produced some of the highest regarded escape games in the industry, with several more expected to open before the year’s end. This week, as we look towards the annual IAAPA theme park design convention, we’ll revisit special features written to cover several of those games and attractions each day.

Chris + has also pioneered several WORLD’S FIRST ATTRACTION CONCEPTS, including – with Legacy Entertainment – the World’s First Escape Game Pre-show for Trans Studio Bali’s Road Rage dark ride, as well as the World’s First Immersive Theater Dark Ride which just debuted as Trans Studio Cibubur’s officially licensed Pacific Rim: Shatterdome Strike. But there’s much more to come.

In fact, tomorrow, right here on Escape Authority, we will officially announce a World’s First interactive game-based attraction that establishes a whole new genre unlike anything currently found in  the escape game industry. And best of all – you won’t need to wait long to experience it. The first versions of this new game type are set to debut on both the East Coast and West Coast in a matter of weeks.

While others continue to attempt to pad their empty resumes with our attraction designs and industry contributions, Chris + will continue to innovate, evolve and further the attractions world in very real ways. And as always – as often as NDAs will allow – we’ll continue to share it all here, as well as through the brand new Chris + Facebook page, giving a behind the scenes look to our readers on Escape Authority.