Special Look: The Boogeyman

Teddy Bears and night lights can’t protect you anymore, and growing up is no escape from your biggest fear.

Though posted within our Reviews section, this entry will not include a Key Rating. As a team, we at Escape Authority feel the correct thing to do is disclose that I was the Designer of this attraction on behalf of Chris + Creative. While I am excited to share its final results with you, our readers, I cannot officially endorse it in order to remain neutral to other games we have and will continue to review around the world.

“It’s only your imagination.”

“There’s nothing in your closet.”

“Just go back to bed.”

As kids, we all had the same fear – and we all faced the same doubts. Our parents didn’t believe us. No grown-up did. But we were right. We were right all along, and now, they know, and now… it’s too late.

The Boogeyman is real.

As children around the world have gone missing one by one, a local family hopes to put an end to these nightmares. They’ve hired a renowned paranormal investigator to venture into the realm of the beast and stop it once and for all. There’s only one problem: that investigator’s gone missing too.

Now, a new team of researchers is needed to finish the job in a real-life face to face(less) battle with The Boogeyman itself. Applicants will need to possess the innocent imagination of a child, the cunning wit of a scientist, and the bravery of a true hero. And even that may not be enough to survive the night…

The Boogeyman takes a unique approach to a horror theme by presenting it through the eyes – and imagination – of a child. Everything in this world is twisted and outlandish, because it’s exaggerated by Little Stevie’s retelling of his nightmarish experience – but make no mistake, that doesn’t make it any less real.

Beginning in his bedroom shortly after Stevie and his family ran out in fear, a new group of paranormal investigators sets up shop for the night in hopes of saving their lost colleague, and ending this terror for kids the world over. But The Boogeyman is a cunning creature; it won’t come out until it thinks you’re sleeping – so these investigators will need to be convincing. Some tucked under the covers of Stevie’s bunkbed, and others cozy in sleeping bags on the floor, their site coordinator (the gamemaster) actually reads them a bedtime story to make this trap all the more convincing to lure out the beast.

This bedtime story is, in fact, the attraction’s preshow – a custom created book, written and illustrated by hand. It’s styled in the flavor of “what if Dr. Seuss wrote horror books?” Not only does this bedtime story set the scene for what happened to Little Stevie and his family, but it also provides direction for how investigators should start their mission once the lights are turned off.

If they accomplish all of their tasks, they may even be allowed a little bit of video game time before bed. At least, it starts that way, before somehow opening a line of communication to the In-Between – the imaginary world of The Boogeyman, where a familiar (now 16-bit) face – the missing Paranormal Investigator – is waiting.

Little Stevie’s room clearly appears as retold through the exaggerated imagination of a child. The walls are tilted and uneven. The color palate is almost cartoony, yet still manages to skate the line between hope and sadness. Perhaps most unsettling of all – the closet door is crudely boarded up. At first glance, that may be striking, but after all, children have always said It comes at night through the closet…

Opening a connection through the video game to the In-Between seems have have given The Boogeyman even greater power to physically interact with the real world. Shortly after the game’s feed glitches to static, the lights in the room flicker, an ominous red glow emanates from behind the closet door, and without warning, each nailed board dramatically falls from the wall.

As the closet creaks open, a mysterious voice beckons the new team of investigators to follow the footsteps of the one before them – the one who disappeared – the one who is now trapped in the In-Between with The Boogeyman itself.

With the entire group foolishly in the closet, the beast’s trap is set. As the door closes, the physical world around them begins to warp and distort, as the closet’s back wall begins to stretch further and further away, making a shrill, unsettling screech.

A portal has opened granting investigators access to the In-Between, and straight into a trap. As ominous lights glow up from the darkness, it becomes apparent that the team is locked inside a giant, twisted metal cage. The Boogeyman has been expecting them.

A radio wedged into a nearby rock crackles to life, making contact once more with the missing paranormal investigator:

Too late to save their lost colleague, the greater mission is still in play: these investigators must table their grief and find a way to stop The Boogeyman from becoming even more powerful. Children the world over are counting on them.

With some cunning problem solving, the remaining investigators manage to free themselves from the cage, and into the red, melted rock lair of The Boogeyman. Fused into rocks around the cave are toys stolen from children the beast has taken. Embedded around the perimeter, crooked closet doors provide a network of access for The Boogeyman to come and go as it pleases, into the bedrooms of good little children around the globe.

As promised in the final words of the lost paranormal investigator, Lite-XS are strategically placed around the lair, but without their batteries, they won’t yield the power necessary to blast the beast of darkness with enough pure light to defeat it. If the remaining investigators hope to survive this nightmare-come-to-life, they’d better find those batteries, and fast.

Even finding the batteries won’t guarantee a happy ending to this twisted bedtime story; what comes next is much, much worse. The cave-like lair is plunged into total darkness, a chilling wind blows through the space, and suddenly, through the dissipating fog, evil glowing red eyes spot the remaining investigators. As the lights crackle up, The Boogeyman quite literally floats before them in its massive physical form – over 7 feet tall, capped with twisted horns curling out of shredded holes in its murky cloak, draped in thorny roots as if this beast is, itself, a force of nature.

This isn’t just some story to set a theme. The Boogeyman is real, and a personal encounter with it is inevitable for any group foolish enough to challenge the beast.

One simple question remains: are you brave enough to put aside your fear and actually battle this beast? Can you keep your wits about you to accurately aim your light blasts as your hands shake on the amplifiers? I hope for your sake that you can; because make no mistake, if The Boogeyman gets you this time, it’s not just your imagination. It’s your end.

Nighty night.