But before it was called the Locksmith’s Dream it was called ‘Tangles’, and this was the very first pitch, to the old friend in question, over a rakija-baptised dinner in the alleyways of Hvar Town in the Croatian archipelago. I used drinking glasses and cruet to explain the idea and took a photo to keep it all in mind. You can trace the lineage of some of the ideas.
Ivan’s father had died the previous year – at Christmas – and Ivan needed to go out to Croatia to settle his father’s affairs. But the place was awash with memories for him, and he’d been dreading it for months. So I offered to go out there with him. We were very old friends, and I liked the idea of turning something grim into a nice Wes Anderson bonding opportunity. And how. Ivan was lamenting the way his life had turned out, doing a remunerative but soul-destroying series of jobs at big telcos rather than something more meaningful. As we bumped along the dusty, karst-y, lavender-y roads of Hvar between the odd relics of his father’s business – a quarter-share in a vineyard here, a concrete shed on the coast there – I began to gestate an idea.
Weather Factory is a video games company, but we’d done physical goods and a physical game. Lottie and I had toyed with the idea of doing something bigger, but we didn’t have the time or the temperament (we’re both thorough introverts). Ivan had a creative soul wasted in ‘shouty telco land’, a gift for organisation, and an interest in LARP. Though the idea avowedly wasn’t LARP!
Ivan, who had a family and a secure job, was very excited but understandably wary. So I talked Lottie into committing funding – salary for Ivan for a year, setup costs, legal advice, the whole shebang. Ivan and I went on a much shorter road trip, looked at a couple of sites and settled on a frankly enchanted manor house in the Welsh Marches. It wasn’t cheap, or close, but it was the place.
I sacked off Book of Hours development to spend a month fleshing out the idea into an actual design and writing the copy for all the handouts. Lottie got to work on the visual design, and used our Cultist Simulator install base to promote the project – enough to sell out the beta event. And Ivan did the hard work of finding collaborators, fleshing out the design with a hundred practical details, and turning up to, you know, actually direct and operate the event. Which went stormingly.
The Dream ran for a year-plus, to an enthusiastic reponse from the audience every time… but it was a difficult business model. The whole idea depended on it being something unique and handmade, in a remote and pricey location, with a big team… which meant the tickets were always unnervingly expensive. It didn’t work out. We lost our money, but fortunately Book of Hours, which launched the following year, was a success, and we made enough money from sales that Weather Factory survived & thrived.
No regrets, though. The things you don’t try always fail. And the guests will always remember it.
