Strangeways, Brought to Life

When we built Strangeways, we built a place. Pen-and-ink corridors, gardens that fold out of a sketchbook, an outhouse with an eye in the window. People have wandered through it more than 85,000 times in VRChat.

What we never built was a story. There was nobody in there to meet you.

This month, Ferryman Collective changed that.

What an Honour

Ferryman Collective make live theatre in VR. Real actors, in real time, in a world you're standing inside. They're among the very best at it, and they're Emmy winners.

So seeing them stage Strangeways: The Only Way Out Is Through in our world, as the first production of The Crossing, their apprenticeship programme, was a lot to take in. I'm still a little lost for words. (Which is rare. Ask anyone.)

Thoughtfully Written

Tanvi Agrawal wrote and directed it. Here's the setup.

Echo, a neurodivergent artist, has withdrawn into Strangeways. Zephyr, their closest friend, can't reach them alone, so Zephyr asks the audience to go in. Every room you walk through is a memory, a defence, a fear, or a way of coping.

What I love is what the story doesn't ask of you. You're not there to fix Echo. In Ferryman's words, the audience helps Echo change how Echo sees themself. You witness. You ask questions. You listen.

It treats neurodivergence as a source of making, not a problem to solve. That's a very kind way to read a world drawn out of one artist's head.

Stunningly Acted

Brendan Bradley. Wow.

Live VR acting is its own craft. You've got an avatar instead of a face and a microphone instead of a stage. Your audience can walk right up and stand next to you, or wander off mid-scene to look at a drawing. Holding a room like that takes real skill. Brendan held it beautifully.

I've walked those corridors hundreds of times. With Brendan's voice in them, they felt new.

A Psychedelic Adventure

Strangeways was always a trip. It started life as Bonkerz Gardens, a walk through illustrator Chris Bianchi's hand-drawn mind. Line, smear and dream logic instead of polygons.

What Ferryman added is a reason to walk. The same drawings, the same rooms, but now every turn means something. A corridor isn't just a corridor anymore. It's a memory, or a fear, or the thing Echo built to keep the fear out.

That's the thing I'll take away as a worldbuilder. A world can be finished and still be waiting for its story.

A Big, Big Heart

Under all the swirls, it's a simple story. A friend who won't give up on a friend.

You go in because someone you care about has gone somewhere you can't follow on your own. And the way out isn't around the hard stuff. It's through it.

Thank You

To Tanvi, Brendan and everyone at Ferryman Collective: thank you for seeing something in our drawings, and for filling them with people.

To the Shtik team, to Alex Bosman, who built the world with me, and to Chris Bianchi, whose drawings it all comes from: look what they did with it.

And to everyone who put on a headset, or watched the stream, and came through with us. Thank you.

The run ended on 11 October. The world is still open in VRChat if you'd like to walk it yourself. More on the world, the show, and Ferryman's show page.