The void brings ghostbusters to life with immersive experience.

• Author: Christensen, Lisa
• Position: Around Utah

Lindon -- There's something strange in the neighborhood, and THE VOID is gonna call, well ... you.

The Lindon-based company now offers its Ghostbusters Dimension experience locally. The experience allows players to strap on a proton pack--and a virtual reality headset--and hunt for ghosts, gargoyles and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in a landscape that blends real-life obstacles with their virtual counterparts, as well as gusts of air, sprays of mist and well-timed scents, to make the experience seem real enough to touch.

Kari St. John, COO of The Void, said the experience is the first to realize the full capability of virtual reality--or, as the company prefers to call it with their offerings, "hyper reality"--in ways that haven't been technologically possible before.

"We're converting a lot of people to VR and showing them what it can be," he said. "The Void has taken VR and leapfrogged kind of ahead [of other VR developers] to where people wanted to be when it started many years ago, but weren't able to deliver."

The experience is also a much more inexpensive means for people to experience VR, St. John said. Consumer-ready VR headsets and remotes or gamepads can be hundreds of dollars, while people can experience the Ghostbusters game for the price of a ticket. In addition, playing VR games at home is generally a stationary, isolated experience, he said, whereas Ghostbusters is a social and active one.

The immersive experience feels like a kind of cross between a video game, movie and a round of laser tag. It's a more dynamic experience than most other VR companies have or can offer, said St. John, both because of the interactivity of the game and the fact that, at times, virtually all of the senses are engaged.

"People forget where they are. People get lost and you forget where VR ends and reality begins. There are physical, tactile pieces that connect you, and it allows you to let yourself believe and it helps make the rest of the [game] believable," he said...