Incredibly Strange Games

Dance Dance Immolation

Ever since I was a little kid watching TV, I wanted to someday wear one of those shiny, fire-proof asbestos suits and be totally impervious to fire. A few years ago, I made my way to a warehouse in a scary neighborhood in West Oakland and had my chance.

It’s a pretty simple concept, really. The awesome fire hackers at Interpretive Arson hooked up some DDR pads to a PC clone of DDR, and some jets of propane. You climb aboard and play DDR. If you do well, jets of flame shoot into the air in time to the beats. Mess up, and the jets of flame shoot directly into your face. What could possibly go wrong?

Needless to say, the IA hackers are sort of on the Burning Man side of things, which worried me a bit, as I prefer more of a pinball or Make magazine nerd. But I waited my turn, and as the DJ roared on about doing well at the game and not getting killed and bumping up their insurance, the modern primitive assistant helping me into my flame proof suit said, to me, “we don’t have insurance.” The suit didn’t fit exactly right but she was like “ahhh… you should be ok.” There’s nothing more reassuring to hear as you’re preparing to get sprayed with fire, I assure you!

Her next words were more practical. “Oh, I forgot, don’t turn sideways or around while you’re playing, no matter what.” Why not? “Because you’ll die.” (You don’t want fire melting that air hose and shooting under your fire hood.)

Yeah yeah, you’re saying, enough with the flowery exposition, how is the game? I have to tell you, it’s pretty crazy. Honestly with the projectors and the hacks, it’s a little laggy though. Still, I had one friend who played a round and was like “I did it perfectly, I didn’t get shot with fire once!” and I was like “then why even bother?” But hitting a cool combo and seeing massive pyrotechnics go off really adds to the DDR experience.

Anyway, I pretty much suck at DDR to begin with and a giant silver fire suit doesn’t really do wonders for your coordination or agility, so I messed up, early and often. That was my plan anyway. I mean, how often can you get sprayed in the head with real fire, right? Or be fine if you stood facing one direction, but guarantee yourself a painful death if you just turned around? It was a little like playing Lose/Lose, except it was more Win/Win.

And no matter what, unless you’re a prodigy like Isaac, you will eventually mess up at DDI. Seeing flames come towards your face, and engulf your head, literally millimeters from your eyes and skin, is really a singular experience. It’s enhanced by the fact that while you’re not actually being burned, you are getting SUPER SUPER HOT. Like scalding shower hot, very very quickly. All sorts of “wow, I hope this fire suit works, this would be an exceptionally embarrassing way to go blind or have my face melted or die” thoughts go through your head. I had a way more ghetto hood on than in these pics, with just a small piece of like welder’s glass. It felt pretty flimsy.

But it’s also super duper cool. When the penalty for failure is real pain, plus fire, you do try harder. The lagginess killed me, though, and I messed up, a lot. Finally I just concentrated on looking at and contemplating the fireballs surrounding my head till they pulled the plug (“Dude you were smoking, that’s sort of bad,” said my assistant as she helped me out of the suit).

Most location-based entertainment is pretty tame, but Dance Dance Immolation really does live up to its reputation. I strongly advise you randomly cruise the back alleys of West Oakland tonight looking for it! Hopefully you’ll find the Interpretive Arson guys cooking up Dance Central Immolation…

NOTES: Despite all the Playa Dust on everything, the IA guys did take safety pretty seriously. You can see their whole safety plan on their site, and they lived it religiously. These pictures were take by Kristen Ankiewicz and are used under a creative commons license. You can learn more about her rad photography and art skills at Ankiewicz.com.