The Town of Okotoks will transform into an interactive fantasy realm this September.
Enchanted Okotoks is returning, and for the second year, people in Okotoks will be able to participate in a fantasy game spanning across town.
"Enchanted Okotoks did happen in the past, as a generic fantasy event, come out and have some fun and just see fantasy things," explains one of the organizers and the postmaster for the game, Katie Fournell. "We've kind of adapted that, where it's still the same idea. You come, it's all fantasy-themed, everybody can really dive into the fantasy world. But we've created our own world, and there's a whole video game that gets played along. That's basically the event."
Fournell says that the participants are the adventurers in the video game.
"It's partly done on your phone, but also partly done in real life. So, players have to actually go to physical locations around downtown in order to complete their fantasy adventure. There's a whole story, there's NPC's, which stands for Non-Player-Characters, that they have to interact with around the Downtown, that will give them quests and give them skill testing questions and stuff like that that they have to go and solve the answer to while interacting around the downtown."
Fournell says it will bring games like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy to mind, with the biggest difference being that the player is the character and Okotoks is the fantasy world.
"It's interactive on your phone, is how you access the actual game content, but the entire downtown is set up for you to actually interact with real people who give you these quests."
One of the creators of Enchanted Okotoks, and the Guild Master for the game, Brendan Rose says there will be NPCs (non-player characters) both in real life and digital ones within the game itself.
"We are trying to build as much content, as well, that is not required for the phone," Rose says. "Because last year we did have a number of people whose phones would die, or their phones just weren't capable of handling the game. So, we are trying to add a lot more non-tech friendly content, as well as much tech friendly content as possible."
Rose adds that the actors who are playing the NPC characters will have a piece on their costume that helps them be easily identifiable.
While the actors will be in costume, the players aren't required to dress up, though encouraged to if they feel up to it.
"The idea is that it's modern day where fantasy has bled into the real world. So, it is literally just you now having to deal with the fact that there's fantasy in your everyday life," Rose explains.
While it's a bit of a mix of fantasy genres, it does lean towards high fantasy, which is a subgenre of fantasy that is defined by its epic settings and the epic stature of the characters or storyline.
Fournell adds that all of the characters are aware of what cell phones are, because it's the real world that is getting invaded by the fantasy world.
"So, if you are in your street clothes, you are 100 per cent an adventurer. If you are dressed as an orc, you are 100 per cent one of our adventurers. Both can exist in this world," Fournell says.
This event originally began during the initial Covid lockdowns.
"I created a little scavenger hunt around town as the Okotoks Adventuring Guild, just to give people something to get out and do when we were all trying to figure out what is life going to be like moving forward," Rose says. "From that, I wanted to continue building something on top of that."
While researching how to grow the event, Rose and Fournell went to the Game Con Canada convention last year, where they met the people behind Earth MMO.
Earth MMO is an Augmented Reality Game (ARG), which, according to Rose, is basically Dungeons & Dragons and Pokémon Go rolled into one.
"When I saw that, I'm like, 'This is the piece I'm missing for what I want to create,'" Rose says.
Last year was the first year that Enchanted Okotoks used the app, but Rose says that they have been working alongside the people behind Earth MMO, and now Rose and Fournell run Enchanted Okotoks in partnership with Earth MMO.
There is no cost to anyone who wishes to play the game, but Rose says that if businesses wish to participate, they have to pay a small fee.
The participating businesses will show up as things like blacksmiths in the game, and the participating businesses will have content that will add to the game.
There are also sponsorship opportunities for anyone who wishes to be involved and help keep it free for the players.
The event will take place on September 14th and 15th, and the event will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Players will begin at the Okotoks Plaza by the clock.
Once the players arrive on site and get all set up, the app will show the entire map of the event.
Last year, there were 34 quests and 29 businesses involved, and the main story portion took about an hour and a half to complete.
This time around, Rose says he is aiming for 100 quests.
Rose says that Enchanted Okotoks will be available in the Earth MMO moving forward, and can be accessed any time.
There is no limit on the number of people who can participate.
To find more information about the event, head over to their website.