Kezie Todd

I‘m Kezie Todd, but you can call me Kez. Maker of stories, monsters, and designs with personality.

As a primarily self-educated, third culture kid, I believe in a multidisciplinary approach and breaking down barriers. Education in six different countries helps me bring a fresh perspective to any project and motivates me to create stories the world can experience.

When not designing experiences or teaching myself everything from modular synthesis to origami for the latest side project, I co-lead the local chapter of Ladies That UX, nerd out on tabletop games, and flail about in a variety of full contact sports.

The Arcadia Report

We are in the experience economy. Attention spans have shrunk and tv no longer excites. Viewing is not enough, people want to participate. The Arcadia Report is the first in a new narrative platform of entertainment tailormade for this generation. It is an immersive mystery experience, transforming your city into an escape room from your phone.

The Arcadia Report is designed specifically for participation and immersion. Time, cost, and accessibility issues of escape rooms are solved as The Arcadia Report brings the experience to you. The narrative blends reality and game in an experience unique to you. Locations and objects around you become part of the game and can trigger messages from the killer or even real time mystery puzzles. Dive into the dark secrets of a failed startup and their quest to build an algorithm to solve crime. The Arcadia Report puts you at the centre of topical issues in ethics in AI, privacy, and bias. It is more than a game: it is a platform for stories you experience.

Mystery Invades Reality

3 in 4 millennials say they would rather spend money on an experience than buy goods. The Arcadia Report is tailormade for this experience generation, particularly those indie gamers and mystery fans between the ages of 18-34. It is unlike anything else on the market, which presents an exciting opportunity but also a unique challenge in terms of research, designing, and testing solutions.

Extensive market research and talking to potential users at every stage was crucial. Even once I overcame the initial hurdles, the location-based gameplay presented a unique challenge. Designing camera and geolocation functionality was a new experience and since the overall concept was also new to players, I experimented to create an intuitive design from scratch. From a paper prototype to HTML approximations, a willingness to build the simplest possible prototype and test with users early and often helped me conquer each challenge.

Explore the prototypes, design system, and behind the scenes process on The Redacted Report blog.

Solving the Case

Perhaps the greatest challenge came halfway through the project. After numerous prototypes, I finally completed the alpha version but discovered players, while in love with the concept, struggled in a few key areas during unmoderated tests. I took the decision to overhaul the design, radically streamlining the user experience and restructuring the onboarding around the location gameplay. The results were immediate, the new design had a 100% success rate with players, but it took a willingness to respond to feedback and trust my gut no matter the stage.

Join the citizens club to learn more and exclusive access to play the cases before anyone else: Join the mystery.

More Than a Game

The Arcadia Report was one of the most complex, challenging, and rewarding projects I’ve ever worked on. It required every skill I’d learned across my studies, the industry, and personal projects to conquer everything from the aesthetic of a corrupted AI to how people solve a murder across real locations and virtual clues.

Ultimately, The Arcadia Report delivers a story that questions the ethics of technology today in a unique experience designed for this generation. The underlying platform can expand to power any number of stories made to be experienced. The possibilities are endless: from bespoke corporate onboarding trails to exploring a ‘haunted’ house with friends. Anywhere can become an escape room. A special early access, social-distancing approved mystery you can play out around your own home will be the first to launch.

Join the mystery at ArcadiaReport.com and explore the top secret dossier and exclusive preview of the first two cases in action in the complete case report

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