Summary:

Do you remember the games you played as a kid? Never Grow Up celebrates this nostalgic canon with seven whimsical VR vignettes. You are not alone in this journey. A goofy minion will be your companion while a melting ice-cream monster invades the scene and rushes you to figure out how to play together. What if the goal is not to win but to develop an emotional bond that teaches you compassion? Be ready for what your minion will turn into. Its destiny is in your aging hands!

Director Bio:

Imagefatale aka Karen Vanderborght is a digital dadaist, educator and freelance XR experience designer. She has a cross-platform career, including interactive projects for the NFB (National Film Board of Canada), advocacy VR projects for the UN, and various commercial clients.

Her artwork is shown internationally in museums, festivals, and conferences. Her social AR project, Grey Matter AR, was lauded as an ingenious use of social AR by MIT’s immerse.news and Clot magazine, an online publishing platform dedicated to art and science explorations. Nuville, an augmented audio game for smartphones and cyberpunk tourists, launched at Myseum Intersections Festival and Toronto Games Week in the Summer of 2023.

She playfully perverts new technology and trends to re-imagine humanity’s relationship with its environment and itself. Never Grow Up, an artsy VR brawler, will launch on SideQuest, itch.io, and Applab.

Never Grow Up commentary trailer from Image Fatale on Vimeo.