Live Performance and Games Come Together in FRAY, a Unique and Immersive Entertainment Experience March 22-24
CandyBomber Productions Holds Three-Night Interactive Stage Performance at The Foundry and Shares Early Experience of PC Game in Development
SAN FRANCISCO – March 20, 2023 – CandyBomber Productions introduces an innovative transmedia game experience, FRAY with a new PC game in development, a mobile app out now and a live hip hop dance show that will bring the story to life. The FRAY Show, which features seven world class hip hop dancers, makes its debut in San Francisco concurrently with Game Developers Conference (GDC), at The Foundry from Wednesday, March 22 through Friday, March 24. Doors open at 7:00 pm and show at 8:30 pm followed by a post-show with DJ sets curated by Mix’d Ingrdnts, an all-female dance collective. The show is open to all ages, tickets are $35 and available on the FRAYworld website.
The FRAY experience aims to create multiple ways for audiences to immerse in the story about two deeply bonded brothers navigating competing passions for hip hop dancing and for the shared world of adventure they discover inside of video games as perilous real life influences cause their bond to fray.
The FRAY PC game is a highly imaginative, rhythm based puzzle game in which the player takes control of protagonist Tullio to light the way through a maze-like world of isometric dance puzzles and rhythm based challenges. Along the way, cunning enemies threaten to seduce Tullio’s older brother Ziya into the underworld forever. By moving to the rhythm and mastering energy-blasting dance routines, Tullio must keep improving his dancing skills to acquire enough energy to carry his ailing brother to the final level’s end – an allegorical home. The FRAY PC game is collaboratively developed on Unreal Engine by CandyBomber and Herobeat Studios, fresh off the success of their BAFTA-nominated game Endling. More game details will be shared at a later date.
The FRAY game experience can be currently experienced as the team released a mobile game last year, FRAY Jam, which lets fans play a dance game on their mobile devices, and is available for free in the Apple App and Google Play stores now.
Audiences at The Foundry are also welcome to create custom emotes using their own dance moves through capture booths courtesy of Kinetix Tech, before and after the show to further enhance the FRAY experience. The technology will allow all guests to create animated avatars of themselves dancing that can be imported into virtual worlds and used on platforms like Tik Tok, without traditional 3D animation software. CandyBomber signed the new partnership with the Paris-based start up that has created a generative AI-powered platform and no-code tools that enable users, creators, video game makers, metaverse platforms, and brands to create and edit animated 3D content in seconds.
“As the gaming industry gathers at GDC, we can not think of a better place to bring together the world of FRAY through the energy of gaming and hip hop,” says CandyBomber Founder and Artistic Director, Kate Duhamel. “At its core, hip hop is about finding one’s own artistic voice, and the power of that authentic expression to tell truths, to connect with others, to celebrate and even to heal. What better way than through the medium of interactive games to convey the themes in our FRAY world inviting broad audiences to jump in and enjoy.”
Along with Duhamel who penned the original story, the creative team includes Music Director James Jackson who composed for CandyBomber’s debut show, FURY. British hip hop choreography team of Sisco Gomez and John Graham will be enhancing the staging and choreography of FRAY’s San Francisco production.
ABOUT CANDYBOMBER PRODUCTIONS
CandyBomber Productions was founded in 2018 to tell stories through innovative productions created by collaborations between musicians, dancers, visual artists and game developers. Led by Founder and Creative Director Kate Duhamel, CandyBomber collaborates with artists from across disciplines to produce surprising and engaging experiences that bridge live and virtual landscapes. CandyBomber has produced two stage productions, FURY and FRAY, film projects and video games.
###