Sunset, Jive, & Hive

a mixed-reality escape room

— PROJECT NAME

(or The Billy Jo Jive Experience)

— ROLES

Producer

Main Programmer

Puzzle Designer

Game Designer

Audio Designer

Experience Designer

Lighting Designer

— DATE

August – December, 2025

For this project, we worked with the Shearer Estate to create a mixed-reality detective-themed escape room in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Billy Jo Jive Super Private Eye books and animations.

Billy Jo Jive is a series of children’s books turned Sesame Street animations from 1976, written by John Shearer and illustrated by his father Ted Shearer. It follows the kid detectives Billy Jo Jive and Smart Susie Sunset as they solve crimes in their local community. The books were notable for their celebration of the African American community and their use of slang.

We were tasked with celebrating the Jive legacy and bringing the stories to the next generation.

To this end, we chose to focus on the transformational impact of the source material—notably, positive Black representation, gender equality, literacy, and critical thinking skills. An escape room format seemed like the best way to tell our intended story while giving kids a fun and engaging experience. We referenced the setting and some equipment from the source books, but created our own story in the present day and characters.

Guests are invited to join Jive’s detective agency and explore his crime lab to help him and Smart Susie Sunset solve the mystery of Queen G’s missing graffiti cans. In this escape room-like experience aimed at kids aged 10-12, guests must communicate and collaborate to solve a series of puzzles that lead to the mystery’s culprit. The long term goal is to make this a traveling escape room, hosted in community centers or libraries.

0:00

The Billy Jo Jive Experience Trailer

Tech

We used several pieces of technology to create the experience. Everything was run from a Unity project on a single computer, which powered the facilitator screen, player cutscene screen, “drone viewer”, detective board, and telephone. One of our goals was to make the tech feel immersive, so we didn’t use any conventional controllers or input devices.

Our story took place in several locations around a city (The Mudd Club, Trainyard, Art Gallery, and Bench) but our players were physically confined to our escape room. The way we made this make sense narratively was to have Billy Jo Jive and Smart Susie Sunset explore the city while players stay back in Jive’s Detective Lab to help out. Players can direct Jive and Sunset to investigate different locations by placing a location card on an RFID reader, and can see each location through the “drone viewer”.

The Tilt Five “Drone Viewer” and RFID Location Card reader

To make the Drone Viewer, we used an augmented reality projection device called the Tilt Five. Each player could wear projection glasses to see into a 3D world, and use the magic wand controllers as virtual magnifying glasses and UV flashlights. The content itself consisted of 3D scenes made in Unity, with hidden images revealed by a UV flashlight shader.

Players could call the characters in our story using a landline phone. This phone also served as a confirmation system—after players solved enough clues, Jive and Sunset would call them with encouragement. My goal in making this system was to make the phone feel as realistic as possible, while also being easy to repair if something broke. So, rather than remake the circuitry of a phone, I used an Analog Telephone Adapter to convert real landline phones into voice-over-IP devices. I then set up a SIP server on our computer which intercepted all phone calls and routed them to Unity, which played different messages back based on the number dialed and phase of the game.

I initially wanted to use a non-speaker phone so only one player could listen and would have to communicate the information to the others. After prototyping this, I realized it slowed down gameplay too much, especially since multiple players wanted the chance to hear the calls. Furthermore, if the listening player missed any information or couldn’t understand something, another player would end up redoing the call. I tried fixing this with a transcript system, built using subtitle files accompanying each call, but ended up realizing the best solution for us was to put in a speaker phone.

The starting “physical clues” table, with the landline phone

Progress was tracked on the “Detective Board”, a whiteboard with eight mounted RFID readers, magnetic clues, and a RGB light strip. We didn’t want players to brute-force the answers to the case, so we chose not to only validate the answers in groups (similar to the game Return of the Obra Dinn). In Phase 1, players have to figure out “What was stolen? What was special about it? Where were they stolen?” Once players have placed their answers on the detective board for all three of these, the answers are validated. If the players are wrong, the light strip flashes red and Jive and Sunset call to recommend the players rethink some things. On the other hand, if the players are correct, the light strip turns green, and the game moves on to the next phase. In Phase 2, the players must solve “What is the Hive? Who last had the items? Who wasn’t at the party?” and in Phase 3, they must solve “Who stole the items? Why?”

The Detective Board, with clues, RFID readers, and light strip

The facilitator was positioned out of sight out of the main escape room, so I designed the facilitator screen to give them all the information they would need to monitor the game. This included views of both screens visible to the players, information about what characters were being called on the phone, and indicators for what locations the players chose to visit and what clues they put on the detective board. Events and game phase changes could be manually triggered from this screen. I didn’t spend much time making this view look nice, since it’s hidden from the players, but focused on including the information the facilitator might need.

Facilitator View

When designing the puzzles, I had to keep in mind our target age range. With 10-12 year olds, we needed to be sure to respect their intelligence while also giving them a fun challenge. I wanted to give players “checkpoints” so they’d know they were on the right track, but in such a way that they’d be hard to brute force. In the end, we decided to separate the game into three phases; players complete a phase by solving a few clues and placing their answers on the detective board. When all clues for a phase are in place, the game validates them: if all clues are correct, the phase completes, the players get a “good work” call from Jive and Sunset, and the next phase starts. If not all clues are correct, red light flashes, and the players are prompted to keep thinking about it. This system is inspired by games like Return of the Obra Dinn, which also validates player discoveries in groups of three.

It took a lot of iteration to figure out a good sequence of information to solve without overwhelming the players. In the end, we ended up with the following:

Phase 1

1) What was stolen?

2) Where were they stolen?

3) What was special about it?

Phase 2

4) What is the Hive?

5) Who last had the items?

6) Who wasn’t at the party?

Phase 3

7) Who did it?

8) What was their motive?

I wanted to give the players some easy, early wins. Clue 1 (What was stolen) can be solved almost immediately after watching the opening cutscene. As the experience progresses, the puzzles require more understanding of the world and the story.

I also made sure to have every clue have multiple ways of figuring it out. They could be solved by close inspection of the virtual world and graffiti pieces, but also through calling the characters and hearing their thoughts. We had a live facilitator who was able to provide any hints if players got stuck.