What Happens When Theme Park Designers Build a VR Arcade Game? Inside Hololabs' Abyss: Vault

What happens when a theme park design studio builds a VR arcade game? Bob Cooney hosts the team from Hololabs — the Victoria, BC studio behind gameplay and AR for Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge at Universal Studios — as they walk through how they built and launched Abyss: Vault, a 30-minute free-roam VR adventure for 2–6 players where teamwork is survival.

Recorded live with operators ahead of the game's worldwide premiere weekend, this session is a masterclass in bringing theme park thinking to the VR arcade: designing for emotion instead of competition, playtesting with 70+ strangers in a converted mall shop, and rolling out a game the way an indie film gets a premiere — squads, red carpets, trophies, and a complete marketing kit for operators.

Bob's through-line for operators: arcade owners market concept ("we have VR") when they should market content — because post-pandemic, people show up for the event, not the venue.

Chapters

00:00 Intro: the Hololabs team, mid-launch

00:45 Meet Hololabs — creative technologists, artists, and filmmakers in Victoria, BC

02:00 Mario Kart: Bowser's Challenge — what they built, and how the ride fakes speed

09:31 Co-location and shared moments: multiplayer lessons from the ride

12:06 What theme parks actually teach: onboarding, staff workflows, 100% reliability

14:16 "If you're for everyone, you're for no one" — the four-quadrant audience model

15:29 The oversaturated arcade catalog — and the vicious cycle it creates

17:40 Designing for collaboration: the RGB flashlight mechanic

19:14 Bob on replayability: memory anchors emotion, emotion drives replay

22:15 Playtesting in a mall shop: 70+ public testers, the grandma, the bus driver

26:35 Timeline: January 2025 ideation to launch — over a year

30:42 Abyss: Vault — the story, the world, the trailer

33:40 Brett's indie-film playbook: RiP! A Remix Manifesto and building your own exhibitor network

35:28 Nicole's purple carpet: how Amplify Her turned 8 screenings into a superfan engine

37:05 Bob: market content, not concept

39:04 The worldwide premiere weekend: squads, the scavenger competition, dress in red/green/blue

43:07 The operator toolkit: Canva kit, marquee posters, the Mission Briefing Board

46:59 The flywheel: shareable moments become your marketing force

49:32 Bob's market check: LBE down 10–30% — except the operators who kept advertising

53:27 Beta, platforms (Spawn Point, VEX), and €3-per-player economics

56:15 Corporate events, direct licensing, and what's next

60:29 Wrap

Featuring

• Brett Gaylor — Hololabs
• Mike Wozneiwski— Hololabs
• Benji Agcal— Hololabs
• Nicole Sorochan— Hololabs

Links

• Hololabs' Abyss: Vault — hololabs.org/abyss
• LEXRA — tools, best practices, and a network of LBE operators — lexra.org