Standing in the Hijinx Hotel reception, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re in an actual hotel lobby. The interactive games experience from Funlab is coming to Chadstone – The Fashion Capital (alongside other Funlab brands Holey Moley, Archie Brothers Cirque Electriq and Strike) this summer and will be the first of its kind in Victoria, after opening in Sydney and Surfers Paradise last year. It looks and feels like a boutique New York-style hotel. But it’s all a ruse – this ain’t no inn.

“You arrive and you don’t know whether or not you’re actually checking into a hotel,” says Blaise Witnish, Funlab’s Chief Growth Officer. “The level of detail in the interior design was paramount because we wanted you to literally feel like that."

Behind Hijinx Hotel’s convincing design is its real purpose: competitive socialising. The idea sprang from an annual Funlab competition called For Fun’s Sake (FFS), which invites employees of the company to pitch ideas for the next big thing.

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“Nearly three years ago, Josh Hunt, who’s now full-time in my innovations team, pitched the idea of these quick gameplay rooms,” says Witnish. “He won a trip to the US and we gave him a week away seeing some of the best innovative concepts in the world.”

From there, the Hijinx Hotel concept of a building full of themed games rooms geared around the trend of “competitive socialising” was born.

“People want to be competitive, but they want to socialise at the same time and it’s really an ode to the non-athlete,” says Witnish. “Anybody, young and old, cool or not cool, physically fit or not physically fit, can be the winner.”

The hotel theme, though, is more than just a backdrop to gameplay. Opening this summer, expect to enter a multi-sensory hotel experience with a visual style that lands somewhere between Willy Wonka and Wes Anderson. Included in the experience is a hotel bar complete with a long list of classic and quirky signature cocktails, subtly moving screens designed to look like paintings, and games masters dressed as cleaners with trolleys full of Hijinx Hotel shampoos, robes and slippers. Even the lift – does it actually move? – has been finely tuned to feel like it’s taking you to level eight, where the games begin.

“You pop in, press the elevator button, and the haptics around you, coupled with elevator music, make you start questioning whether or not you’re moving,” Witnish says. “We actually went into hotel lifts and timed how long it took to get to level eight because we wanted to make sure that the whole immersion was as close to reality as possible.”

Visitors “arrive” on level eight to form teams of two to six players, before progressing through a set of 5 rooms, with each taking four minutes. Each room is uniquely themed and designed to be transportive once again. In one room you’ll solve scrabble challenges against the clock, with your friends. In a steampunk-themed room you’ll try to drag rings over lengths of copper wire around a pig without getting zapped.

Ultimately, Witnish and the team have put each room through extensive playtesting to make sure that everything is approachable for all ages and physical abilities.

“We test it because we want to intuitively understand: is this going to appeal to all, is this as fun as we think, and did we miss something?” says Witnish.

“It could be as simple as the interior isn’t exciting, or it could be a game that’s too technical – is it applicable to a five-year-old and a 95-year-old at the same time?”

This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Funlab. Hijinx Hotel opens this summer at Chadstone – The Fashion Capital. See more information.