#1823: [2025] ENTR の17世紀アムステルダム VR パイロット版――「Sleep No More」に着想を得たオープンワールド設計

The Voices of VR Podcast. Entertainment Company based out of Amsterdam. So Vincent Swaggin was premiering the pilot programs for Amsterdam, the 17th century Amsterdam VR piece that was kind of an early iteration that actually had quite a number of significant changes by the time it actually premiered at Venice Immersive. And so I wanted to go back and air this interview just because in my conversation with them, there was a lot of comparisons between the two because this was a lot more focused on user agency, this kind of open war exploration. And the second iteration of what premiered at Venice immersive it was a lot more on rails you kind of go through and have a story and then there

at certain points you make a choice to go for which one of the different characters you are going to stick with but in this first iteration i could see why they went with more of a story driven experience because a lot of the feedback they got from this pilot was that people were kind of hungry to be a little bit more connected to the characters and you're kind of given these coins and you're kind of invited to move around but there's so much opportunity for you to kind of explore this possibility space that it felt a little bit more like a game, less than like a cut scene that felt more interruptive than you expressing your agency, exploring this world. And so I actually kind of missed a lot of the different character bits and narrative components. And I think that was another feedback that they heard that they kind of re-architected it in the final version. And so I think this discussion around to what degree in these experiences do you have use your agency versus are you more like passively receiving the information? And I think this is a tension that is kind of borne out even in the second iteration that we'll be diving into the next episode. But in this version of what was showing here at United XR, this was a pilot that they were showing that was tuned to have a lot more open world exploration in the sense that they kind of had an 8x8 meter cube.

And that as people go into that, you can have these shared spaces where in the bazaar where you're exploring around, there's actually other people at different phases of the story that are also in that same shared space. And so just the idea that you could have this open world where you're moving around and have multiple people in that shared space, but being in different parts of the story at the same time. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the list of the VR podcast. So this interview with Vincent happened on Tuesday, December 9th, 2025 at United XR in Brussels, Belgium. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in. I'm Vincent Slangen. I'm the founder of Enter. We provide premium VR experiences that you can do together for the cultural and education sector. We provide those experiences in our mobile boxes and in the To Be Opened Museum in Amsterdam. To be opened, is that the name of the museum, or what is that? No, we will be opening in April next year, 2,000 square meters, an exocentral station in Amsterdam.

What's the name of it? Enter. Enter, okay, so ENTR, so it's the same name as this booth here. So before we start to dive into Enter, maybe you could just give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space. Yes, well, if you really go back, I come from a family of an artist and an architect. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and I got the advice, well, then you have to study finance. So I took a little bit too far when doing banking. So I went to do banking for like four years until I went to New York. And when I was in New York, I went to this theater show called Sleep No More. Everybody knows it in this scene. And I was so amazed by the fact that you can put people in the center of the story. And that method of storytelling, putting people in the center of the story, amazed me. But, well, setting up a whole musical or theater is pretty extensive. Seven years it took for big productions. So I looked into VR, and we're trying to do the same here, putting people in the center of the story. Yeah, I saw Signal Amore in October of 2011.

So it just totally blew my mind. So when did you have a chance to see it? For me, it was two years ago, actually. Maybe exactly two years ago. and I went doing research because I, to be fair, I was very skeptical about VR because I had a lot of negative experiences. You know, I think all about it, like isolating experience, crappy quality, it doesn't work, all kind of hats, hardware around you. And I noted that there were a lot of developments in that space, but I thought, why are we only seeing zombie shootings and why aren't we going back in time, forth in time, to all kinds of things that I want to see. So I did some research and found out that there were a few parties that had already been doing it for the cultural side, but those were mainly also makers themselves. I'm not a maker, so I want to become a platform for other makers and let other people make and distribute it and the presenter. And that's what got me, yeah, I signed off of my job a half a year later.

which was a pretty big step actually. But when I quit my job, I started trying to work as a model, which is a pretty different thing than either VR or banking. But when I did that, it actually went pretty well at first. Not anymore, unfortunately. I don't have any time to work out anymore. But that got me to all kinds of places around the world, which was pretty cool. And every place I went to, I did the research on the cultural and educational VR experience that I saw. And I analyzed it a bit and thought, what do I like, what don't I like? And I tried to gather all the information from New York, Paris, Shanghai, London, Geneva. And well that turned out to be Enter But it not Enter only myself We with a whole team of partners such as Backlight Spectre HCC Fever So I'm not doing it alone. So did you commission this piece around Amsterdam, the butter market?

Is that something that was your idea that you wanted to make? Or is that something that Backlight already had? I'm just trying to get a sense of your role of if you're directing the production of the content or if you're just kind of exhibiting it? So we will open a museum next year and we will start with an experience about Amsterdam in the 17th century. This is a pilot, so it's totally separate. That 17th century idea came from me. So we hired a VR director, who is called Nienke, Nienke Uitenga. We hired a project manager, but Backlight is producing. So that means that, yeah, this comes from my idea, but we want to also work together on other ideas from other parties. So I don't know how you, how would you call it? Well, so there's this kind of format of like guided field trip type of experiences. Like Xperio has like free roaming XR experiences that are staged. And I guess maybe The Infinite with Phil and Paul were kind of similar,

where you could have maybe up at the same time, given this space, anywhere from 100 to 150 people from both The Infinite and for Xcurio, and that you are staging people to going through anywhere from, like, I think in this instance it was around four people, but you have small groups of people that are going through, but then you have other people that are also in this space. And so normally when I've gone through these kind of guided tour types of experiences, like with Xperia, it's a pretty fixed path where you're kind of gated through your region that you're in. You're staying with your small group of people, but this seemed to be a little bit more intermixing with other groups of people. Sometimes it was confusing as to what was a virtual avatar and what was a person, and I just had the rule of I'm not going to walk through any virtual avatars because I don't know if that's an actual person or not. Sometimes I would lift up my headset just to see and double check so there was a little bit of not knowing the differentiation between the virtual characters and the other people and the other people there in my group I could see their name tags but the other people that are in that same scene you're kind of in a bizarre

space where you're it's kind of free roaming which is different than a lot of the other pieces that I've seen so far where you have these little yellow circles on the ground that tell you if you go here you can have an encounter or you can touch this and get a little story touch it like a glowing orb and to get a little bit of a story bit. But my experience of it was that usually my expectation was that in these guided field trips, like you're kept together as a group and it was kind of like an open world exploration. And then we all kind of went in our different ways. And then I realized, oh, we're each kind of having our own. It would be fun to try to stick together a little bit. So I found myself wanting to go back to the group. So there's a tension between me exploring what I'm interested in, but also like having a shared group experience where each person was kind of like on their own journey. and there seemed to be like in VR chat there's local and global experiences where you could touch something and you could get a narrative part but someone else could also touch that and have it like distinct from yours so that you weren't dictating other people's experiences so you have this shared context and then stuff that's unique to you and so there was this

negotiation in my mind as to like what's unique to me what's shared experience and kind of like deducing like oh they must be on their own path of listening to this and I can listen to it so So it was kind of like a blending of individual experience and shared experience. And so it was something that was new and different, and I didn't know what to expect. And so going in again, if I had known that, I may have had a different strategy or a different approach. And so, yeah, that was just some of my experiences of it. But it was exciting just to see something that gave us the freedom to kind of roam around a little bit more, whereas before it was like a little bit more contained. but there were these various other trade-offs of the shared experiences versus the things that I was having like my own kind of narrative bits. Yeah, no, I fully agree. We don't have, like, we have a vision of, we believe that interactions are important, maybe also because I have ADD, so I'm pretty easily out of concentration. So I like interactions. Problem is we also have old people, so you have to find that balance.

my vision about or our vision actually because I have a co-founder who I really need but our vision on avatars is we want that you can see each other which is pretty hard if you do stand alone but if you do PC VR it works which makes it very much more expensive but we believe that's our vision to make it more premium about the free roaming that you mentioned in the next one, in the big version, we'll do more storyline into it. This was actually meant to be like, go on and explore. That's exactly what you're mentioning, actually. And maybe there's something that you didn't even see. So when you were walking on the market, you see other people, right? But those people were experiencing the fair. So it means that you see other people in your own environment as if they're in your environment. while they're actually in a different environment.

And that's interesting to use the space effectively because we only are working in like an 8x8 space, you know, so we don't have a lot of space. But if you can, yeah, do things very smart, which Backlight really performed well in, yeah, we managed to still get the feeling of having a lot of space. Yeah, I found myself starting a narrative bit, but then like being, oh, what are other people experiencing? Maybe I want to share what they're experiencing together. So I found myself kind of pulling away from something that I was. So I found like if I would do it again, I would want to like stick with something and commit to kind of see that narrative bit. And then or at least, you know, I don't know. I guess there's going to be a trade off between a shared experience versus like the narrative parts. Also when I left I saw that I had not spent any of my nickels that I had And so I kind of I missed I missed of missed the whole nickel interaction part So what were the nickels So would you come back now Yeah, I'm open to it, yeah. Well, I mean, if you like that, then I think you will really love our new experience

because it has also like a way of choosing storylines. So again, we are not makers, so we want to explore the possibilities that the books can provide, and PC VR provides a lot of cool opportunities, but this is our, I don't know, the first one that we had the idea. We're very much looking for other makers to hear about their ideas and to experiment with new things. Is this the world premiere of this or have you shown it other places? So, cool to mention is that we have, our target audience is Dutch people. So what we did is this pilot, we launched it two months ago in a church at the city center. to gain like, I don't know how you call it, to gain... Feedback insights. Yeah, exactly. And then also start showing what we can do. And so we already run for two months. So this is a world premiere, but we already, we had a local premiere already. And we're gearing up towards opening in April, May for the museum.

And then, yeah, maybe talk about like this installation context here, because you have like a whole wooden structure that you've built. And then if that's something that you plan on traveling, or if you're now putting all your focus on just having a single location that you don't have to move around. Well, we are focusing on both, unfortunately. So we are working on these boxes because we want to show everyone what we are doing. But now, okay, maybe our focus is on opening the museum, but we see the potential also of the box. so yeah it's not the answer you want to tell sort of a self-contained like context that allows people to go into i feel like they're going into an enclosed place but you're able to maintain control over the tracking and have a little bit more environmental control but also you know like where would you also expect to have these boxes like what other kind of places would you want to have them as pop-ups or having as events or where else are you going to take this okay so okay now I understand your question.

So first of all, we make the box so that we indeed have full control over the fact that it's plug-and-play usable. So we want to take that away from the makers that don't want to think about the hardware tech and internet connection, that kind of stuff. If you have a plug-and-play box like we have now, we can use it anywhere. That means that it depends on who wants to build or present stuff. There's our market. So we don't have a clear focus. we're just thinking well if you want to use it we can help you with it that could be events it could be also festivals it could also be permanent spaces so we want to again collaborate as much as possible to see where the opportunities are and tell me a bit more about the space that you have and what your plans on for that in terms of like how many people are you expecting to be able to you know have per hour through this amount of space that you have well let's say 200 that's a lot yeah yeah well yeah that's a lot uh we really thought it out uh it's um but it's doable and

we have two thousand square meters so it's yeah it's doable but um everyone's talking about um throughput problem in vr but i mean to be honest there's like a party like x studio they're phenomenal they did a great job and they're doing so much throughput so So I always think when people say, yeah, you don't have throughput in VR, I'm like, well, yeah, a party like X-View is doing it already. So look how great they are in what they do. So there's another throughput problem. There's a problem of maybe investing in throughput. Or am I being too harsh now? No, I think it's, you know, I think your structure of your piece, having a little bit more open world, invites, like, you're in a marketplace where you would, you know, already be in a place that would contextually be lots of people mingling around and you kind of have to navigate moving through it and like i said the biggest problem i had was not being able to differentiate the three different classes of other people which is the people in my group which i could identify by the name tags and then there are other people that didn't have name tags but they look the exact same as the other ntc characters

who didn't have an embodiment and so it was hard for me to know which those two other ones because you know the implication is i should pay attention and i think i may have bumped into someone or you know so you walk backwards yeah oh wow okay yeah we we have we don't see a lot of bumps uh well actually at one point uh it did um so i had a bump and then the headset turned off and then i and like so yeah it sort of flipped in and out and so there was a kind of more of a technical glitch that kind of had me come out of the experience and come in and then it was also like a little bit delayed that sort of was instigator but other than that yeah but for the most part i was okay But there was this, I think there is a bit of like, there are different levels of, I think Xterio is like holding your hand a lot through the experience where they like are really extra protective of that. And this felt like a little bit more like people that are maybe a little bit more intermediary or people who have a little bit more gaming experience or a little bit more savvy for being able to navigate to, because you're choosing which spaces to go rather than having people directed as to exactly where to go.

So it's a little bit more open world exploration. and that all boils down to the core of the concept the inspiration is sleep no more and in sleep no more you walk around and you can decide yourself how you want to live the story and I think that was the reason I said to the director let's do an explorative VR where you are in the center of the story and I don't know we are now going to do something a bit more storyline and I'm very curious to see how that turns out And if you still feel the same level of being central in the story, because that's our core, like put people in the center of the story Yeah And then the exterior they have a couple of different types of experiences A lot of like the Horizon of Khufu is about seeing the vastness of the pyramids and walking through and kind of like taking a guided tour And then I have the Impressionist, which was a little bit more of a character driven story where you're following these characters and you have these objects or their paintings that you're looking at. So I found that the worlds where you're looking at the environment and that you have a very deep

sense of like being taken to another place is a lot different than getting story bits of a character where you're standing around listening to people talk and I feel like in your piece you're kind of doing a blend of that a little bit where you're in a place that is like this marketplace from another you know the 17th century in Mansonam but you're learning about it by interacting with the characters but sometimes there are having like moments where they're speaking so you have to kind of invest and so I found myself attention being pulled away like do I listen to everything they're saying or do I explore around and so yeah that was kind of my there's different decisions I have to make and for sleep no more it's a lot of like environmental storytelling and so you're picking up and looking at objects and stuff there's not characters that are talking to you so it's a little bit more of a in a waking dream of sorts yeah 2011 but there were people talking to me in sleep no more there were yeah okay yeah yeah but maybe they changed that but in sleep no more there were people talking but indeed it's kind of a combination of the two i i agree to me it seems that vr the medium

VR can do two things very well. First is putting people in a place that they normally can't be. Well, that's why I see the Titanic being there for like five times, ten times. And the second thing is putting people in the center of the story. And that's by telling the story by letting the people interact themselves. So that's the two things I want to see, I want to find out where the balance is. And in this version of your experience, there's like three different scenes that you go through. When you are headed towards your launch next year, how many total scenes are going to be in this experience, and how long do you expect it to be? Let's say we aim for eight scenes. It's 30, 35 minutes, eight scenes, and it will be also in Amsterdam, 17th century. So we work together with the universities, the city archives, a museum, yeah. And in this space, you say it's like eight by eight meters or so, is that what you said? Yeah. And so you have an eight by eight meters. And so when you're splitting up your 2,000 square meter section, are you going to have like little sub-quadrants where people go in and kind of explore all things?

Or do you expect that one person is going to be able to roam around the entirety of the whole space? No, it's in spaces. It's divided. How many subdivisions will you have? Seven. Okay, wow. And so, awesome. Well, what's the next big thing as you move forward towards your launch? After my launch or... Yeah, just like what's next? Well, we are here and we invested a lot for a small company like us to be here because we are really looking for partnerships because we are not makers. We want to work together with makers. And secondly, we can present works in other places very easily. So, yeah, we are mainly looking for collaborations. So next big thing is a lot of new collaborations, I hope. Awesome. And finally, what do you think is the ultimate potential for these types of immersive experiences and immersive stories and what that might be able to enable? The ultimate.

So, well, you can obviously say, well, we can add smell. We can add haptics. You can add as much as you want. I think there is a big balance between haptics or immersiveness and accessibility. so I think once haptics become more accessible the more they will get more accessible the more ultimate the experience will be yeah that's my answer are there any experiences in VR that you want to have? I have a whole list so if makers want to build stuff let's talk awesome is there anything else that's left and said that you'd like to say to the broader universe of community any final thoughts? Yeah, we were just here, but we are here for a longer time, I hope, and we're happy to connect. Awesome. I feel like we're entering into a new phase where, yes, we're entering into a new phase. No pun intended, but the entering of that new phase is figuring out what the movie theater of XR is going to be.

And I think it's Curio and Fi with their XP and Rosemont and Cosm and Sphere. They're kind of indications for reaching at scale. And so it's exciting to see another entrant coming onto the scene and also this kind of other idea of having more portable versions of that to be able to take it around to different locations. So, yeah, really excited to see where you take this in the future. And next time in Amsterdam, probably next year for IPA DocLab for their 20th anniversary. Love to stop by and see what you have there going on at Enter. So thanks again for joining me here on the podcast and help break it all down. Thank you very much. And you're invited for the opening by this. When is it? Yeah, well, let's hope. April, May. Okay, perfect. Thanks. All right. Thanks so much for listening to the Voices of VR podcast. And I just want to say that I'm really trying to live into the transformation economy, meaning I want to give away all this information for free, make it publicly accessible for not only you but the entire community. And if you find value in that, then please do consider supporting me on Patreon. I'm on this journey of trying to reach my 1,000 true fans,

and if I have just $5 a month from that 1,000, then I'll be in a much more solid and stable financial position. So really need your help to be able to get to that point. So if you enjoy what I'm doing here at the Voices of VR podcast, then please do consider supporting me at patreon.com slash Voices of VR. Thanks for listening. Thank you.