James and his creative partner Kyle Neal produced their second annual new year’s bash in 2026. Settling on a retro future theme that payed homage to the best science fiction of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they transformed the venue into the SS Maverick on its voyage to the hourglass nebulae to see a once in a millennia celestial event set to happen at exactly midnight. James and Kyle co-created the experience as well as playing the captain and first officer in both the digital content and live at the party. Every 30 minutes of the party there would be an update from the bridge introducing the guests to the other strange members of the crew as they struggled to solve a mounting threat that left them stranded next to a star about to go supernova. It all led up to a final tense moment where the fate of the ship would depend on everything going correctly at exactly midnight when the star exploded, including the crew ingesting a champagne toast to protect them from the blast of radiation.
The video content ran nearly as long as a short feature, and was written, directed, and edited by James. He also made the props and costumes (there are more spacer jackets if anyone wants one). Kyle programmed the technical installations like the entrance hatch and decontamination chamber, digital bartender, and the Q-lab system that controlled lights, music, and video content on the monitors throughout the party. He also coded the immersive mobile game that had guests join the crew of the Maverick and try to discover a secret saboteur aboard by interacting with the crew and other guests for clues. The first players had to go to the source, but after multiple guests learned the answers to the secret security questions they could share them with other guests if they decided they could trust them–eventually becoming a self-perpetuating game that the guests ran themselves. Kyle and James both designed and built the environment and installed all of the elements into the venue, and then stayed in character to seed the immersive game.