I recently went to The Nest — an immersive theater experience by Hatch Escapes — with a couple of friends. If you're around LA, I highly recommend it; the experience is both immersive and intimate.
I won't spoil anything, but one of the best moments from the experience was picking up the phone and talking to one of the characters. In a barely lit room filled with detailed props, I was truly transported to the fictional world crafted by the creators. Rest assured, though, The Nest isn't a scary experience at all; it has nothing to do with horror. Nor is it a difficult experience. Right from the start, the staffer told us the experience only has light puzzle elements that mostly serve to enhance the narrative.
But what's most intriguing to me is that its story is quite straightforward — no major twists or turns, no complicated plot devices. What the story truly excels at is clearly conveying a simple narrative to the player through innovative means.
As an inexperienced writer, one of my most common mistake is trying to make a story novel but ended up making it complicated. I am fortunate enough to attend writing classes of many great movie/game writers at USC. Many of them say every story is a remix of a handful of stores. What this means to me is that one should tell the simplest version of a story and let the audience fill in the gaps.
Circling back to The Nest, it's an experience designed to last around 90 minutes, with the majority of that time dedicated to players solving puzzles. I'd estimate only about 30 minutes are spent on storytelling. Knowing this constraint, the creators wrote a story with the simplest construct. However, by placing this straightforward narrative within a well-crafted and detailed set, the team understood that this was more than enough to truly immerse players.