Still here. Still scheming.

Hello and Happy New Year!
A quick update on the big picture: we’re still in the process of securing the right home for Riddlehaven. We’ve explored many options and are taking our time to make sure the space we choose allows us to build the kind of immersive experiences we’re dreaming up. When we have something official to share, you’ll be the first to know!

Behind the scenes, we’ve been designing and making things that we can’t wait to share.

The Eel Tank
One of the props we’ve been refining is our electric eel for The Ghost Ship. We originally imagined him in a cylindrical tank (very alien specimen, very Frankenstein’s lab) suspended in water, restrained and wired up to harvest his electricity. This eel is having a very bad day.

The tricky part was making him look convincingly submerged without shorting out his snazzy LED lights.

We brainstormed and tested a few ideas: an as-seen-on-TV-style wave projector light, filling the tank with clear resin, even encasing the eel in clear gelatin like the world’s worst Jell-O salad. In the end, the solution required us to ditch the cylindrical tank entirely and think, if you will, inside the box.

Instead of putting the eel in water, we built a thin acrylic tank about the size of a cereal box, filled it with water, and placed it in front of the safely dry eel. A small aquarium bubble pump and a custom 3D-printed porthole help sell the illusion.

It was a good reminder that when something isn’t working, it can be worth stepping back and rethinking the whole concept. Sometimes the better solution is also the simpler one.

Watch the eel in action (proof of life from the workshop).

Kind of a Big Deal . . .
A quick brag and shout-out to my husband and Riddlehaven partner: Will had an amazing year in the writing world, earning nominations for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. His short story Downstream Benefits won the 2025 Maine Literary Award for Short Fiction and was listed as a distinguished story in The Best American Short Stories. It’s been exciting to see the recognition for his hard work, and I’m so proud of him.

All of which is to say: the stories taking shape inside Riddlehaven are in very good hands.

Visit www.willwilloughby.com to read some of his work.

Sting Operation
Lastly, take nine seconds and feast your eyes on this amazing “logo sting” animation whipped up by motion designer Vlady on Fiverr for us. I just love it!