擁抱希望前往「恐怖谷」A.L.I：專訪《駭客搞五人》技術總監 Christopher Lane Davis aka Screaming Color
Although wearing clothes with Taiwanese imagery doesn't automatically mean "loving Taiwan," on the day of the interview, Christopher Lane Davis—widely known by his nickname "TOFU" (a play on "Christopher") and creating under the artist name Screaming Color—showed up in an outfit blending "rainbow" and "Taiwan" elements, enthusiastically displaying his full identification and affection for LGBTQ+ friendly Taiwan.
Fresh off producing the VRChat interactive experience that just won the 2025 XR Immersive Award, TOFU said: "I was already happy before we won. This is the best festival in the world. KFF is my favorite film festival. It's like Christmas for me. And so, this festival feels like my home. And every time I come here, I just get to meet all the wonderful people that I met before, but also new wonderful people."
When asked if he still remembered his acceptance speech from the day before, TOFU laughed and replied, "Actually, I could give an extended version." After all, the short time on stage wasn't enough to fully express the overwhelming emotions he felt. So, here is the "full version" of his acceptance speech (Acceptance speech from two days ago, see link.):
It wasn’t me who should’ve accepted that award—it should’ve been Steve (Stephen Butchko), the director, but he wasn’t here. So I just thanked everyone on behalf of the team and thanked Rick (Rick Treweek), the creator of the Uncanny Alley: A New Day universe, for being so not cool (laughs) and building a world that’s super interesting, funny, and heavy all at once—something that made Steve really want to make a show in it. I also thanked all our actors and voice actors, and of course the festival and the jury. But the best part was when I thanked the Taiwanese people. For me, the greatest thing about this festival isn’t watching the other creators’ work—it’s watching those creators fall in love with Taiwan. They’ll say, “I’ve only been here two days, I only saw the festival,” and I’m like, “Yeah, but 101 is just metal and glass, right? The real Taiwan is the people—and the best people in Taiwan are right here at the festival. So you really got a glimpse into the heart of what this country has to offer.”
And my last thought was… the world can be really scary right now—politics, wars, all that stuff—and Steve wrote this show because he feels so strongly about the “Trump situation.” We’ll just put it that way. It’s beautiful because Stephen’s helping run the show this week, but he’s also sending us photos of himself protesting in front of the actual government—and that’s exactly where our story starts, at a government protest.
Anyway, I didn’t say all this on stage last night. But I did say that sometimes things have to get a little worse before they can get better. In my own life, the hardest, darkest moments are what made me strong and hopeful and hungry for a happy future. And if that’s true for me, it’s gotta be true for all of us as a planet too—maybe we’ll hit a low point, hopefully not too dark, but close enough to push us to grow stronger and overcome it together. No matter how dark it gets, we’ve always got each other. And even if the sky’s too black to see the sun, the sun’s still there—it always has been.
Although the director couldn’t be here in person, TOFU still shared every little detail about Uncanny Alley with incredible care. He explained that while there are NPC (Non-Player Character, it refers to characters controlled by the game itself rather than the player.) characters in this virtual world, experiencers can’t interact with them—they just stand there. All 15 characters that the audience actually talks to are played by the same two human actors taking on multiple roles, and the team deliberately avoided AI dialogue (every line spoken to the audience comes from real people) to keep that live, real-conversation feel. TOFU went on to reveal that he originally signed on just for music and sound design, but ended up handling all the special effects, animations, and even the actor UI. He’s especially grateful to director Rick for trusting him so completely, giving him total creative freedom inside the VRChat universe Rick had built.
The vast, endless feel of Uncanny Alley’s VRChat world is a magical mix of real and illusion. Sure, the world is huge—letting audiences travel through tons of different scenes—but a lot of what looks like grand cityscapes is actually just a 2D skybox in the background. He explained that technically, VRChat has almost no limit on world “size”, but what makes their team amazing is cramming the entire show—every image, environment, character, audio track, and piece of music—into under 100 MB! That cap comes from Meta Quest’s VRChat limits, so they make all their shows Quest-friendly for smooth playback. In the story’s “A.L.I.” surveillance world, viewers can choose to stay and fight or make a break for it. “I’d guess about two-thirds pick escape, one-third stay. I personally love when they run—I did the VFX for both endings and the escape one is way cooler, haha,” TOFU laughed.
So what does the title Uncanny Alley: A New Day mean? TOFU admitted it’s a play on “uncanny valley”—the creepy feeling when artificial beings look almost human. “Uncanny means eerie or weird, and A New Day stands for the new era that starts whether you escape or stay.” How close is the “A.L.I.” (Adaptive Learning Industries) society to our world? “Picture Meta or Google 50 years from now,” he said. “They control every tiny part of your life—shopping, logging into apps, emails, messages—all through one system. A.L.I. is a metaphor for that.” He laughed about the irony: as a VR creator, he’s totally dependent on Meta Quest gear. “I call them an evil empire while using their tech every day.”
In fact, TOFU (aka Screaming Color) also premiered a VRChat short with Sanrio at this year’s Kaohsiung Film Festival: Keep Moving Forward / Good Morning. How did that collaboration even happen? “It started with a random Instagram DM,” Sanrio said. “‘Are you Screaming Color from Gumball Dreams?’ Yep, that’s me.” He thought Sanrio wanted Ferryman Collective (The company that makes Gumball Dreams and Uncanny Alley), but nope—they wanted Screaming Color to make an artistic music video for the 2025 Sanrio Virtual Music Festival (in VRChat).
When asked if his work feels too mature for the “kawaii” Sanrio universe, he laughed shyly: “Honestly, I haven’t watched the other festival pieces. Partly to avoid comparison, partly… maybe the vibe’s just different.” He then shared exciting news: ten years ago, as a musician, he wrote and directed a two-hour musical, dreaming of bringing it to XR. His Sanrio projects are slowly making that real. “They’re basically funding me piece by piece to create my own thing.” In another year or two, he’ll stitch it all together into a full XR musical.
Next year, he might bring a much more “adult” piece to the Kaohsiung Film Festival—exploring childhood trauma, religion, and sexual orientation. “I’m a little worried it’ll be too heavy for Sanrio, but they haven’t said no, so… full speed ahead.” From the outside in, always sunny, hopeful, and kind—TOFU aka Screaming Color is about to reveal something deep. Can’t wait to see it!
