'Death simulator' attraction

'Death simulator' attraction to open in China

We've all wondered what it's like to die.

Now there's a game that claims it can fulfill our curiosity, without actually killing us.

"Samadhi -- 4D Experience of Death," is a morbid "escape room" game that uses dramatic special effects to bring players close to what its creators imagine is an experience of death.

When it opens in Shanghai in September 2014, it will invite participants to compete in a series of challenges to avoid "dying."

Losers get cremated -- or are at least made to lie on a conveyor belt that transports them through a fake funeral home incinerator to simulate death rites.

The faux cremator will use hot air and light projections to create what the organizers call "an authentic experience of burning."

After "cremation," participants are transferred to a soft, round, womb-like capsule, signifying their "rebirth."

And the winner?

"He'll also have to die of course," says the game's fatalistic co-founder Ding Rui.

As in life, he explains, "everyone will die eventually, no matter what they've survived."

Life and death

Ding and his partner Huang Wei-ping went to great lengths researching their game, investigating the cremation process that typically awaits 50% of Chinese people after death.

The pair visited a real crematorium and asked to be sent through the furnace with the flames turned off.

"Ding went in the crematory first and it was stressful for me to observe from the outside," says Huang.

"The controller of the crematory was also very nervous; he usually just focuses on sending bodies in, but not on bringing them back out."

When it came to Huang's turn, he found it unbearable.

"It was getting really hot. I couldn't breathe and I thought my life was over," he said.

The pair say realism is essential to provoke participants into thinking about life and death.

They'll operate the game while also running Hand in Hand, an organization that specializes in providing hospice support to dying patients in an oncology hospital.