Level99 Founder & CEO
The category leader in out-of-home Social, Challenge-based Entertainment
- Social, active, life-sized, mental & physical mini-games for adults
- Designed to be approachable & infinitely replayable, with updating content
- Set in an energetic, artistic enviroment to explore & discover
- With award-winning, chef-driven, scratch-made food & beverage
5 Wits Founder & CEO
The world's first escape room style entertainment business
- Many millions of guests served for over 20 years
- Walk-Through Adventures: Tomb, Espionage, Drago's Castle, Deep Space
- Theme park quality immersive sets
- Fully-automated, self-resetting puzzles
- The Original: developed in 2002, incorporated in 2003, opened in 2004 in Boston
Box Fort Founder & CEO
Design / build of custom interactives, effects, and environments
- Creative design & engineering for theme parks, museums, theaters, and corporations
- Clients ranged widely: Walt Disney Imagineering, Blue Man Group, The Smithsonian, Hasbro, The International Spy Museum, Raytheon, dozens more
- Now a part of LEVEL99, Box Fort served entertainment and educational clients for 17 years
Fun Stuff and Great People
In addition to my companies, I've been fortunate to work with quality people and organizations.
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MIT: Product Design
For 16 years, I've been on the MIT Faculty, as part of the teaching team for 2.009: The Product Design Process at the Massachuetts Institute of Technology (MIT), my alma mater. This is the capstone class of the mechanical engineering major, as students work in teams to conceptualize a consumer product and build a fully-functional alpha prototype in three months.
I've also helped teach 2.007, the famous robot competition class. Fun.
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Act III
Building LEVEL99, I've had the great pleasure to work with Ron Shaich, founder and former CEO and Chair of Panera Bread and current Chairman and lead investor of Cava, Tatte Bakery, Life Alive Organic Cafe, and Honest Greens.
Ron's firm Act III Holdings is a $1 billion+ investment vehicle that partners with consumer facing brands to build tomorrow’s market-leading restaurant and entertainment companies.
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Awards
Named to Blooloop's Top 50 Immersive Influencers
Three THEA Awards (the Oscars of themed entertainment) for work on Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, the International Spy Museum, and Level99
Named to the 100 Most Influential Professionals in Central Massachusetts
Golden Ticket Award for Standout Entertainment Concept
Received MIT's DeFlorez Award for Creativity & Ingenuity in Design
Also proud of Level99 winning "Best Pizza in Boston"...
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Podcasts
Recent conversations I've had:
Future of Storytelling, "Building a Business out of Play," April 2026, hosted by Charlie Melcher
Where We Buy, "Inside Level99," July 2025, hosted by James Cook
Reality Escape Pod, "Optimizing Throughput," July 2023, hosted by David Spira
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Talks
If you'd like to hear about some of our team's projects and design philosophy, here are a couple presentations of interest:
TEDx Boston, "Go Analogue," way back in 2013
SATE: Storytelling, Architecture, Technology, Experience. 2015, with Cory Rouse
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Patents
I've been awarded several US patents relating to the configuration of digital avatars, game rooms that situationally adapt, methods for games to detect state and "self-reset", and multiple specific game designs.
Our teams are always working on something new, so there are others pending, stay tuned.
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Other Ventures
There's been some hare-brained stuff over the years, too.
I helped turn around an interactive/exhibit/video production company as COO for a year, owned a mirror maze in a mall (great business actually), and even owned a frozen yogurt shop (ouch, not recommended).
DuPlessie Creative LLC, my personal consultancy, has helped develop a few fun experiences for private companies.
Since 2003 in total, I've started 13 separate entities and raised over $175M committed capital from investors, banks, and landlords.
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Family
And at the top of the important list: my wife Beth and our three wonderful kids.
Year after year, enjoying adventures together, active in service and worship in our church and relationship with God, part of the community in Foxboro MA, and homeschooling the whole way K-12 (Beth is a hero).
It goes by very fast — put your focus on what is actually important.
Here's a recent Family Christmas Photo.
Recent Press
Matt and his businesses have been covered in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Wired, Fortune, Axios, and NPR. Here is some recent coverage.
November 6 2026, Hartford Business News
Level99 CEO bets on in-person play with new West Hartford venue
“The creative team working on these projects for 18 years identified trends,” he said. “We saw things that were working, certain attractions people keep coming back to, they are really sticky.”
November 5 2026, Blooloop
Matt named to The Blooloop 50 Immersive Influencer List 2026
“Matt DuPlessie has helped move immersive entertainment away from passive consumption and toward active, social participation. Through decades of experimentation and the continued growth of Level99, he is influencing not only what immersive experiences look like, but creating a whole new category”
October 22 2026, Forbes Magazine
How Hospitality Entrepreneurs Are Turning Experiences Into Habits
"For Matt DuPlessie, founder of Level99, traditional attractions have a simple flaw: once you’ve seen them, you’re done. Level99 instead borrows video-game mechanics including progression, mastery, challenge and player agency to encourage repeat visits."
September 12 2026, Amusement Today Magazine
Level99 Wins the Golden Ticket Award for Standout Family Entertainment Center
Level99 Wins the Golden Ticket Award for Standout Family Entertainment Center
September 8 2026, Blooloop
What Will It Take For Competitive Socialization To Thrive Long-Term?
In this final Part Three of this series, "Matt DuPlessie, founder and CEO of Level 99, described how video games have evolved from linear, tightly controlled environments to open, exploratory ones where the player has much more agency. The video game comparison illustrates what he sees as the future: moving away from telling the guest what to do, toward creating a space where they decide what they want to do, how long they spend on something, and what they come back to. That feels like more than a design decision. Guest empowerment changes the relationship with the experience. We move from something you visit to something you participate in."
August 25 2026, Blooloop
Competitive Socializing Has A Repeatability Problem
In Part Two of this series, Matt "made the point that matters commercially: if people only come once, there is a limit to how long any concept can last. Creativity and guest experience are mechanisms, and the proof of good design choices is the repeat rate."
August 12 2026, Orlando Magazine
Level99 Gives Disney Springs’ Famous Gaming Corner Another Life
"...after years of waiting, games have returned to this spot on the West Side — and this time, Disney may have found a concept particularly well suited..."
"...an important distinction between Level99 and a traditional escape room. Failure doesn’t end your experience. It usually makes you want another shot.”
"Think escape room meets “Double Dare,” “Legends of the Hidden Temple,” an arcade and an exceptionally competitive family game night. And yes, it is as much fun as that sounds."
August 11 2026, Blooloop
More than a buzzword: the real reason competitive socializing is here to stay
Part One in a Series: An interview with Matt DuPlessie on the emergence and future of competitive socializing
"Competitive socialization provides people with a framework for being together."
"Gaming has moved from subculture to mainstream behaviour, and these venues are essentially 'physical multiplayer games.'”
July 27 2026, The Boston Globe
With help from Ron Shaich, DuPlessie aims to level up Level99
"The number of repeat visitors is high, which DuPlessie describes as 'the holy grail for an entertainment concept.'”
BONUS: I think this is the first time I've ever gotten an artist's sketch for an article. Hilarious.
July 22 2026, Fortune
Coverage of Act3 doubling down on their investment with Level99, increasing to $100,000,000 as growth accelerates. Level99 is building a new category of location-based entertainment.
July 13 2026, All Ears
There’s a NEW Winner for Best Thing to Do in Disney World Without a Park Ticket
"You don’t need a theme park ticket to have an incredible day at Disney World anymore... a brand-new experience just changed the game."
June 26 2026, WDW News Today
REVIEW: Level99 at Disney Springs Is Better Than DisneyQuest Ever Was
"I am going to say something controversial: this is better than DisneyQuest ever was... DisneyQuest was fun, especially as a kid, but Level99 feels like something I could see myself coming back to on a much more frequent basis... Level99 feels like a fitting spiritual successor to DisneyQuest. Someone finally did it right."
April 30 2026, Future of Storytelling
Building a Business Out of Play
A half hour conversation on Level99, Matt's Background and History, and the use of IP in location-based-entertainment.
More historical press coverage is available in the Media Archive
A Few Project Photos
On a phone, rotate to landscape or long press, to enlarge.
Get In Touch
I'm always looking for new adventures and collaborators. Drop me an email, and make sure to spend a moment to fully explain who you are, I'm interested.