Virtual date night in a Lagos club: a night at Prizm for two

Date night has a script: get dressed, go out, queue a bit, find a good spot, listen to the music, talk too loudly over it, and stay one song longer than you meant to. When you live apart, or the babysitter cancelled, or neither of you can face Lagos traffic tonight, that script can still run, just inside a game.

This is a guide to a virtual date night at Prizm, the club inside AJ Cities, a free open-world game set on the edge of Ajegunle, Lagos. To be completely clear before anything else: Prizm is a virtual club that exists only in the game. There is no real venue, no real date and no real ticket, and nothing here gets you into a club in Lagos. It is for couples who are already together, it runs in the browser on a phone or a computer, and it is 18+.

Meet Prizm

Prizm is the big house at No. 1145 June 12 Street, lit purple and impossible to miss. It belongs to the Warden, a retired prison warder who named it for the difference between a prism and a prison. Natasha runs the floor. Inside there are four places worth knowing:

• The ground floor, with the stage and the dance floor.
• The pool deck.
• The rooftop garden, with the lights of the prison across the road and the port cranes beyond them. The most romantic view on the estate, if you squint.
• The artist’s lounge and backstage, for the very few.

Every night from 9 pm to 1 am Lagos time, the artist Joe-Izzy is on stage. His songs “Asset”, “High On Life” and “Worry (feat. Trevv)” play on the estate radio, so the whole street knows the words.

Plan the night

1. Pick the same world

Party mode has three worlds: always day, always night and real Lagos time. Everyone in a world sees the same time. For a date at the club you have two good choices:

• Always night. It is 10 pm there all the time, so Prizm is open and Joe-Izzy is playing whenever you arrive. Best if you are in different time zones.
• Lagos time. The real thing, hour by hour. The set starts at 9 pm Lagos time, which is 8 pm in London and 3 pm in New York in winter.

Pick the same world and you usually land in the same estate. Each one holds up to 60 players, so you will have company: other real players are out tonight too.

2. Get dressed

You each sign in with your email and make a character. You arrive in the waiting area outside the main gate, where the Palmline Unisex Salon and Gatefold Clothing change your hair, skin tone and clothes for free. Take your time. Send each other a screenshot. It counts.

3. Get past the gate

The gate police decide who comes in. Walk up and ask nicely: most nights about four in five guests who ask are let in free. If they say no, try again, or buy a ticket.

4. Choose your rooms

Tickets are optional, each lasts 24 hours from when you buy it, and you each buy your own. Every ticket opens Prizm’s ground floor through the regular door. VIP tickets use the VIP entrance and open more:

No ticket at all? The bouncers at Prizm’s doors sometimes wave a guest in anyway. Every price and what it opens is on the tickets page, and money paid in the game buys tickets and shop items only.

5. Have the night

• Arrive before the set. In the Lagos-time world, be at the door before 9 pm and watch the room fill up.
• Find your spot. The guests on the dance floor dance while the music plays.
• Go up. If you have the tickets, take the pool deck, then the rooftop.
• Step out for food. Across the street at No. 1, Mama Shola’s late kitchen feeds hungry Prizm guests on party nights.
• Walk home the long way. Down June 12 Street, past the generators, to the beach beyond the bush.

Make it feel like a real date (without it being one)

1. Keep a call open. Talk over the music the way you would in a real club, minus the shouting.
2. Dress up in real life too. It sounds silly. Do it anyway.
3. Have the same drink in your hand. Zobo, malt, tea: anything, as long as it matches.
4. If one of you has to step away, pause. You stay in the world as “away” for up to ten minutes, as if on a phone call.
5. Agree the last song. And then stay for one more.

What this is, and what it is not

It is a game: a virtual Lagos club night for two adults who already know each other, in a fictional estate where every character is invented. It is not a real club, a real event or a real booking. It will not replace a night out together. It might just make the weeks between them shorter.

If you want the bigger picture of the estate first, read Prizm, the virtual Lagos club or our guide to a virtual Lagos night out.

Is Prizm a real club in Lagos?

No. Prizm is a virtual club inside the game AJ Cities. There is no real venue, date or ticket, and nothing in the game gets you into a real club.

How much does a virtual date night at Prizm cost?

It can be free: most guests who ask the gate police are let in, and the bouncers sometimes wave guests into Prizm. Optional tickets from ₦250 open the ground floor, and VIP tickets from ₦10,000 to ₦60,000 add the pool deck, rooftop and backstage, each for 24 hours.

What time does the music start?

Joe-Izzy plays Prizm from 9 pm to 1 am Lagos time. In the always-night world it is 10 pm all the time, so the set is on whenever you arrive.

Can we go together from different countries?

Yes. Pick the same world and you usually join the same estate, which holds up to 60 players.