by Louis Alfieri of Raven Sun Creative
Louis Alfieri: Today I want to discuss the state of interactive storytelling in visitor destinations right now. We’ve spent a lot of this series on the more academic side of things, looking at history, narrative structure, and theory. This time around I thought we could get into the current use of interactive narratives in guest experiences.
It’s not going to be possible to be complete in our review. Interactive narrative is such a wide, ever-expanding field with subjective boundaries. We can’t cover it all. In light of that, I’d ask readers to comment and let us know about any current examples of interactive storytelling in the destination industry we’ve missed that they think deserve attention.
Let’s break this down by destination categories, starting today with Location-Based Entertainment, and going down further within that to the niche of theme parks. These globally recognized destinations offer some of the highest profile examples of interactive narrative experiences available to the mass market at the moment.
However, I want to stress that interactive narrative is a form of storytelling with applications that go well beyond theme parks. These destinations only represent a very small slice of the experiential space where interactive narratives may be used and leveraged.
Tim Madison: That to me is maybe one of the most important points of this entire conversation. Interactive narrative is – or should be – for everybody. As an art form, it opens up whole new worlds of possibility for museums, zoos, heritage sites and more to engage with guests on a deeper and more personal level. Plus, it’s also a medium that offers the potential for destinations to expand their digital presence and create new revenue streams beyond in-person visits. I’m getting a little ahead of myself, though…
LA: That’s definitely a topic I want to delve into in a future conversation.
The flow of innovation in LBE
TM: If we’re talking about theme parks, Disney is the obvious heavyweight, with Universal being the big challenger. Disney still leads much of the collective conversation about location-based innovation. Not that the flow of innovation is all top-down, by any means.
LA: Breakthrough ideas, especially in an area like storytelling, can come from any quarter. In fact, sometimes some of the most interesting, groundbreaking ideas are often driven by the little guy, young entrepreneurs, start-ups, or those out on the fringes. Constraints drive creative solutions.
In addition, smaller organisations with niche audiences often have more opportunity to experiment and embrace the unusual. There are many people out there besides Disney and Universal doing amazing work. The teams at Efteling, Puy Du Fou, Chimelong, Phantasialand, Meow Wolf, teamLab and others are driving the industry forward with original stories and new technology. They are creating compelling guest experiences across vastly different genres of storytelling and corporate missions.
A point that I want to make is this: the world of experiential destinations is so much richer and more varied than Disney and Universal. And as I say to the students I mentor, our goal should be to increase that variety. We don’t want to limit ourselves by thinking only in terms of analogy. At the same time, Disney and Universal are worthy examples that are more widely familiar.
Disney, as a vertically integrated entertainment company, happens to have the resources and ecosystem, including massive entertainment IPs, a global transmedia access and distribution network and an international portfolio of mixed-use destinations, that enable it to attempt things that few, if any, other organisations, with the possible exception of Universal, are in the position to take a risk on. Innovation has always been a big part of Disney’s DNA since the beginning.
A brief history of Disney parks’ interactive adventure games
TM: Disney parks have a history of testing the waters with interactive narrative-type experiences.
In the early 2000s, Disney launched its “Living Character Initiative”. This advanced the idea of combining technologies and storytelling modes to deepen interaction between characters and guests.
Growing out of that effort were a number of interactive park-based game experiences. For instance, the Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure (later changed to Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure), Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, and A Pirate’s Adventure – Treasure of the Seven Seas and similar experiences for the Disney Cruise Line, like Midship Detective. I’m using the past tense because most of these experiences are retired or currently on hiatus. However, I think they’re still important to our conversation.
Broadly, these experiences were variations on narrative treasure hunt-style games. They employed a combination of interactive locations with practical effects and pre-recorded media content. They variously incorporated different elements of trading card, roleplaying, and mobile games. Guests would use cards, mobile devices, RFID-embedded items, or MagicBands to activate sequences at interactive stations. Here, they would get their next game prompt and move on to the next story node.
A single round of gameplay could last for fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on the offering.
LA: The Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom-style games added another layer of guest value and experience to the lands and spaces between marquee attractions. They are essentially “invisible” attractions. They were never heavily marketed. Instead, they were really aimed at the more “in the know” guest groups and frequent return visitors.
New theme park interactives: the Play Disney Parks phone app
TM: The advent of the Play Disney Parks phone app appears to have somewhat supplanted or redirected the nature of gameplay on Disney properties.
LA: The app enables Disney to streamline gameplay and bundle and update experiences across the park through guests’ phones. It has, for the time being anyway, shifted the balance away from unique attractions in favour of a universal gameplay service. Along with that has come more of an emphasis on minigames over these longer narrative games for the moment.
Earlier this year, Disney spoke of its intent to realise its own self-described “Metaverse” with Augmented Reality experiences that would connect digital and physical spaces through guests’ phones.
Another factor, too, that has an influence on the direction of park interactive experiences is this year’s release, MagicBand+. This is a wearable technology with haptic feedback, gesture recognition, and lights that change colour.
TM: Regarding the narrative scavenger hunt-style gameplay, that wasn’t totally unique to Disney, of course. I’m moving away from theme parks into FECs and resorts with this comparison…
LA: I agree. As we alluded to earlier, there’s so much more happening in this space besides Disney and Universal alone, as well as the overlaps and cross-pollination that takes place between these sectors.
On the trail of wands & wizards
TM: I was going to mention MagiQuest (launched in 2005). This started as an FEC-type gaming experience and then changed into a resort-based offering.
MagiQuest offers a similar narrative scavenger hunt-style gameplay. Guests roam between different interactive stations to fulfil story missions. A major difference between the Disney games and MagiQuest is the business model. The experiences were free to play for park guests (with some optional upcharge elements like the ability to buy a Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom card booster pack.)
With MagiQuest, the interactive game is the core offering. You buy your interactive device – an infrared light-emitting collectable wand – and your game sessions. MagiQuest has been an interesting test of what the market will bear for this kind of experience. In 2010, Great Wolf Lodge resorts, which had rolled out MagiQuest at several locations, bought a majority stake in Creative Kingdoms, the game’s developers. The MagiQuest business model appears to be more sustainable within a resort than as a standalone FEC.
MagiQuest is also similar to Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter, where you can buy an interactive wand and have interactions with “spell” locations throughout the environment. I would not describe this theme park interactive wand experience as a game exactly. The points of interaction aren’t linked by a larger narrative throughline or mission, except loosely in the sense that guests are roleplaying and practising their spell casting.
So, you could describe those as micro-narratives that guests gather as part of the overall story experience of Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley.
LA: The price point for a collectable Wizarding World wand starts at $59 plus tax. This definitely makes it what I’d call an enhanced experience on top of a park ticket.
Here, the popularity of the IP can sustain that business model. The wand is essentially a “must-have” for any Potter fans. The price point, while highly elevated, was placed just high enough to feel premium, while low enough that most could stretch to take part.
In other projects, we are seeing an increase in the “premiumization” of experiences. For instance, the $250.00 light saber experience at Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge and the up to $6,000 LARP experience at Galactic Starcruiser.
The changing adventures of Star Tours
TM: On the subject of popular IP in theme park interactives, Star Wars has enabled Disney Parks to realise some bold goals.
Long before Disney acquired Lucasfilm or created Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, there was Star Tours. I bring up Star Tours because we discussed branching narrative in part two of this series. Back in 2011, when Disney updated the then 24-year-old simulator attraction as Star Tours – The Adventures Continue, they introduced the element of a branching narrative.
LA: The Adventures Continue has a branching storyline with 21 potential story destinations. This allows for countless variable sequences, enhancing discovery and the ability to ride again and again.
It’s not “truly” interactive, though. Not in the sense that guests have any agency or influence over where the journey goes. An algorithm randomly generates the sequence to select destinations and their associated motion profiles for each ride.
The ride story consists of four parts: 1) your Starspeeder’s escape, 2) planet destination #1, 3) a hologram message, 4) planet destination #2. There are four to seven story options for each segment that can be recombined to create 54 different possible combinations.
This project was the first of its kind. It was also a benchmark that inspired many around the world to explore the use of similar technology and creative opportunities. We developed an enhanced version of this concept for the Wanda Wuhan theme park.
TM: Right, so, it’s not a choice-based branching narrative. For all the variability, Star Tours is still a passive experience where the guest is along for the ride.
Star Tours, theme park interactives and branching narrative
LA: Current technology, and signal latency, limits our ability to deliver a choice-driven narrative to a group of forty people in a ride experience lasting four and half minutes. I do foresee in the future the ability to introduce choice and personalization in this format.
For example through UHFR 3D glasses (Ultra High Frame Rate) or the use of AR wearables that deploy retinal projection. In such an application, you can run, say, 600 frames a second through the digital projector that each person or seat may have a setting to see every 10th frame, or in the case of the retinal projection, each person could see an individual reality amongst the group environment.
Some of the challenges in such a format might be people moving in different directions with an interactive at once, for example, a target and gun. This could create chances for collisions. Those kinds of issues would need to be resolved and planned for in advance.
TM: That’s long been a central conversation in location-based design. That question of whether creating a variable story in a ride context is feasible and whether it really adds that much value to the experience for the guest. Whether the cost and effort yield enough benefits and repeatability.
LA: Yes, and we should point out that Star Tours is very much a special case. Here Imagineering started with a hugely popular ride based on one of the most successful entertainment IPs of all time. Refreshing the ride with a variable story aligned well with many considerations. This includes the existing premise of the ride as an intergalactic travelogue.
The existing IP provides a familiar story universe full of known settings. So, growing the experience to become a variable narrative of ever-changing discovery was an excellent enhancement. It’s a highly marketable new feature that greatly increases the re-rideability of the attraction for a significant segment of guests.
In addition, the modular format allows for the addition of new destinations, plot points, or characters in future updates. It made a lot of creative and business sense.
Mind you, this range of creative and operational freedom greatly increased the CapEx of this attraction’s refreshment. Each segment requires its own ride profile and ample control capabilities to react in real-time based on the random selection process.
That’s a very specific case. The feat is incredibly impressive and cool. But the branching narrative doesn’t necessarily register with the typical audience until they re-ride the attraction or are made aware of this narrative possibility.
TM: And Star Tours is really more of a randomised narrative than a fully branching one. The story segments are self-contained and can be freely mixed and re-mixed.
LA: A true multi-branching non-linear narrative is better suited to longer experiences with a different set of parameters and more scope for individuals to explore. On that point, let’s hit pause on our conversation for now. There’s so much more to explore on this subject. In a future discussion, I’d like to address issues of capacity and levels of engagement. These influence how we would take part in and execute the ideas we are talking about.
Look for Louis Alfieri and Tim Madison to continue their conversation on the Raven Sun Creative blog and on the Raven Sun Creative channel on LinkedIn.
Top image: Fortress Explorations at Tokyo DisneySea
