The design of a park is not a simple few renderings can be solved, Lanyu Cultural Theme Park Planning and Design Institute in the design of the park, focusing on the immersive experience, and the first link of the immersive experience, is the story of the bring-in, the entire park is a complete story, and each partition is another scene, each amusement equipment in the scene has a small story integrated with the entire park story. With the guidance of the story, the immersive experience also has a soul, followed by the creation of the scene, the packaging of the facilities, and the integration of the story and the landscape. Today we're going to bring you a case of the cobra's Curse and the story of the roller coaster.
The Curse of the Cobra is a steel spinning roller coaster in Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida, USA, which opened in 2016 and is made by Mack Rides. Behind the roller coaster is the fictional story of the ancient Egyptian ruler Serpent King Venusiss and his curse on the lost kingdom. It features a 24-meter-high statue of the Snake King, Venusiss, which sits in front of an elevator elevator. The roller coaster's vehicle movement can be locked and rotated in three stages, forward and backward, and then turned to free rotation.
The Curse of the Cobra was well received after opening, in addition to the innovative experience of vertical lifting and rotation on the device, more importantly, the project's high integration in the theme story, equipment packaging, theme scenes, and emotional experience.
The following Lanyu culture will analyze the ideas of this equipment packaging design from four aspects:
1. Theme story background analysis
As we said earlier, the story is the key to creating an immersive experience, an important part of a project planning, and a core part of the theme of a ride, so Lanyu Culture first takes everyone to understand the story behind it.
The ride tells the fictional story of the snake king Venusiss, an ancient Egyptian ruler who was once favored but later corrupted by power. The Snake King's followers turned against him, and soon after destroyed the statue that had given him power. Thereafter, the Serpent King imposed a curse on all those who rebuilt the statues. Remnants of snake tombs have been found and archaeologists have been hired from the fictional International Survey and Excavation Organisation for Venomous Snakes (VISE) to conduct the excavations.
The background of the story explains the theme style of the attraction - ancient Egypt, the main character - the snake king Venusmyss, and the main story clue - the excavation of the snake king tomb. After a brief description of the attraction-themed story background, the details can be further refined in the project. That is to say, the soul of the device is already possessed.
2. Emotional experience design analysis
I believe that most of the tourists who have played in the park know that large-scale amusement facilities usually have a foreplay, usually starting from the queue waiting area to start the story, through the rehearsal area to bring the story to the climax, so that visitors can understand the background of the story, characters and key information such as the main events, and begin to enter the experience of the climax of the story, and officially sit on the roller coaster track to experience the climax of nearly 4 minutes.
Once we have a theme story, we need to think about how to tell a good story. In the past, the design of many roller coaster attractions often did not pay enough attention to or even ignore the emotional experience of tourists, believing that roller coasters simply experience weightlessness and excitement, so they did not pay too much attention to the telling of theme stories and the creation of theme scenes. Of course, this is also one of the differences between a theme park and an amusement park.
Lanyu Culture believes that the design of the curse of the cobra from the project entrance, queuing area, upper and lower platforms, and then to the track experience area is interlocked according to the theme story background and story clues, ensuring a high degree of unity of the theme of the project. At the same time, it is also enough to pay attention to the story laying out of the queuing area, so that visitors can understand the background of the story and enter the set story scene, and then experience the project, so that it has a better play experience than simple amusement equipment.
3. Theme story and scene integration design
1. Outside the attraction: Before the experience project, visitors can see the iconic 24-meter-high snake king sculpture in the distance, and after entering the architectural form, the details are perfectly in line with the theme story.
2. Project queuing area: A few minutes is not enough to vividly show the story content, the queuing area provides the opportunity to extend the storytelling time from a few minutes to an hour, providing a perfect environment for designers to expand the narrative world and enhance visitor expectations, unlike the queuing area that once had only a few water mist fans and cold railings.
The ride's queue area is divided into different sections to fully narrate the background of the story. The first area is an external queuing area called "Dig Team Living Quarters", which displays educational displays of different snake species. In the interior space of the queuing area, guests enter the first room, which features an 11 m³ window display case with four types of live snakes: a rhinoceros viper, a Gabonese viper, an Jameson mamba snake and a crustacean python. After bypassing the corridors, guests enter the second room, where statues and projections on the walls depict the story of the roller coaster and show three performances. Afterwards, guests enter the platform and enter the vehicle to be transported to the elevator.
△ Cobra's Curse entrance | real scene
At first glance, you may be complaining, how did this project open before it was completed? In fact, it is not, as described in the background of the previous story, which is the excavation site of the Viper International Survey and Excavation Organization (VISE). After entering this space, it will be quickly brought into this "antiquities excavation site".
△ Cobra's Curse queuing area | real scene
3. Platform area: The platform area is the preparatory area for tourists to experience the equipment, and it is also a transition area for tourists to experience the entire project, where tourists have basically understood the story background of the project, precautions, and are ready to experience the most core part of the attraction.
△ Cobra's Curse up and down the platform | real scene
4. Equipment characteristic analysis
After the story is told, let's take you into the actual device experience.
1. Equipment stimulation classification: Cobra's Curse chose the Mack Rides rotary roller coaster series, which is moderately stimulating and belongs to the thrill level in the roller coaster thrill level classification. The minimum height limit is 1.07m, which is a family roller coaster product.
2. Every time there is a different experience: Cobra's Curse rotates individually depending on the vehicle's load distribution. It is also possible to achieve a different ride experience by using an electric motor located under each vehicle to lock and rotate individually on the track, and each ride will vary due to the weight of the passengers in the same vehicle.
△ Cobra's Curse track free-spinning vehicle | live-action photo
3. Endless Possibilities - Story-themed: The carriage has different lighting effects and sound systems, and the amusement facilities can tell the theme according to the story. The unique vertical lifting ladder and the rotating carriage are all important parts that can be perfectly integrated with the story.
△ Cobra's Curse combined with a vertical ladder design snake king sculpture | live-action photos
From the perspective of roller coaster, Lanyu Cultural Theme Park Planning and Design Institute believes that the stimulation experience of roller coaster itself can largely meet the experience needs of tourists, and many background stories can be spread through the network and other places offline, and the park with large IP has a more advanced story preparation, people can easily immerse themselves in it as soon as they see the scene, and the sense of experience will be more intense. But for most devices and stories, foreshadowing is really crucial, and areas such as entrances, queues, rehearsals, etc. are key places to bring visitors into the story scene. Taking the story as the guide and basing it on warm-up, creating a theme scene and allowing tourists to substitute for it is the key to the success of the amusement project.