Shoot ’em Disney ride gets sneak peek (original) (raw)

Disney ride creators took research trips to fairs, watching patrons toss rings and smash plates. They tested midway carnival games.

The ride creators then headed to Southern California toy stores, loading up trucks with dartboards and balls so they could try them at work.

These old-fashioned concepts were used to create something far more high-tech than a traditional carnival game: Creators transformed the ideas into 3-D digital competitions to be played from moving vehicles in the Toy Story Mania ride at Disney’s California Adventure.

“I think it’s in a class all of its own,” said Chrissie Allen, senior show producer from Walt Disney Imagineering.

The ride is due to open in late June at the Anaheim theme park in the same spot where midway games used to be in the boardwalk area underneath the California Screamin’ roller coaster.

Disney officials gave reporters a sneak peek at the technology at the company’s Concept Lab in Glendale and showed the entrance to the Anaheim ride; the attraction is now largely constructed. The same ride will begin in Walt Disney World in Florida in May.

The interactive ride is similar to its “Toy Story”-themed cousin in Disneyland – Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters, where guests shoot at targets and can get results on their home computers.

But Toy Story Mania games are more complex and in 3-D.

Kevin Rafferty, concept writer and director, said the game came together quickly.

Within six weeks of the initial idea, Disney administrators unleashed the creators to begin. While part of the theme park’s publicized expansion, Toy Story Mania! construction began before the announcement of the park changes.

In the dark ride, guests wearing 3-D glasses are led into the world of “Toy Story” movie characters, who got into a box of midway games and set them up for competition.

Up to eight people, who feel like they are shrunk to the size of toys, can ride on each spinning vehicle behind spring-action shooters. They shoot in five carnival games based on the characters, like an egg toss called Hamm ‘N’ Eggs and Bo Peep’s balloon pop.

Plates pop out of the ground or hang from helicopters in a game with the Green Army Men. Rings are tossed over the Little Green Men. The ride ends with Woody’s gallery, where players aim at targets that are bumbling down mine shafts.

“It’s so fun and so easy to understand as far as the story goes,” Rafferty said.

The ride is more advanced than most aim-and-shoot games.

Guests can see digital projectiles coming out of the shooters and on to the targets – the darts wiggle, the balls bounce. The projectiles are the same color as the shooting device, so guests can see if they are making their goals.

If a player shoots a ring over a rocket in the Little Green Men game, the rocket shoots out at the guest. Wind blasts or water squirts at players’ faces when certain features are struck. A new background emerges if players pop all the balloons hanging from the sun in Bo Peep’s game. Some features are only triggered by two people.

“Every time guests are back to experience the attraction, it will be different every time,” Rafferty said.

At the end of the 5 1/2 minute ride, visitors get their scores. Creators believe that the games – lasting about 31 seconds each – are simple enough for beginners to have fun but contain enough tricks to keep game experts interested.

“Everyone will enjoy it at different levels,” Rafferty said.

Over the past two years, more than 400 people have tested out the games, which are being tweaked as needed.

(Game creators say they have found that players who try to hit as many targets as quickly as possible usually score higher than those who aim specifically at higher-scoring targets.)

“We think people are going to get off this ride and want to get right back on,” said Marilyn Waters, a Disney Imagineering spokeswoman.

Contact the writer: 714-704-3793 or stully@ocregister.com