Peek-A-Boo Blog #1 - Meet the Mushies!

Welcome to this peek-a-boo blog where we will share the ins and outs of Smash & Reload, featuring our cute TooMush characters! We invite you to join us on this exciting journey from concept design to production and operation.

As most of you know, Smash & Reload is a media-based interactive dark ride, that combines fun and intuitive gameplay with a smart ride system. The entire family can enjoy this immersive ride from their track-based vehicles across four scenes. The French attraction park “Le Pal”, located near Moulins in the superb region of Auvergne, will be the home of this first amazing ride. At Le Pal, the Smash & Reload ride will open end of April under the name “Champi’Folies”. 

An unforgettable dark ride experience for all parks

While dark rides are a genre dating back nearly 150 years ago (they used to be called “ghost trains" or “love tunnels”), they were regularly re-invented as new technologies arise. Animatronics, special effects, and props became augmented by multi-movement vehicles, extensive media, or interactivity. In most rides, the story revolves on a linear basis, requiring uniform action as far as interactivity is concerned and moving from scene to scene with some explanation from the characters or a narrator. 

Since this attraction format became solidly established as a must-have for parks, the production complexity and associated budget tend to be a hurdle for many regional parks. This is where BoldMove comes into the picture. After decades of producing successful media-based dark rides all over the world and garnering prestigious awards, CEO Benoit Cornet decided to act decisively. ​ Together with his expert team, he wants to make sure that any park can provide its visitor with a high quality, highly entertaining, and very original dark ride family experience. This has led to the development of the “Smash & Reload” concept and its first IP “TooMush”. Virtually every aspect of the dark ride experience has been scrutinized to improve and maximize it, turning the “we always have done it…” approach into something unique. This blog provides you with some insight into the numerous elements we applied to turn the ride into an unforgettable experience. 

Let’s start with the heroes of our first adventure: the Mushies from “TooMush"

Mushies are adorable little mushrooms who live peacefully in their forest. They love to play with each other and have a lot of fun together. The Mushies are very sweet but incredibly silly. Each one has their own specific tattoo reflecting its personality. But the uniqueness of the Mushies is their ability to duplicate themselves when they are stressed!!! ​ And unfortunately, humans have created some psychological tensions because of their activity and their need to expand that will quickly make the situation become uncontrollable. 

Our only chance to stop this multiplication is to freeze the Mushies in blocks of ice. The arrival of a bulldozer in their forest, usually so calm and peaceful, was the trigger for this invasion. The Mushies had to leave their forest, hoping to find new spaces suitable for their peaceful life. However, they only found hostile territories, which resulted in even more stress and a growing population: the invasion thus became inevitable. Unless... 

The players' mission is to throw ice cubes at the Mushies in order to freeze them. To do this, they will follow the path of our unfortunate creatures into the woods, a junkyard, an industrial zone and finally the city. To complicate the fate of the "Mushies" even more, the passage through the junkyard is accompanied by an exposure to strange and toxic substances, making a number of them mutate into "green Mushies": much less attractive but above all even more stupid. ​ 

The original idea of TooMush dates back to 2010, over the years the concept has been revived and further elaborated to provide it with all the features a good IP needs to be featured in a fun on-location attraction. This long process has given it a “depth” that made it easy to associate with a story. The design of the character has been adapted several times and resulted in an adorable IP, also ideally suited for merchandising and other experience-enhancing purposes. 

​As you can tell, where the Mushies go, adventure and crazy surprises follow. Now you know a bit more about the dark ride concept and who the Mushies are, but there are so many other interesting things we want to share with you about this exciting attraction. So stay tuned for the next blog, where we will tell you more about shaping the TooMush universe and gameplay! Already excited? Here is a little sneak peek: