Peek-A-Boo Blog #2 - Welcome to a Smart & Smashing “Multiverse”

Smash & Reload is an extremely compact dark ride with a track length of just over 35 meters. This by no means makes it a “short" dark ride. ​ When comparing to “larger” rides spanning 3 times this area, Smash & Reload provides the same or even a higher level of immersiveness. For such a transition-less dark ride, we had to re-invent the way the story and action progresses from scene to scene. ​ To do so, and based on the characters that were imagined years ago already, we developed multiple 360° environments: two immersive “worlds” around which the action revolves. And we added an Artificial Intelligence 'topping' to drive the Mushies' behavior and interaction.

Fluid 360° virtual world

We started by designing a complete world around the Mushies: we chose to create a hill surrounded by four adjacent 'places': a forest, a garbage dump, an industrial estate and a city. This environment is fluid and all parts are tying up nicely with the previous and the next one. Therefore, the little mushies are frantically running along the slopes of the hill and ultimately will find themselves back where they started. For our little “funghy” friends, everyday life feels like “groundhog day” : starting again fresh with a slightly changing ending. ​ The reason why we have decided to shape the scenes as a “world” rather than a series of separate scenes is to make the story easy to understand for a broad audience. 

Moreover, not only the scenes are circling alongside the hill, but also the “targets" and vehicles. This gives the ride a very profound coherence and moreover increases repeat playability.

Blending physical and virtual environments

As for the “virtual” environment, ​ we developed a complete 360° view of the world surrounding the hill where the Mushies are present. This physical world is not only “mirroring” the virtual one, but also completes it with a perfectly matching decoration. ​ We gave this physical world a purpose since it is in this environment that the visitor have to reload the “cubers” with enough ice cubes to cool downn the Mushies and contain the invasion. ​ Because the ride is very limited in term of square footage we designed a rich and intense tri-dimensional environment, which is normally only reserved for higher budget installations. Both the virtual world and the physical world share some common objects. Players will see certain virtual elements of a digital scene as props in the decoration of another scene. Doing so we create an impression of “déjà-vu” which makes the players more accustomed to the overall game and therefore more focused on the action !

Universal yet personalized attraction

The Smash & Reload featuring the TooMush IP is not a "one off”. As we want to offer the best experience possible at an affordable budget, we have designed the media as a universal content compatible with different parks. ​ Yet we have kept the possibility to give it a ubiquitous approach and to tie up with the specific environment of each location, making each of these special in their very own sense. Based on discussion with the park management and fans, we have selected a couple of elements that are to be found in the virtual world or in the physical world that are referring to specific elements of the park or iconic elements of gentle rivalry with other parks.

Smart Artificial Intelligence (AI) creates dumb characters with attitude

It is said that the simplest things are the most difficult ones to do: to provide certain Mushies with a bottomless stupidity, we had to rely on sophisticated algorithms to make the reaction as varied as well as unexpected. We have therefore applied Artificial Intelligence technology: the reaction of a Mushie can change based on certain instances (presence of the Mushies, intensity of the action and so on), so the Mushie can act differently and surprise even the most accustomed player. This is a clear example of the next generation gaming capabilities where the ride itself becomes what we could qualify as being “alive”: nothing happens exactly the way it was expected to: another clever way to boost repeatability !