TSMM: Girls and Their Toys (and Kevin!)
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�Our biggest challenge was creating games that would work for a variety of skill levels like three year olds who we discovered could shoot but not aim, grandfathers who have probably never played video games and teenagers who have nearly unlimited access to gaming platforms on devices as varied as cell phones and Playstation 3s,� Sue outlines. �That meant that the games had to be rich enough and appropriate for guests of all ages and abilities. People tend to adopt different strategies and we needed to make sure that the games handled that. During the play-tests we observed that some guests will just continuously tug on the string and go for as many projectiles as possible whilst others will show more restraint and target those smaller special targets that have high value.�
As Sue explains the play-tests are essential research and development for any interactive attraction and Toy Story Midway Mania! is no different. �The creative team came up with some high concepts for the games and we had to sit down to work out what are the rules of this world and what would actually work. We had to understand how the Toy Story characters are there and how are we going to interact with them,� Sue says. �I�m sure everyone would think nothing more about it but one of the key elements was how the shooter was going to operate. For Buzz you have a laser gun with a traditional trigger but we wanted something different for Midway Mania! We went through many iterations including a Gatling gun-style device before we decided that a simple pull-string for a release mechanism would enable guests to shoot targets as quickly as possible which makes the projectiles almost limitless in quantity for those guests that just want to shoot as often as conceivably possible.�
One of the obstacles that Sue�s team had to overcome that do not hinder traditional console or arcade games are the rules of engagement. The game team were given a brief window which to educate guests about how to play the game before being dispatched to the remaining midway booths. �It was essential to ensure that guests did not have to spend a long time figuring out what to do,� Sue tells Tales. �The rules behind midway games are usually pretty obvious � walk up and throw something at a target � we could leverage that but as our experience is virtual and every game involves a different projectile we needed to make sure that guests understood what to do as soon as their tram pulled up to a new booth. We could rely on that simple paradigm- just aim and shoot � but we also had to make sure that everyone could hit something whilst traditional midway games are rigged against the player. So we built a series of different sized targets to help us achieve the level of complexity required to be able to make the game-play entertaining enough for a range of players from novice to pro.�
During the play-test there were two sensations that quickly astounded me � the first being the close proximity of the projectile to your spring-action shooter (it really does look like it is appears at velocity from the barrel of your shooter) and secondly the impact of physics on the computer-generated objects � the tossed ring flies through the virtual air as you would expect and in a manner completely different to a heavier projectile like a baseball. When I mentioned this to Sue during the interview she became highly animated herself. �We wanted to ensure that everything was built as it would be in the real world so we had to understand the physics of all of the rendered objects. We spent hours talking about things like �if this were a toy how would you build it?� as we wanted to replicated it exactly in the virtual world,� Sue excitedly conveys. �Everything has the look and feel of how it would be made in the real world irrespective of whether it would only be plastic or Bristol board. We had to bring the rules of our physical world into the software programming to create virtual rules so when the baseball hits the flat on the side of the booth it caused the flat to reverberate. It is the same when the plates wobble as a projectile passes by and when one of the tossed rings lands on a surface it tends to gyrate in a circle before coming to a rest. Every projectile moves through the air at different speeds with different trajectories and arcs of movement and that makes the game-play exciting as guests need to adjust their strategy for every game. Initially we did try to play around with gravity for the games but ultimately gravity wants to be normal and those parameters had to influence how all of our computer-generated objects behaved inside the game.�
Season overlays have become part of the holiday traditions at the Disneyland Resort ever since Steven Davison conceived it�s a small world holiday in �97. However the disadvantage to any physical transformation is the closures required to redress and then subsequently remove the decoration which can render the attraction shuttered for several weeks either side of the overlay. However Toy Story Midway Mania! offers a unique solution to that problem. �When we talked about the possibilities that the game play offered us we all got very excited,� Chrissie relays. �All of the magic is created by the computer and we can literally reprogram the attraction overnight. We have already spent hours talking about concepts like holiday games where we could replace baseballs with snowballs. This attraction could easily be brought into the seasonal holiday experiences that are already offered at the Disneyland Resort.� �The appealing advantage to this attraction is the flexibility it offers it terms of reprogramming,� Sue continues. �In theory we can absolutely do it. At present we have no plans to make changes but there is no reason why we couldn�t revisit the concept next year.�
Randy Newman and Pixar has been a critically and commercially successful partnership since their first outing with Toy Story (Newman picked up his only Academy Award for If I Didn�t Have You from Monsters, Inc. but he has won numerous Grammy Awards for his score and songs for subsequent Pixar movies). WDI called upon the services of frequent Newman collaborator Bruno Coon for the arrangement and orchestration of the Toy Story Midway Mania! soundtrack. �Bruno took the theme song from the first movie You�ve Got A Friend In Me and arranged the orchestration to capture the flavor of each of the games,� Kevin reveals. �So for the Hamm �n� Eggs booth you can hear an upbeat banjo arrangement whilst there is a military brass band version for the Green Army Men Shoot Camp. We just finished scoring the attraction and it is amazing how the music underscores the experience emotionally.�
Visitors to Disney�s Hollywood Studios will be able to experience the attraction from May 30, 2008 whilst the west coast version will debut in June.
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-- Posted May 23, 2008