Playing with Magic: Interactive Worlds and Walt Disney Imagineering

thank you all so much for coming out we're going to spend a little bit of time together today talking about how we play with magic and make interactive worlds at well doesn't Imagineering my name is Sarah Thatcher this is Brent strong hello and when I met Imagineering I have worked in R&D so I've done a lot of work in R&D thinking about what are the new experiences that we really want to do but we don't have the technology for how can we build that technology to create that experience and equally how do we there's there's some brand-new cool things out there what do we do with these how do we turn this technology into an experience because ultimately at Imagineering we're an entertainment company so and lately I've been taking all of that work and translating it into our new project as part of the starwars portfolio the Star Wars immersive

multi-day resort experience that is a nurse thank you that's announced for Florida so that's a little bit about what I do as a creative director at Walt Disney Imagineering and hi there I'm Brent strong I'm also a creative director at Walt Disney Imagineering I've been at wdi for about 13 years now and spent most of that time working on new interactive experiences that bring our guests closer to the magic my current project I'm working on a new project down at Disney California Adventure it's an immersive interactive attraction that lets guests feel what it's like to have super heroic powers and we're very excited to bring people into that world as well so quick show of hands how many of you guys have been to one of our parks around the world all right good most of you will know the things that we're talking about then today as that video outlined you know we do have 12 theme parks around the world we have four cruise ships soon to be seven we

also have the aloni Resort and a whole host of Adventures by Disney around the world most people think of theme parks when they think of Imagineering but what most people don't realize is that a dimension earing we're responsible for every aspect of the guests experience from restaurants to shopping to ride shows entertainment spectacular Sh you name it but before we talk about all of that I want to go back in time a little bit I want to talk a little bit about how this all began back in 1952 before we had any theme parks in fact before the concept of a theme park really existed is that where that came from and you know Walter himself it was a filmmaker you know had wonderful programs on television when he set out to figure out what is this idea of a theme park what is this idea of a location based experience what he did is he gathered movie makers around him some of his most trusted animators some of his most trusted storytellers and asked a very important question it was how whose tie is the skinniest you'd think so from the picture it's a really good skinny tie competition but but actually

it was how can we put our guests in the movies right how can we take the stories that they've seen on screen and bring that to life in three dimensions and you know back then they were they were inventing this from scratch since then we have you know 65 plus years of experience doing this and we've learned a couple things along the way and today we're going to talk about a few of these best practices a few of these tips that that we've discovered along the way and spoiler alert a lot of these things that we deal with in theme parks are things that you guys have tackled in game design and game production as well it turns out that these missions are very similar and today we're going to highlight some of those similarities as well as some of the things that are fundamentally different when you take things off the screen and bring them into three dimensions so by way of example sort of talking about how different these mediums can be we're gonna go all the way back to the beginning as waltz and those original Imagineers we're coming up with the original Disneyland they turn

transporation to one of the original movies one of the original animated films Snow White in the Seven Dwarves and they turned that into an attraction now in this attraction they wanted to really immerse you in the film they wanted to bring you into the movie and so they created an experience where you visited some of the most iconic locations from the film you went to the dwarves diamond mine you went to the spooky dungeons you went to the to the forest you saw some of the most iconic characters you met the dwarves that would critters the evil queen and yet when people went on this they were perplexed you saw a lot of things from that film and went through all those iconic scenes but you never saw Snow White there was no Snow White in Snow White and her adventures it said right on the marquee it said her name above the door and then you go on you see all these things but you don't see her so where is she why wasn't she there well our film they are filmmakers said when they were gathered around that table thinking about how do we put guests in the in the movie they said

okay this is an amazing opportunity to give our guests that first-person experience so instead of as you're going through instead of seeing Snow White you're gonna be snow white you're going to the witch is gonna offer you the Apple and it turned out that that was a little confusing cool idea confusing execution so part of the confusion was a first-person experience is just a small part of being in the movie it turns out that Snow White's experience as you're watching her is a lot different than your experience of being in this early dark ride so you are for one thing you are literally on Rails Snow White is you're watching her make choices she's deciding whether or not to go investigate this little sleepy cottage why is it so small who could live there she's deciding whether or not

to take the Apple you are on Rails going through scene by scene you're not making any of those choices so your but your fundamental experience is different than that of Snow White so when you're watching when you're watching something on when you're watching something on TV so you say like a car commercial that car commercial is getting you to imagine what it's like to be behind the wheel of a car that's their that's their whole goal is to within that frame of that proscenium of that TV to get you to imagine yourself immersed in car and as a simple message for a car commercial great but when you start to add when you start to add emotions when you start to add that narrative complexity we don't get to transition directly to the experience of being that first person perspective because what's really happening is we're taking we're

ingesting all of that what's going on on the screen and we are projecting ourselves into that world we're imagining we're imagining what is not just what is snow white doing but what is she thinking what is she feeling what would it feel like if I were there we're empathizing with that world and we're creating it inside of our heads so to put us in the world it doesn't mean making us snow white it means being it's not just the interpretation of you in the movie it's your experience it's your empathy of how we get you in the movie we make that experience authentic from what you view it from the inside out so when we started talking about building an authentic experience from the inside out one of the first things right at the center of that diagram is giving our guests a role right making sure that we are very clear about the role that we're giving you right in that in that original attraction we never told you

that you were gonna be snow white and so of course you expected to see her you did not know who you were and by the way being in camera is not necessarily a role right that doesn't really feel like you're a part of that world moreover it's important that we give you a role that fits it can be really difficult to empathize with a character whose story you already know right Snow White has already made her decisions her story has already unfolded we know how it plays out mine is just beginning so you don't necessarily want to be in the role of a main character and you don't necessarily want to hand somebody a backstory that they don't know relationships with characters that they that they can't identify with goals that don't resonate with them you need to meet guests where they are and give them a role that fits so let's look at an example from opening day to Disneyland that worked out a little bit better which is the Jungle Cruise now in the Jungle Cruise you have a clear role in fact it's right there on the marquee you are a River tourist you are here to experience the the wonders of the jungle you go on a wonderful adventure hosted by a skipper that skipper is interacting with you as a tourist you are playing that role quite

authentically another example here classic attraction is the Haunted Mansion now here you are a guest of the ghosts how do we know that welcome foolish mortals to the Haunted Mansion I am your host your ghost host well we know because the ghosts tell us right the ghost host himself welcomes us as foolish mortals into the haunted mansion we are invited guests and you know we kept building on that we could become passengers on a spaceship in Star Tours where we could blast off to a world far far away and again how do we know that we're passengers on a spaceship the entire queue is set up as an airport right it's set up as a travel departure port where we're going through you know baggage screening and security we're seeing our ship prepped for launch there's even a captain who addresses us and brings us into that world so in all three of these examples we are going to incredibly aspirational places we're meeting aspirational characters but

feels like we can go one step farther yeah so we're doing all we're going to these aspirational places but what if the role that we could play was as aspirational as the place that we're going so in taking this in taking this on we looked at our guardians of the galaxy mission breakout attraction in Disney California Adventure this is you are you start out as a visitor to the collectors collection I know you're saying we just talked about active we just said how can you make that role more active and we're saying you're a visitor so very quickly as you're going through that attraction right there in the queue you're told you're no longer a visitor to the collectors collection you are an accomplice the guardians of the galaxy have been collected by the collector and they're being held and we need to break them out and in fact we need you to break them out so Rocket Raccoon as the brains the operation has

has figured out that he he knows how to do this except he's a raccoon it's a constant it's a recurring problem for him so he recruits you to use your human hands to be able to scan your hands and defeat the security measures so you are a necessary part of getting this to happen so you raise your hand security measures defeated and the end we actually get to break them out so in all of this giving you a role that is to be in order to play a meaningful role I need to know who I am understand my role make it clear it's great if it can be an aspirational one something that I get to and maybe even something that I get to do so we have all that where am I going well you know so as we create our world right as we bring the the worlds of the

film to life now that you have a role we want you to inhabit a living world right when you see Snow White you know in that frame for example she is able to to you know not walk through a static world static worlds are creepy worlds even the Haunted Mansion which is full of dead people moves right you know in horror movies when things are static that's how you know that things are about to get really really scary and so when we bring these worlds to life we want to create living worlds breathing worlds worlds that move and obviously you know Walt and those original Imagineers with a with a background in animation were passionate about that and so you know Walt's at the time was very intrigued by these little mechanical birds he had found a couple of these and actually started a small collection and these birds you know these little mechanical birds held the illusion of life right that same concept that they had in their film animation they were seeing play out in 3d space and this became a trend in imaginary this became a cornerstone for us this idea of audio animatronics and using that illusion of life in three dimensions to bring our

stories to life in new ways and this is just you know a couple brief clips of some of the the highlights that one right there Lincoln's standing up that was sort of a seminal moment in audio animatronics right up until that moment the the animatronics were very stiff very stationary everyone thought that Abe was just going to be sitting there in that chair you know all nice and peaceful and then he goes and he stands upright he becomes more lifelike than anyone had expected him to be and we continue to push the envelope here right this is really key to bringing our worlds to life this is the shaman figure from Pandora the world of Avatar at Disney's Animal Kingdom now this animatronic is incredibly sophisticated it contains over 140 functions in the head alone to bring this character to life and you know really the goal here is to take that same level of fidelity that you see in the movies right where we're special effects animators are able to bring these characters to life with every tool at their disposal we want to give that same tool to our animators in

three dimensions but most of the things we've been talking about here we are an audience to write these these animatronics are putting on a show whether that's the Tiki room whether that's mr. Lincoln even the shaman is you go floating by these are things where we become silent observers for that that's not Snow White's experience at all she's she's in a world where as she moves through it that world reacts to her presence that's how we know that she's in that world and so to do that we started asking the question can can we make that illusion of life responsive can we make that world respond to what you do so going back to the collectors collection as you're going to guardians of the galaxy mission breakout you go through you get to see a little bit of the collection and in that collection there are there are some creatures from around the galaxy including these little Veilleux and these guys actually react to our guests so they're packed with a

bunch of sensors and as guests are going by you can you can they're looking for big gestures they're they're looking for your gestures they're looking for their sounds and just like a creature is taking in information from the world and then reacting to it they do they do that and they have a personality so the idea that well somebody who's making big making big motions and that's a little scary but another viola who's a little more brave is going to and just be really curious so each of them have their own personality and react to you and what's really amazing about that happening is that that role that we gave you earlier as first as a visitor and then as an accomplice it makes you real in the world that if the world changes because of things that you do that world becomes that world becomes more real and you become more real within that world so when you when you

think about it if you if you remove all of the if you remove all of the movement from a world that's actually how horror movies start that's how you know something's wrong it feels dead it feels creepy even the ghosts in the Haunted Mansion move so the the the feeling of a static world feel it feels dead so how do we make it move how do we make and making that responsiveness actually validates the existence of that person in the role that they're playing so as we bring the environment to life we're making that role that you're playing even more deep and meaningful inside of that world so you know we're playing a meaningful role the world is responding to us now we're actually not not feeling like an extra we're beginning to feel like a protagonist in this story and what do you protagonists do well they take action that moves the story forward right and so one of the really important things here is to look for a way that our guests can actually propel the

narrative that that their action can be the impetus for the story continuing now this is something again we're we're here at GDC you guys know all about the importance of players or guests taking action right action is the foundation of play it's the foundation of challenge it's the foundation of so many of these things but it turns out that when you go and try and take play which people already do in their living rooms with their families and bring it into the real world you encounter some challenges and so for example you know when I'm at home with my wife my six-year-old we're playing a board game I will do ridiculous things that I would not do in the supermarket when I am playing online with my friends I will put my avatar into an outfit that I would not feel comfortable wearing here at GDC right there are things that you do that are ridiculous with it you know among friends and in the privacy of your home that you would not do in a public space and so really the question here is how do we encourage guests to play in public the same way that they would play at

home or to put it differently how do we get a normal teenager to wear a silly hat right how do we go about crossing that crossing that divide and it turns out that the answer is something that's familiar to most of you guys in the game design industry which is you make a magic circle right I mean now this term was popularized in game design and essentially you know it's that concept of leaving the real world behind right setting aside the rules of everyday life and reality and substituting them with the reality of a game right with a new context of the game now the Imagineers back in 1952 in 1955 when the park opened wouldn't have been familiar with the term magic circle and yet they built a literal magic circle around the park at Disneyland we actually have a train that encircles the entire park that's elevated so you cannot see the real world from inside of the park we call it the berm and actually at the entrance to this park as you cross through the underneath that train track there's a plaque that explicitly states here you

leave the real world behind and enter a world of fantasy right and so that's actually the trick it turns out that we're not asking you to play in the real world we're giving you an alibi to play in a fantasy world we're creating a fantasy world but it happens to exist in real space and when you do that it gives you permission to play right it gives you permission to act it gives you permission to experiment and to roleplay in a way that you you may not do out in public spaces and yet you will do here at Disneyland and we see this all the time and we've taken advantage of the advantage of this by creating a lot of experiences that allow you to to take a deeper part in the story and really move this story forward so one example of this is agent P's World Showcase adventure that is out in Epcot in Florida now this was actually designed he might be here in the audience is Jonathan actually out there right now he's raising his hand they can't tell but one of our Imagineers here at the conference actually design these games had been

creating adventure games for home platforms for a long time and actually came to Imagineering and created a series of adventure games that play out in physical space and these allow you to explore the environment just like you would in a traditional adventure game but instead of pointsme and clicking you're actually physically moving through the space now in order to understand this video you have to go back to a time when we didn't all carry smartphones in our pocket we actually used to hand out flip phones for this experience so that people could have it but but as you're moving through the park you are receiving missions you you are receiving a treasure hunt scavenger hunts that allow you to find and trigger magic in the environment you interact with physical props you deploy satellite dishes you receive encoded messages you interact with cast members you interact with all sorts of things and it turns out that while the mechanics are very similar to playing an adventure game at home there's something very different that happens when it plays out in the real world we're all very used to having agency in a world of pixels it's very

different to have agency in a world of bricks and mortar right to actually change the physical environment around you if the push of a digital button is still very magical right that phone almost becomes a remote control for the entire part and you're able to find magic right under your nose or in the case of this troll right under his nose right and really make things you know sort of sort of magically appear now we've taken this one step further and last year we launched the play Disney parks app and this is again taking that idea of agency even farther where you are now able to use the entire park as a game board and your phone is able to follow your lead your personal device is able to understand where you are and allow you to to interact with the environments in unique ways depending on the story world that you're within and so if you take your phone to Peter Pan's flight the you know the wonderful Peter Pan adventure you're able to collect pixie dust you're able to find hidden objects and you're able to even make Tinkerbell appear if you bring that over to Space Mountain and you start landing spaceships and preparing for your flight through outer

space and pretty soon here if you bring it to Star Wars Galaxies edge just as you step into that narrative your device steps into that narrative and it can become a Star Wars data pad that is again your gateway to taking action you can join the resistance and go on a mission or you might decide to align yourself with the first order and support their cause so the store in all of these the story unfolds because you take action because you do something because you act the world changes and that's that's a very definition of a protagonist the world your experience of the world that story does not continue unless you do something things don't happen to you things happen because of you and so we took that idea and said alright that's pretty exciting as a park what happens is this park overlay in and in these little pockets of discovery throughout the park how can we extend

that to maybe a classic attraction so as a pilot to try out what does this look like we launched the Haunted Mansion ghost post this was a small pilot to figure out what does it look like for people who really want to be protagonists we didn't let you be a protagonist in that world you've been a visitor a guest of the ghosts how can you if you want to develop a relationship with those ghosts how can you have that and actually help move their story forward so this is a pilot that we did it was and it was really based around this promise that our ghosts have been making for about half a century the a ghost will follow you home at the end of the attraction there's this either promise or or promise or threat depending on your read way how much you like ghosts that a ghost will follow you home and so we said well what if the ghost ability to travel outside of the mansion was in jeopardy they

don't know why what's causing this but they this is an existential crisis if you're a ghost and you can't want people so if you care about ghosts that's gonna be something you want to help solve so we created the serial narrative that arrived in the form of a series of boxes and building on that subscription box model our serial and of each box was a chapter in that story and delivered a set of haunted objects that became as you opened them these aren't just stuff in a box these are props that as you play they become they allow you to unlock parts of the story advance the story and actually help the ghosts restore their ability to haunt so and we're taking those all of those moments of these Imagineering tips and tricks of illusion there are things that reflect it's done with mirrors so we're

using we're using a lot of different Imagineering things to create these reveals just like you're seeing in the park with Agent P and create those reveals at home and allow you to discover those hidden qualities of those objects you're literally revealing the ghostwriting between the lines you're you're literally revealing the ghostwriting between the lines you're creating that story and advancing what how do we solve this problem and to do that we do we do actually use your we use your personal device we use a custom app and combine that with some of these objects to make a phantom radio so the spirit radio can tune into the spectral qualities of all these objects and they actually create radio stations which becomes a radio play that you assemble your own cardboard radio and with without pairing it there's a little

there's an extra bat stanchion knob that you can use to tune in that radio and actually be able to hear the voices of the ghosts talking to you so you're creating this relationship even though they can't travel to you physically or spectrally not sure how that works as a ghost even though they can't travel to you and haunt you at home they are talking to you and talking to you through the problem so when you go back to the park as your because your phone has been part of your journey all along it's been interacting with all of these objects it has your story state it know where you are what progress you've made and when you come back to the park the audio on the attraction actually changed so we so you're no longer just a guest of the ghosts you are you are actually you're special to them you are somebody helping them solve a deep existential crisis so of course they know who you are and recognize you when you come through they're not showing you the ballroom for the first time you're

returning to that ballroom as a friend and eventually that ballroom becomes a celebration for your restoring their ability to travel so in doing all of that building that magic circle to allow people to play together to give them that alibi to feel like they know like they understand and can do all those silly things within that circle of play the ability to have that discovery and move the action along they'd be the protagonist in their story and move the action forward now moving all that action forward that's great that's that's pretty straight forward unless you have some challenges on the lawn along the way right you can't just walk into Mordor you got it you have some challenges it's about this is the basis of the hero's journey and who better and making challenges than game makers that

that loop of try fails succeed you guys know what you guys know what this is this is what games are made of and those games games it turns out are an amazing way to create a hero's journey to create that challenge that makes that makes me feel accomplished that gets me as a protagonist from point A to point B I have to try and fail before I get there and we don't we didn't invent games but we use a lot of mechanics from them in our parks so we have you're driving in Autopia as you as Brent took us through there if you're exploring in adventure games and we have a lot of aiming games where you are where you are you some sort of device to influence things from afar so that I so that idea is actually really helpful we do it and

it's super useful so we end up using it across a variety of attractions we got Buzz Lightyear Astro blasters where you're we have ant-man in the wasp where you're shrinking down to the size of a nanoparticle and taking part in this heroic battle we have Toy Story Mania where you are where you're going through and playing these carnival games that that your friends from the Toy Story movies have set up and in all of these that mechanic of being able to influence things from far away actually is super helpful when you're building an environment the ability to touch things to interface with things up close is really is really exciting there are a bunch of illusions that we can use if we control how close you can get to it and we can make that physical world come to life in a really exciting extraordinary way that you can only do in person but the ability to influence that at the distance really

expands the possibility space so in all of that when you're when you're making console games as a as let's say you're making a triple-a title most of the things there are a bunch of things that you have to consider you're thinking about all your mechanics what is gonna go into the box or how those mechanics link together how they build together first story we're all thinking about the same thing what you're not thinking about is well most of you probably when you're when you're making game you're assuming that if you're making a triple-a game that's gonna take a few hours to play you're there's places where something's gonna need to sit down you don't really think or say that in that's and on the instructions and certainly not in the box you don't you just assume that they already have a place to display that game a way to see what you've made and a way to interact that controller you assume is already there and for the most

part unless you're a launch unless you're a launch title you're assuming that they've actually used that controller before I have some level familiarity with it now when we're making experiences in in our parks when we're making these built experiences all of those things you build you build you build how do I want you how do I want you to be where you're interacting I'm gonna build that if it's a place to sit great if it's not also got to build that I it may not be a screen but something some way to see the results of my actions and that and that way to actually act upon those things do your bill you're actually responsible for building all of those things so you're responsible for it but it also offers up some pretty cool potential yeah so by way of example we'll go back to the Toy Story Mania and so in Toy Story Mania again you can't take anything for granted we had to invent the place to sit right that ride vehicle is a custom

invention for Toy Story Mania it's a wind-up toy that you because you've been shrunk down you're able to be in it's able to move through the environment it's able to spin around it's able to provide a bunch of physical thrill before you know in between rounds of play we also invented the the medium by which you're going to see these things and in the case of Midway mania it's actually a hybrid of physical space and virtual space where you're using a physical controller to interact with a virtual environment but even that controller is something that that we got to invent we had to figure that out and you know while there's disadvantages to having to invent a brand-new interface right you know most of you probably have dozens if not hundreds of hours logged building muscle memory around your preferred system at home this one's gonna be totally novel it also means that we get to design an interface that is custom tailored to the experience so where do we start with something like that well with Midway mania we actually start with a plethora of plywood prototypes trying to figure out the different ways that guests might interact with that virtual world using

this physical controller and as you can see here we tried a whole bunch of different designs right we tried things that had cranks on top almost like a Gatling gun we had big smash pads on top where you physically hit it almost like a high striker we had leverage that you could pull and we each one of these we play tested we brought people in we tried it out and of course what you discover is that the interface and the game are tightly married to one another when you have that sort of Gatling action you go rapid fire you need a vastly higher number of targets on the screen some of these interfaces take away from the feeling that you're a toy having fun at a carnival and start to feel like it's a weapon right start to feel like like it's a more violent thing some of these are easier for kids to use easier for adults to use and each of these need to be taken into consideration no ultimately we decided on the mock-up that you see down there at the bottom it's a pop action shooter and just to call out a couple features here the way that you actually fire this pop action shooter is by pulling a little string on the back right it feels fun it feels playful we spend a lot of time actually

deciding determining what exactly it feels like to pull on that rope and what's great is that the interface presents itself to you and the most possible and most intuitive way possible right in front of you there's a handle to aim it there's a string that you pull the only instructions that you need to play are pull the string to shoot one thing about that though you have to be able to reach the string it turns out that if you know as you are riding Midway mania and adult in the child together what is that comfortable distance for an adult is out of reach for a child and what's a comfortable distance for a child is way too close for an adult and so we actually had to do some engineering to figure out the best way to get that interface into the best urban AMA Kishin and so in this case we actually created a mechanical linkage between the placements of the pop action shooter and the lap bar that you pull down in order to secure yourself into the seat so the smaller you are the closer that that pop action shooter becomes and the farther and the bigger you are the farther away it is making it always very comfortable but that sort of gets into an interesting point right since we're designing means higher environment this interface is just as a little part of it what if the

environment was the interface and this is again an idea that goes all the way back to the beginning of the park with you know experiences like Tom Sawyer's Island which nowadays has been made over into Pirates lair on Tom Sawyer's Island what this is this is a physical space full of challenges for our guests to overcome this is an island that's filled with Criss crossing with a criss crossing network of pathways each pathway with its own unique challenge some are creepy caverns some are you know swinging suspension bridges we have nice buoyant bridge is that go across the lagoon and and each one of these provides you an opportunity to sort of put yourself to the test but of course what's challenging for one person is trivial for another it'd be great if there was some way that you could modulate that challenge and we actually did that in camp discovery which is a new experience out in Shanghai Disneyland this is a set of adventure courses built into the side of this mountain where guests as you can see here actually clip off you're in a one-person ride vehicle it's a harness that you wear that allows you to perform Deafness death-defying stunts while still being totally safe and what's

really cool about this is that at every step along the way every vertigo-inducing step along the way you actually have a choice to make you can decide exactly how much challenge you want so for example if the vertigo is setting in and you're a little bit nervous you can take that path to the left if you want to put yourself a little bit more to the test you can take those swinging barrels and in the center and if you're really feeling brave if you really want to go ahead and test your mettle you can take those swinging logs on the right and as you go through these challenge trails you're you're constantly given new opportunities to challenge yourself so again we know we're preaching to the choir here in terms of talking about the importance of challenge but there is something again just like we were talking about with adventure games there's something very special when you take that that that try fails succeed loop and bring it away from the pixels and into physical space and especially when the interface disappears suddenly that triumph isn't a an abstract triumph it's a personal triumph right it's a social triumph that you are succeeding in real space with people that you know and love and that

makes the moment all that much more special and so again to recap here challenges of the hero's journey right there they're critical to making you feel like you're you're growing and evolving there's immense benefit when you can build the game in the interface together it allows you to dovetail those two things in a way that is more than the sum of either of their parts and when you do it really well the world becomes the interface itself and people are feeling a personal sense of challenge unencumbered by by any sort of interface so you're able so you're able to overcome some challenges you are on your hero's journey I think we're gonna need some friends absolutely so let's make some let's make some friends characters have been at the center of Disney parks experiences for since since the first day and building relationships it turns out it when you're when you see a character on screen you're making that relationship in your mind when you meet them in the real world that character

can see you and you can feel seen by that character which is super powerful being able to meet your heroes is part of our foundation and getting that experience of I can actually I can actually cut Mickey have the tactile moment of friendship so that's super powerful and foundational something something the early Imagineers figured out way early it turns out we actually have a really wide variety of characters and not all of them are as comfortable walking down Main Street as Mickey is so let's say for instance a crush from Finding Nemo and finding dory he's not super comfortable walking down Main Street in fact he's way happier to swim in the ocean so we made a little window to the ocean and actually invite our

guests in to have a conversation with crush as part of the show turtle talk with crush and in this show you are actually just having a conversation crush is a super curious guy and it turns out kids are also pretty curious creatures themselves so they get along really well he can ask them questions they can ask him questions and the end the show evolves based on what everybody is curious about so crust shares a little bit of his life on the reef and that allows you to create this relationship with the character with a little bit of added technology to bring that to life now to extend the work of other characters that are that are really tough to bring to life when we want to bring them off the screen how do we do that we've extended our work in audio-animatronics you saw earlier into autonomy Tronics and what do I mean by that well we have

some characters who also are a little who also want to roll around and move they're less able to they they're less Nikki sighs so how are we going to get them to move around well we wanted we want them to be able to do that autonomously we don't want to have them bolted down to a show or bolted down in a show building and so developing a little bit of extra technology to allow them both to navigate safely but enough to understand their environment so that all of those relationships that ability to respond to somebody when when they're rolling or when he's rolling around out in Tomorrowland he can go by and actually he's because he's aware of the world around him just like all of us he can actually clock that person over there and as he's rolling past make eye contact and maybe even get curious enough to go over of course you may because of that eye contact that's an invitation now for our guests to

interact with him too so all that is really special in ways that we are giving our characters the ability to have a relationship and see our guests so now I want to pull a lot of the things we've been talking about together into one example we have an attraction out in Florida called enchanted tales with Belle this is at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World that really employs a lot of the tactics that we've been talking about so far to create that deep relationship with the character we're gonna cast you in a role we're gonna let you overcome some challenges of course we're gonna be using some technology along the way and in this experience you're actually coming to help Belle celebrate the anniversary with the Beast and as such we're actually gonna be helping to retell the story of the day that she met the beast and and again like I said put a lot of these tactics into play so for example the first room that you move into is not only inhabited it's not only a moving living world but it's a world where you actually get

explicitly cast a role you get to determine what part in that story you want to play you can be everything from a suit of armor to enchanted dishware to the beasts themselves and you can see the kid wearing the red cape usually the most adorable kid in the crowd but honestly it works with everybody you know gets to be the Beast in this retelling of the story we move into another room where we have our director Lumiere who is again is another enchanted object come to life that's able to to choreograph some of this action and help help us put on this production and then of course the star of the show herself Bell and Bell leads all of these kids in this interaction where we all become a part of the retelling of this story and we were talking a moment ago about challenges overcoming challenges and we talked about games but you know performance as a form of challenge too right and this is sort of a uniquely social form of challenge right that for a lot of these people this is probably our first time really getting up and performing in front of other people right but but doing that is an act of bravery right

it's an act of connection you're helping create a special moment for battle and so when Belle is able to hug you at the end of that experience you've earned that hug right you have you have not just met her you you have actually helped her you have warmed her heart and and she can recognize you not just as a friend but but as someone who has collaborated with her and is a deep meaningful friend and so again you know we've known this room from day one there's power in connection and connection really comes from not only seeing that character but being seen and being recognized by that character and when you combine it with all the things that we've talked about before there's incredible power when you feel like you've earned that connection and really really made that friend in a new way now or we get into we've made all we've made all these friends we've combined all of these things and really one of the amazing opportunities in building building the world building the

world from scratch means that we can go after those aspirational moments those moments that are I see on screen and I go I want that that thing I want that then we were going back to going back to the car commercial of your your you're having the moment of that just looks like it would feel amazing and it's that feel amazing that we're going after so how do we bring that magic to life we're engaging all of the senses to make that magic real to make it feel amazing and that feeling of flight those aspirational feelings so it's about sensation it's about haptics it's about touch it's about how do I the thing that I saw on screen that looks cool how does it feel now this section I'm gonna warn you when you're talking about all the senses keynote actually is a really a

slide talk is a really hard thing to do to communicate all the senses so you're gonna have to use a little bit more imagination for this section of the talk well as we go through because we haven't invented the scratch-and-sniff slide deck yet not yet working on it so so I'm also in Peter Pan this is an opening day attraction and we're starting to get into this we're using a little bit of force perspective to give you that sensation of flying over London and in fact that perspective that we have of flying over it if you're seeing it underneath you that's part of what flaunt that's part of the aspirational experience of flying the non aspirational experience of flying of I'm in a metal tube I'm looking out the window and seeing the clouds pass by I am a passenger if I am flying I am looking down I have things I have the world spreading out underneath me and so

we continue that into soaring around the world in which you are which are gliding through all of these epic locations around the world and you're literally lifting your feet off the ground your feet are dangling and we've added movement to this so we're lifting you up and pushing you into and moving with those images as that scene unfolds around you you're crossing on top of Everest and flying you feel the you feel wind in your hair the the sway of the wind as it catches you as you think around and you smell the the ocean the orange groves my personal favorite as you're as you're flying through we activate all of your senses and taking that activation one step further in Avatar flight of passage in Pandora which we opened as part of Disney's

Animal Kingdom and Florida you are able to mount what and ride on one of those on one of those banshees so these are those dragons from the Avatar films kind of dragony creatures they can fly they're super cantankerous you got to earn it and you're creating a relationship with this thing so you we take all of all of what's working well and Sauron you're we're taking that motion we're moving you with the we're moving you with this image we're put it we're wrapping that image around you as you're as you're flying through bringing it into three dimensions and we're also activating your senses so you are feeling that you you're feeling that Seabreeze but you're also feeling that vant Banshee breathe underneath you because it's not just you flying you're flying with your new friend the Banshee now we have some other aspirational things that we're about to open Star

Wars Galaxies edge which I have been waiting to step into the world that world that I've seen on screen since I was a small child and so it's it's what could be more aspirational we can get to drink some blue milk step into that world smell the smells see all the sights and it's gonna be very exciting and what more aspirational thing in there when we talk about flying but flying the Millennium Falcon so you are going to get to step into the cockpit and [Music] [Music] just a little too user so in all of this when you go when you step into that cockpit you have been given a very clear

role you are the new millennium falcon pilot and with that role you are at your brew are engaging the whole environment that environment is actually responding to what you do those lights blink that hyperspace lever goes you are overcoming your overcoming a bunch of challenges and moving the action forward as you're going through so you are you the reason why you go to light speed is because you pull that lever you're you're in charge of hitting those buttons targeting those Tie Fighters and making sure that you get through that you move that action forward and you're and you're building relationships along the way depending on how what Pete what shape you get that Millennium Falcon back that's that's going to that's going to matter as well and so your your friends might your friends might respond a little differently depending on how you how you handled yourself as a pilot and all of

this bring together the the wish and the dream of being able to fly the Millennium Falcon so we've sort of done exactly what we're saying we're building this experience from the inside out right starting with that roll putting you in the world and and really figuring out how we put you in the movie right and these are all wonderful tips and sort of techniques that we've figured out along the way to put you in the movie but it turns out that there's one additional wrinkle it's not just about putting you in the movie it's about putting all of you in the movie together right these are family experiences these are these are experiences that you want to share with your loved ones with your friends it turns out that people don't just come to the park for the attractions they come to the parks to be together right they come to the parts to connect with people that they love when you're exploring a fantasy world a place that you've never seen before it levels the playing field between adults and children and you're able to experience all together when you wear a silly hat it's not just a fashion choice it is

that alibi to play it is that opportunity adults to to engage with their children in a way that that they may not even do in their own living rooms when you overcome challenges together when you share a meal together when you play together what we're doing is we're creating indelible memories right we're creating experiences that people are gonna carry with them for the rest of their life and that's that's tremendously impactful it's powerful that these places and that these experiences can actually bring people together and and that power is one of the reasons that I come to work every day is is that is that ability through these experiences that power to bring people together and with great power comes great responsibility because we have the responsibility to build that world and that's really why we're here today because what we what we have discovered over the over the last 65 years of try of figuring out how do we put you in the movie is that it takes more than just some filmmakers to put

guests in the movie you need more than movie makers you need whole range of skills and those skills are bringing those bringing that world into in two dimensions bringing that world to life you need to roboticists and and and those same powers of animation that bring animated worlds on screen those characters live with that power of animation you need storytellers who understand how to build a space for the guests inside of that world that they have that storytellers who build that story around our our new protagonists the guests how to bring the how to create those special effects and illusions and you you maybe need some people who are willing to move mountains or even build them if necessary you need to and being able to bring those to life to activate those surfaces and use them

to tell a infinite variety of responsive stories and of course the people to take it together into the field and as you've probably noticed a lot of these things have to do with games and the things that the these that make games so evocative and keep us playing are also the qualities that keep that make our guest experience possible that make you the protagonist in the world that keep you that keep the world responding to you give you challenges and ultimately turn into that wish fulfillment so thank you all for joining us thank you [Applause] so we have we have a little bit of time in this room for for four questions

we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and take a couple of questions a couple questions now and we'll hang out afterwards we went we went almost almost the time so we'll just take a couple questions but we'll hang out and if you need to find us we'll be we can be found over on the Overlook as well cool thanks for the talk really appreciate it okay there's a lot of really fantastic examples of people having individual agency as they're interacting with the park and you're in a unique position to have like multiple physical people in the same space so I'm curious I'm glad that you mentioned bringing them together and showed the example of the Beauty and the Beast how does having multiple people in a space shape the way that you think about cooperative gameplay and like what are the challenges and considerations that you have to balance between having like emergent behavior and emergent gameplay with kind of making sure that experiences are contained yeah that's

that's a great question I mean talking about how we use cooperative gameplay I mean that is really at the core of everything that we're doing is that idea of coop right we recognize that almost nobody comes to the park alone you're there with your friends you're there with your loved ones and yes you are surrounded by lots of other people and so we always look for experiences that that you know while there might still be some elements of competition that there's also some elements of teamwork writing and going back to two choice Romania as an example you know the best way to get the high score on that I'm gonna give a little tip to everyone in the audience is not to compete with your friend but to actually work with your friend there are tons of Easter eggs and hidden targets inside of that experience that can only be unlocked if two of you are working together hitting targets simultaneously you know using your powers combined in order to reveal extra magic and that's sort of how we sort of get that idea even in that very competitive head-to-head experience a little bit that co-op petition and as you mentioned we're always looking for a way to to embrace the fact that there's

a crowd of people and to give you an opportunity to the stage and to be at the center of the action my question is okay sure okay I attended a bunch of awesome talks this week about designing for colorblindness adaptive controllers subtitles and I'm curious what the Disney Imagineering approach is when it comes to designing for all of the senses to make sure that anyone who goes to the theme parks or has any Disney experience is able to have a good time as well absolutely accessibility and these these experiences are for everyone we have an incredibly broad audience so in all the you saw the the control the development of that control that Midway mania we look towards certainly colorblind but also the ability to you don't to assume the ability to grip we want to reach a

widest possible audience so you can use that controller with you don't have to use opposable thumbs to use that controller you can so we have a set of guidelines we work with a ton of folks who are really very talented at looking at accessibility across a variety of categories and it means inventing what that accessible thing is for each experience how do you how do you create that experience that when you are engaging the senses that can communicate to that wide audience and it's really a case-by-case basis but it's something we think about all the time yeah and actually one of the interesting things about that is that the process of designing to engage all the senses in and of itself makes the experience more accessible right I mean you you may not be able to see the visuals on the screen but that doesn't prevent you from feeling the motion from feeling the breeze from smelling the smells that's in still be an adventure even if you don't see the visuals and likewise you may not be able to hear it but there's a lot to see there's a lot to feel and so

so a lot of times you know yes we are taking into account every time we design an interface how to make that interface available to everybody but but part of that is just designing multi-sensory experiences to begin with thank you thank you my question is around personalization at scale I did a one of the beta tests of an immersive experience at Walt Disney resorts a couple years ago with my sister and it was one of my favorites but obviously that takes away time from other people right so how do you balance having these extremely personalized experiences or even smaller you know seating arrangements so that people can feel more intimate and more like they're actually writing the Millennium Falcon first is getting a lot of people through experience in a day that that is something we in terms of that game design loop of I want to try fail succeed having that having the responsiveness and balancing that with the scale of how many people we're entertaining we have a lot of weight we have a lot of ways to

go after that one of the ones that we mentioned in the one of the ones that we mentioned the talk we talked about ghost post that actually allows you to continue that story at home your and keeping that story to the having different levels of interactions so for Parks play app you're getting everything is very responsive and using the environment strategically to pay off for those larger payoffs so that we can do that do that at scale and handle the amount of people who want to play and interact like ghost post as that has a wonderful version of that too which is context right the fact that when you play ghost post you're still writing the same haunted mansion as everyone else but because you have this deeper connection because you have this this insight into the world you see different details in that environment than other people do I mean what you talk about is definitely a challenge that we can currently have a whole bag of tricks to do it but one of those is definitely thinking about how do we extend the time

how do we deliver personalized messages the personal devices and things like the the parks play app all of these are techniques to sort of give each of us our own unique experience within this shared environment Hey when approaching the process and the problems that you talked about today how do you maintain the perspective and lens through which a kid sees the world a lot of us all of us lose as we go older like how do you know the experiences are going to be received as intended by a kid so this is in the in the prospective setting of literally understanding what you kids see out of this experience a I have been an Imagineering about a third of the time that Brent has and so had the experience of never had the experience of the parks as a child a colleague said all right we're gonna judge this we're gonna put you on a Rollie chair and you're going to roll through this and look at what does somebody who is waist high what do

they understand in this world and so seeing well sometimes you see a lot of crowds of legs so making this bring those details down to extending them all the way down to the floor understanding what that what that experience is like I like to borrow as many many family as many families and friends that I can and go to the park with them to be able to understand what is their what is their experience of going to the parks so that that empathy as a designer you know is is really important and it is it is all too easy to lose lose track of this is this is the experience for me you have to play in the we play test constantly to better understand our test our assumptions about what do you what do you understand what do you know how do you interact and try to look at it through the eyes of our guests in all

their variety hello-o in the case of a lot of my favorite games I had to lose a lot before I could win do you think it's possible to have a satisfying theme park attraction that actually ends in loss or failure yeah well you know yes but I think that that is defined differently right I mean I think that we always want you to have a good time right I mean the reason that you kept playing that game is not just because it was challenging but because the challenge was a fun challenge right and I think that you know within the context of our parks we need to account for guests who are gonna be able to ride that ride hundreds of times as well as people for whom that experience might be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and so we're always looking at how do we make sure that it's fun the first time you play it and how do we make sure that it's still fun the hundredth time you've gone through it and so a lot of the times we look at sort of variable

success more than digital decisions of failure and success you know an example going back to - Toy Story Mania is you know we have a high striker board that this one gives you your score at the end and and lets you know how well you did no matter what you get to shoot confetti out of that cannon at the end it is a celebration of however well you did but you also get sort of a metric of how well you did in the grand scheme of things and you know I'll give a slightly humbling example there I was part of the design team on on mania and I rode that ride hundreds of times before it opened it was a tough job and and you know me and the other designers had a little bit of our running competition going on I think my personal high score that I ever got was about 380,000 points which we thought was I thought was pretty dang good we opened up and within a couple months of opening we had annual pass holders who had already crossed the 500 thousand mark and so you know that no matter how deep you make it people will go deeper but it but it still needs to be fun that first time through and that's always what were what we're trying to balance thank you