Beyond Blue Sky: In Search of the Perfect Disneyland Video Game

Disneyland was designed and constructed as something like a movie brought to life in three dimensions, so that you could walk through it and experience it as your own story. The ground at the entrance resembled a red carpet (at first), emerging from the entry tunnel is like a curtain lifting and revealing the scene, the Main Street windows feature “credits,” etc. But while a theme park can include a lot of movie-like content, visiting one can never really be comparable to watching a film. The audience of a film is entirely passive; the story on the screen unfolds as it will no matter how the viewers feel about it, or even whether they are paying attention. Outside of a few avant-garde experiments, there is nothing interactive about a movie.

But theme parks are inherently interactive. Even if you just wander around and don't actively engage with the attractions, you still choose where and how you wander, plotting the “story” in the process.

My point, I suppose, is that the reason Walt Disney and the Imagineers thought of the Disneyland concept as a living movie is that video games hadn't been invented yet. Exploring even the most cinematic theme park is a lot more like playing a sandbox-style video game than it is like watching a movie.

Think about it. You start the game/enter the park and get your overworld map. If you need “quests,” you can talk to an NPC (park employee) and find out what is available to do (attractions) and the difficulty of succeeding (wait times). At Disneyland itself, most of the area themes have ready counterparts in many games, especially classic platformers—you can visit the jungle level (Adventureland), the desert level (Frontierland), the outer space level (Tomorrowland), and the zany level (Mickey's Toontown). Most “levels” have atmospheric music playing non-stop. There's even a “final battle” at the end, although in this case, instead of an evil overlord, you're fighting human foot traffic.

Given all that, wouldn't it be cool if there were a Disneyland video game? Well...there have been some. A half-dozen or so—not bad for something that is usually seen as an adaptation of works of media, rather than a work of media in its own right that can be adapted. (Although I should note that only one of these games actually takes place in Disneyland itself. Likewise, only one of them takes place in Orlando's Magic Kingdom. The rest of the time, the game's designers meld the two parks together into a genericized “Magic Kingdom”¹ containing salient features of both.) Perhaps the most interesting thing about them is how different they all are. To the best of my knowledge, none of them was ever an overwhelming success...perhaps Disney Interactive is still searching for the perfect template for the perfect theme park-based game.

That's okay. So am I.

You see, none of the Disney theme park games that have been released to date quite do it for me. Licensed games are tricky to begin with, and the era of abundant home consoles began right about the time Disney seemed to start having trouble figuring out what to do with their parks beyond “We have movies you like!” And as is so often the case with situations like this, we mustn't discount the possibility that I'm just picky.

On the other hand, most of the games that exist so far have something to recommend them. Maybe the ideal Disneyland game would be a composite of the best features of its predecessors.

Yes, the ideas are starting to flow...

The Minigame Variety of: Disney's Adventures in the Magic Kingdom

In the first Disney park game ever published (for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990), you played a boy in a cowboy hat tasked with collecting keys so Mickey Mouse could open the castle to start the parade, or something. It was a paper-thin premise even for the NES era, but nobody played video games back then for the story. It was all about the novelty of the medium, and the nerve-wracking difficulty of completing a typical console game. Anyway, the game had you win the keys by playing through various minigames characterized as park rides. The genre of play was matched to the ride in question—Pirates of the Caribbean and the Haunted Mansion were platformers, Space Mountain was more-or-less a rail shooter, the Autopia (or as it's called in Orlando, Tomorrowland Speedway) was a racing game, and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was a maze (with the added challenge that you couldn't reverse or stop). And in the overworld, random people asked you Disney trivia questions. And that was it. You could play the minigames in any order, memorization and reflexes were king, and your victory was perfunctory as hell. Ah, 8-bit!

Nonetheless, the notion of the walkway areas of Disneyland as “overworld” and the rides as minigames is comfortably obvious, and the use of different play genres in said minigames is a good way to simulate the variety of experiences to be had in the park. Even the trivia questions add a little meat, although in the interest of making the game more self-contained, I would make it possible to learn the correct answers in-game.

The Explorability of: Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour

Eventually, these titles get less cumbersome, I promise.

After a decade of “Move correctly, do not die” being the last word in Disney theme park video game strategy, we got something substantially more...substantial. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour was released in 2000 for the Sony PlayStation and other consoles. This, as its title suggests, was a bona-fide racing game, with Walt Disney World ride tracks re-imagined as racetracks. It was definitely cute, and the tracks used not only the iconic imagery of the attractions in question, but their actual soundtrack recordings.

On the other hand, the racer characters themselves were nothing to write home about. The most prominent were Chip and Dale, depicted for some reason as their incarnations from the late Eighties cartoon series Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. The rest were third-string players from other shows in the already long-defunct Disney Afternoon lineup, or else weird-looking Toons invented specifically for the game. Actually, the racers seemed to be practically the only living things in the parks, bringing across this weird “private party” vibe...as if Mickey pulled some strings and rented Walt Disney World for a day so some friends of friends of friends could play go-karts on the ride tracks. And now that I've thought that, I can't seem to get rid of the idea.

So what's this about explorability? No, your racer couldn't get out of their kart and walk around. Actually, at first glance it didn't seem explorable at all—not only did you have to win races in order to unlock all the tracks, but the AI was fiendishly overpowered, making those wins all but impossible without a buttload of practice. Fortunately, you could obtain all the practice you wanted in a pressure-free Practice Mode, wherein you could drive any track solo and get used to its layout before matching yourself against other racers. Of course, you didn't have to practice racing per se; you could, if you wanted, mosey your kart around the track and take in the scenery.

And that's pretty nifty. One downside of the strict “rides as minigames” model is that it leaves out people who might want to just wander through the haunted house or fairy glen or abandoned gold mine without the expectation that they're there to score points. Granted, you can't really do the equivalent of this when you're actually at Disneyland (and for excellent reasons), but what's the point of adapting a work of storytelling into another medium if you're not going to take advantage of the strengths of the new medium? In a video game, you can't damage the scenery (or vice-versa) unless it's programmed that way. You could very easily make it so that each attraction exists in two modes, one triggering the minigame and the other only loading the maps.

A Whole Bunch of Goodies from: Virtual Magic Kingdom

Ah, VMK. V-M-effing-K. This MMORPG (of sorts) was rolled out in 2005 to promote Disneyland's 50^th anniversary celebration, and as such is the first Disney theme park game to be primarily about Disneyland, even if some of its details were drawn from the Orlando end of things.

It's also the first one of these I actually got to play while it was still new. It was far from perfect (so very very far), but it also had a lot going on that I really liked:

• Customizable “guest rooms.” Upon signing up, you got to choose a “room” resembling a themed environment such as might be found at Disneyland (my first was Captain Nemo's submarine), and a large part of the game revolved around collecting furniture and decorations to arrange in the room. Some items were purchasable with the in-game currency,² others could be redeemed via codes acquired from minigames—including some played live at Disney parks!--and failing that, you could trade items with other players. Eventually, room furnishings included pieces of ride track so you could functionally build your own Disney rides.

I can say, with no exaggeration, that if I could have just one item on my Disneyland video game wishlist, this would be it. I would pay actual money to play a game that was about designing and decorating themed spaces pretty much just as it was in VMK...only without the ridiculous hoops you had to jump through to get certain items. DLC and microtransactions are one thing—creators of new content gotta eat—but chronic artificial scarcity is something else entirely.

• Socialization. I'll admit that I'm not the most extroverted of people, and I definitely have not gotten the hang of this “social media” that's all the rage with the kids and their Googles these days, but I do a lot better when I have something to talk about with people, something that excites me. And if we're all in an online game based on Disneyland, then it's pretty much guaranteed that we have that. And it makes the game seem more like the real thing—as much as the crowds might be a nuisance, they are fundamental to the experience of visiting Disneyland. It doesn't quite feel real if it's too empty.
• Helpful NPCs. One issue I have with several Disney park games is that the in-park characters are usually bad guys. It's as if the designers think “Pirates and ghosts and Yetis are obviously going to be out to get you!” But I've never seen it that way. When we go to Disneyland, we're entering their world without so much as a by-your-leave; if they're a bit miffed about it, that hardly makes them villains. In VMK, not only were the park characters not pissed at you, they were actually on your side. They doled out credits on a daily basis and sometimes gave tips for things to do in the game.

So why wasn't VMK the perfect Disneyland game? Well...for one thing, Disney didn't know who their real market for it was. They targeted grade-school children, but the game proved much more popular with teens and adults...who then found themselves frustrated by security features that assumed they were naïve and vulnerable to predation. And too often, Disney allowed these features to substitute for, rather than supplement, proper moderation, which meant that many genuine problems went unaddressed. And then, after only three years, they pulled the plug on the game. All those hours grinding for credits, wasted.

So imagine my delighted surprise when I discovered recently that VMK is back! It's actually been back since late in 2013 under the alias of MyVMK, thanks to the efforts of a persistent and talented fan. And it's...pretty much just as I remember it. Only since it's now being run by fans with a very clear idea of who the players are, instead of marketing drones convinced that their product is only of interest to children, a lot of the most annoying facets of the original have been changed for the better. It still isn't perfect, but it comes closer to my ideal Disneyland video game than anything else so far.

What would bring it closer still? Well...

The Overall Tone and Story Structure of: Epic Mickey

Am I cheating by including this game? After all, it doesn't purport to take place in a Disney theme park at all, but rather in the “Cartoon Wasteland,” a pocket dimension where forgotten Disney creations reside. But the premise of the game is that one such creation, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, envied his younger brother Mickey Mouse's fame and beloved status and so molded the Wasteland into something resembling a dark reflection of a Magic Kingdom-style park—Main Street becomes Mean Street, the “it's a small world” Clock Tower is a boss you have to fight, etc. Therefore, for the purposes of this exercise, it counts.
Getting back to VMK for a moment, one of the things that remains sub-optimal about it in my book is that, while technically fitting the profile of an MMORPG, it's a far cry from something like World of Warcraft. There is no peril, no enemies to fight. The quests are more like scavenger hunts—no real stakes involved. You can acquire “magic spells,” but all they do is apply temporary cosmetic effects to your sprite. There are no character levels or experience points or skill trees. Come as you are and stay that way! I won't deny that this has a certain democratizing effect, as no one is more effective than anyone else at playing merely by virtue of having been in the game longer,³ but at the same time, that makes it a little too much like the real Disneyland, where the quality of your experience has more to do with luck and timing than with your personal physical or mental abilities.

Now, I know I said a few paragraphs ago that the social factor in VMK improves the game by making it more like the real Disneyland than any offline game could be...but I also said, earlier still, that there's not much point in adapting any work of art into another medium if you're not going to take advantage of the strengths of the new medium. You could make a film adaptation of a book that was exactly like the book to the point of taking the form of pointing the camera at the pages of the book itself while an offscreen narrator reads them aloud...but who would want to watch it? And you could likewise make a video game version of Disneyland that was exactly like the real Disneyland to the point of not being, in fact, very gamelike, but why would you?

And this is my blog, where I talk about what I find cool about Disneyland, and one of the things I find cool about it is the way it makes me feel like I'm having an adventure! A whole slew of adventures! I will need all my skills and wits to survive the jungle, to unravel the mystery of the haunted pirate caverns, to defeat the Evil Queen, to pilot my spaceship to safety! These sorts of experiences were made for conversion into video game form, where the adventure can be not just suggested but real, even if only digital. And that more than anything else is where most of the existing Disney theme park games fail in my eyes. They're not ambitious enough in transforming the park themes into exciting worlds to play in.

I realize now that I'm over 500 words into the section of this blog article dedicated to Epic Mickey, and I've barely talked about Epic Mickey at all. So here it is: Warren Spector, the brain behind this game and its sequel,⁴ gets it. He understands that the real value of going to Disneyland isn't just seeing Disney characters in person, like they were Hollywood celebrities, but entering their worlds and sharing their adventures...as well as having adventures of your own that have nothing to do with familiar film faces. Epic Mickey is an action-adventure game. Mickey isn't collecting tokens or comparing sofa layouts—he's protecting an entire world from horrific evil. In some respects that world is a mere shadow of the one he knows, but it and its inhabitants are still worth saving. (And isn't that a familiar sentiment for long-term Disneyland fans?)

I want more of that, but with the “Cartoon Wasteland” pretense stripped away. I want a Disneyland video game where the premise is that the Villains are running amuck, taking control of the park and twisting it into something benighted and foul, where the job of the player is to restore it to its proper condition. Touching on a point in the previous section...yes, make enemies out of pirates and ghosts and aliens, but make it clear that they're behaving this way because they're under Villain control.

Bonus points if the Villains are in turn being controlled by something even bigger and meaner...

Or something alone those lines.

Ahem.

And finally...

The Visual Accuracy of: Kinect Disneyland Adventures

This 2011 X-Box One game is—to my knowledge—the one-and-only video game that overtly and unambiguously takes place in Disneyland Park, Anaheim, California. It says so right in the title, but it wouldn't have to, because this game...this game...this freaking game...

Look at these screenshots! Look at them!

It's like someone with an eidetic memory spent a week just walking around in the park and then hooked their brain up to a rendering engine! There are no coy hints here, no hedging of bets in order to make the game “relevant” to Disney fans on both coasts. Kinect Disneyland Adventures is a spot-on recreation of the Disneyland, the original, the one Walt Disney personally conceived, birthed (with the help of a tremendous team of midwives, of course), and nurtured through its childhood.

At least the overworld is. The programmers have taken a great deal of liberty with the rides/minigames, but that's a necessity. Exploring a game overworld is directly analogous to exploring a physical space, but playing a minigame is not—usually⁵—directly analogous to riding a theme park ride. For one thing, any properly adventurous minigame is going to require more virtual space than an accurately represented ride layout can accommodate. So in that sense the minigame is never really going to be the ride in any meaningful sense—instead it's going to be a sub-adventure based on the ride but functionally taking place...somewhere else. A pocket dimension, as it were, with the portal overlapping the entrance to the attraction.

Now, where have I encountered that idea before...?

Kinect Disneyland Adventures seems to be operating on this exact principle, and where a lesser game would simply load up the minigame sequence and cut to it when your character entered the attraction footprint, this one literally puts an animated graphic of a portal in the queue:

Those of you who read my other blog will be approximately 0% surprised to learn that I am all for this gimmick.

Another way in which Kinect Disneyland Adventures creatively plays with accuracy is in its portrayal of Disney characters. There are plenty of them around for you to meet and talk to and receive tasks from, just like in the real park (well...maybe not the tasks), but they don't look like the costumed characters you see in Disneyland. Instead, they look like their animated selves...but in many cases scaled up in order to conveniently interact with your sprite. If the Partners statue in the Plaza Hub is any indication, the “real”⁶ Mickey is about three feet tall:

But the costumed character has to contain a live adult human, and there are known safety issues with casting a little person in a role where they will be mobbed by thousands of children (and regular-sized adults!) every day. Not to mention there just aren't that many little people seeking this kind of work. So the Mickey you meet in the park is around five-and-a-half feet:

The Kinect version about splits the difference while maintaining the proportions of the animated version:

Other characters appearing in the game likewise resemble their animated selves more than the costumed versions. And of course, all of them can talk. Perhaps more importantly, while most of the characters to make appearances are highly marketable ones like the Fab Five and Princesses, the game also includes several that are there for their connection to rides and themed environments rather than DVD and toy sales:

All this does much to paint Disneyland as the hub of a shared Disney universe and the characters' true home. Which is how most of us fans see it, I think.

Putting It All Together

So, given everything above, if I could wiggle my fingers and wish my ideal Disneyland-based video game into existence, what would it be like? Something like this...

You are a Disneyland Cast Member, fresh from training at Disney University and already seeing it as so much more than a paycheck. The park has barely opened for the day when the Disney Villains launch a coordinated attack and take control! Some heroic characters are captured, others are driven into hiding, and still others—particularly the rank-and-file populating the major attraction worlds—fall under the Villains' influence. Most of the guests flee, but a few are trapped inside as a magical miasma spreads, transforming the Happiest Place on Earth into a place of evil!

And you?

You're the one who's going to stop them.

In the initial scuffle, all the magic flying around “activated” your Cast Member role, giving you powers of your own! Are you a Jungle Cruise skipper? Now your pistol is loaded with “magic bullets” that only harm evil, and you can summon wild animals by making jokes about them! Were you expecting to spend your day dispatching bobsleds at the Matterhorn? You've instantly become an expert mountain-climber and are immune to the cold! Even if you're a lowly janitorial sweeper, your broom and dustpan are now unparalleled tools for clearing up the Villains' miasma. You can go it alone if you wish...or you can team up with other “activated” Cast Members and combine your abilities!

Specific tasks to accomplish in the fight against the Villains include:

• Rescuing captured or trapped characters, guests, and Cast Members who haven't activated (and possibly figuring out how to activate the latter so they can join the fight).
• Establishing communication with characters in hiding.
• Freeing Villain-controlled characters from their evil influence.
• Approaching neutral parties and getting what help from them you can.
• Purifying areas affected by the miasma.
• Locating treasure or powerful items (think the Sorcerer's Hat) that can be used against the Villains, or else stealing such items from the Villains in order to weaken their advantage.
• Fighting the Villains directly and ousting them from the places where they have seized control.

But wait—there's more! Much like the real Disneyland, this game rewards exploration and investigation. The main quest is centered on prominent attractions and their associated characters, but sidequests involving less famous fixtures and faces are abundant and can be found if you wander off the obvious paths. The Villains may have overlooked Tom Sawyer Island, but you shouldn't—the challenges of navigating its bridges and caves can help you upgrade your skills. The back rooms of shops might contain treasure troves of useful supplies. Cultivating the Bayou Brass Band as allies could be as valuable as cozying up to the Disney Princesses. You can even, if you chance to find one, claim an out-of-the-way nook as your own and convert it into your base of operations.

To those of you who read my other blog: If this seems like another take on the “Knights of the Magic Kingdom” concept, that's because it...sort of...is? Maybe think of it as a version of KotMK that introduces fewer new elements to Disneyland as we know it—no alternate dimensions or ongoing fight against creatures from beyond this world, just regular Cast Members getting drafted into a battle with existing Disney characters—and hence is somewhat more marketable. Either way, I dare you to tell me a game built along these lines would not kick ass. Granted, there are some pretty glaring issues I haven't worked out yet...like how to reconcile the overarching quest with an online mode without either discouraging new players or making the in-game progress of the existing ones worthless. But I think it could be done. And it would make Disneyland more epic and more attractive to the younger generations than it has ever been.

Alternately, what if there were a Disneyland-based fighting tournament game? The arena: the Plaza Hub! The match: Madam Leota vs. Robot Abraham Lincoln! 3...2...1...FIGHT!

Endnotes:

(1) Don't forget, this was and is a nickname for Disneyland as well as being the official name of its Florida counterpart.

(2) Called “credits” for some reason instead of...oh...say...Disney Dollars. Who dropped the ball on that one?

(3) I'm not much into online gaming as a rule, but I hear some games have a serious lockout problem where if you miss the first week, you might as well not bother because the learning curve leaves you in the dirt. This seems to me an excellent reason to...continue to be not much into online gaming.

(4) Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two. I said I wanted the tone of this franchise, not the methodology for coming up with its titles.

(5) Potential exceptions are rides like Buzz Lightyear Astro-Blasters or its California Adventure cousin, Toy Story Midway Mania, which are arcade games in ride form. An argument could also be made for rides where you have some control over the motion of your vehicle—even something as simple as the height control on Dumbo the Flying Elephant would allow for gamification in an otherwise perfectly accurate virtual version of the ride.

(6) Just kidding with the scare-quotes; I know he's totally real.