So young, so turkish...
But one bit of surprising news was some dark ride developments taking place in Indonesia, of all places. Now folks, you know I love a good dark ride. I love Haunted Mansion, tolerate Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, and wish I could marry Rise of the Resistance. So it surprised me when I learned that some of the most ambitious dark ride projects in Earth right now are coming from some small indoor theme parks in Southeast Asia.
Like Universal, but tiny!
A foretelling of the beast that may emerge.
Trans Studio is a chain of parks owned and operated by Trans Corp, an Indonesian conglomerate formed in 2013. They own TV channels, shopping malls, restaurants, and more. They hold a lot of power. But let's focus on the parks. Many of them are small affairs, akin to family entertainment centers, but some go a bit bigger. Namely, the ones in Cibubur and Bali.
You see, last year these brand-new parks decided that they should each have a dark ride, as most sensible parks should. But not just any standard affair; no, they wanted to go big. And did they?
Did they ever.
One of the best Mecha Animes
From that movie you loved! And that sequel you forgot about!
How they got the rights, I don't know, but they came up with something on the scale of the big-name park groups. The premise is that you're going to an exhibit about the Jaegers, some kind of lame edutainment thing, except, as always, things go horribly wrong. Except kaiju are attacking before you even get on the ride. You have to go backstage and get on a ride vehicle to escape. You then get attacked by one of the kaiju, and crash into a closed dark ride.
And now you have to go on foot.
You ever wanna walk through a kaiju corpse? No? Well tough shit.
I've been on Deviantart long enough to know where this is going...
If you want to read about what else happens, check out Escape Authority's article here. As far as I can tell, this is the first dark ride based on a Guillermo Del Toro property. Hopefully not the last either.
But that's not the only insanity they've accomplished...
Vexed Maxine: Anger Street
"GAS! GAS! GAS!"
Meanwhile, Trans Studio Bali has another dark ride, known as Road Rage: Wasteland Escape, is a thrilling ride that was almost certainly designed with Mad Max in mind, but they couldn't get the license.
Now, a lot of modern dark rides have a preshow, and you gotta keep that interesting without being too boring. So how do you make a long wait exciting?
An escape room.
Yup. As part of the line, you have to solve a brief escape room in a makeshift prison cell, with hints provided by a sympathetic guard. Two different forms of immersive entertainment have made sweet, sweet love and made Road Rage.
But wait! There's more! The ride also uses live actors throughout to enhance the experience. Most rides with actors use one or two, mostly to do spiels, like The Great Movie Ride or Jaws. This one uses no less than more than half a dozen separate actors to enhance your post-apocalyptic escape.
"If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die historic on the fury road!"
Again, if you'd like even more details, check out another article by Escape Authority here.
In summation: Daaaaaaaaaaaamn.
I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't've even known this group existed 5 or 6 years ago, but they've proven that they have the design skills to pay the design bills. Keep an eye out for these guys, folks: they're going places.
So what do you think? Do you like how they're rides look and sound? Is there anything you hope they can do? Feel free to comment or ask me at @Colonel_Colin on Twitter. Until next time, keep stacking those stereos!
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