I love me a great escape room! However, theme parks and theme park rides are perhaps my favorite form of immersive storytelling. When the designers care to craft the ride as a story from the line entrance to the exit through the gift shop, patrons experience the story in a much more visceral way! It’s even more awesome when the theme extends beyond the ride itself and into an entire area of the park. My favorite theme park is Islands of Adventure for this reason. Each land is immersive. Even the food is themed! Have you been there?
I haven't! I went to Florida Disney in the late-80s, and then again plus Universal Studios early-90s, but it looks like Islands of Adventure didn't open until 1999. My favourite was always Universal Studios, because I visited at the time in my very early teens when I was first getting seriously into filmmaking. I love the way they blend being immersive with a glimpse behind-the-scenes.
Precisely! Universal and Islands of Adventure are actually connected via Harry Potter world now. If you get a park hopper pass you can ride the Hogwarts express between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley! 🤓
Games are definitely my favorite interactive medium. Even for more structured and linear games there's different forms of background or subtle storytelling. What's interesting is that there are even some where it's impossible to see everything on a single playthrough.
DanganRonpa for example is a murder mystery death game where between main story beats you can spend time with a character to learn more about them. But with multiple characters dying each chapter and the length of the game, it's impossible to see all of the free time events in one playthrough, which helps drive in the impact of the deaths when you're cut short from learning more about your favorite character.
I really like the storytelling of fighting games (and other multiplayer focused games) but lots of people into the genre seem actively opposed to it. I'm just glad we're coming out of the period where any sort of single player content was ignored in favor of esports, and major fighting games have single player modes of actual substance again. I love reading different character profiles and piecing together connections, how stages inform the wider setting, and how basic moveset design can reveal connections between characters.
And moving on from fighting games, some MOBAs tell bits of stories through descriptions of character's alternate outfits/skins. Heroes of the Storm is my favorite example because they basically offered glimpses of full on alternate universes with the skins, either what ifs for the original games or putting characters in brand new settings. I saw a Heroes of the Storm fanfic based on the premise of two versions of the same character meeting which inspired me to do my own, but most players probably didn't notice or didn't think twice about the lore for the skins.
For my own writing Battles Beneath the Stars is an odd example with it's faux fighting game approach. In theory people can only read one character story for a complete experience, and do them in any order, but my guess would be that most would at least make an attempt to read all in the table of contents order because that's what comes naturally, to me at least. The profiles and win quotes are more out of the main path and more likely to be genuinely optional. But hard to tell how much people engage with any of it.
For theme park's what interesting is how there are some activities with a bit of story outside of the rides. Galaxy's Edge has this whole thing with using an app to complete missions around the park and choose a faction, Super Nintendo World gives you a whole side quest to do challenges to unlock a fight with Bowser Junior, and I know the main Disney park stuff has something similar with dueling villains.
I also haven't observed it myself, but apparently Disney has a narrative thread connecting a lot of original rides through the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, including Thunder Mountain Railroad and Tower of Terror.
I first noticed that "can't do it all in one playthrough" aspect with the original Deus Ex, back in the late-90s. The apparent possibilities in that game absolutely astounded me at the time (even though a lot of it was smoke and mirrors). Immersive rides operate in a similar way - it's hard to take in all of the Pirates ride in a single ride.
This comment is so satisfying! 😆 Do you write about games often? I’d love to know more about them from your perspective! The immersive extras at theme parks these days are so fun. I’ve always been intrigued with using QR codes as hidden triggers for bonus content.
Thank you. I write about games pretty often, don't have a strictly game focused feature, but it usually comes up. The QR code type stuff at Galaxy's Edge was great, best part was the possibility of some hidden in the queue for rides so you can look for them to pass wait time. If I remember right Super Nintendo World also had some things you could tap with their special wristband thing in the Mario Kart ride for coins and a fun sound effect.
I feel that a written story is the most immersive and interpretative of all art forms. Every reader interacts and reacts to the words personally. I'm not a fan of overly detailed descriptions like Tolkien's lush landscapes or American Psycho's overt pages of dismemberment. Less allows the reader to imagine more. I've caught myself giving a sci fi feel to a Dicken's classic in my mind, and just by your intro, I was already imagining an "adults" version of it....😜
Every other artform I think presents a specific and preset environment, it's up to the audience to capture the nuances - whether if its the setting of a theme park, the shade of the curtain in a movie scene, or the tambourine in the background - but words due to their subjective nature morphs fluidly.
That's what interests me: with prose, every reader gets the exact same words, in the exact same order. But their interpretations are all unique.
Theme parks, immersive theatre, video games, deliver very different 'text' to the audience. The actual experience can be wildly different for each person. And then there's still a layer of interpretation on top of that.
We've discussed how Disney uses a full sensory blast for storytelling at length on Substack, so I just quickly note the "dark side" of the Imagineer's skills - carrying the storytelling into subliminals to encourage consumption... Pumping out certain smells near food vendors to make you hungry, or (using Disneyland Anaheim as the specific example), carrying on the storytelling of Pirates to make sure you get dumped into three gift shops on the way out which are always full of tourists buying swords and plastic gold. I don't remember when they stopped selling the guns.
I'd argue writing is still more immersive than you seem to credit it with here. Even writers who bog down in detailed description still rely on the reader's imagination to fill in details. In your own work it's come up a couple of times on how I'd visualized character/location/object XYZ one way and you'd do an illustration which would be different from what I'd imagined.
But, we'll continue with other franchises and use fan art as the example. If one could still easily find fan art from BEFORE the release of "Game of Thrones" you'd see huge variation in how all the "Song of Ice and Fire" characters were rendered. Now, they get drawn as their respective actors. A singular vision replaced individual imagination.
As soon as live-action Thrawn or Mara Kade appears you'll see the same thing happen in Star Wars fan art. Although there isn't as much variation with Thrawn, because the Imperial uniform is a known design. Still, lots of different face shapes and hairlines.
I don't really play video games anymore, but, yeah, I've seen effective storytelling tricks. I'm sure advancements in tech over the last decade have made the audio/visual elements stronger.
I love this observation! Also, the Pirates ride and the movies are completely unmatched, and I agree-I think it's because of all the genius little details.
After watching The Last of Us on HBO, I have been playing both the first and the second videogames. I'm typically not much for videogames, but I have been blown away by the storytelling in TLOU. I loved the show, but there is something to be said for being able to engage with the environment myself, pick up and read letters, and just generally explore the world.
The visceral sense of personal exploration adds a huge amount to an experience. That's why a game can be hugely impactful even if its story is mediocre and wouldn't hold up in another medium. TLOU, of course, has a great story on top of all that.
If you're enjoying that environmental storytelling do check out Firewatch, Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable and What Remains of Edith Finch - all amazing non-combat narrative games.
It’s funny you mention footnotes and appendices. I tried reading House of Leaves, which is rife with both of those as an integral part to the storytelling and I couldn’t do it. Every reference to a footnote or an appendix or whatever else just pulled me out of the story. I know a ton of people who LOVED the book, but the storytelling style wasn’t for me.
I've seen footnotes work extremely well in comedy, where it's done in a partly satirical manner. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Kavalier & Clay. Otherwise, yes, it can be distracting! Which isn't what you want, really.
Simon, I always try to tell a little bit of a story in my nonfiction pieces. The "poetry of prose" is important, but even more so is getting the setting right. The reader needs to come along with me to where my story (history, usually) begins. I think the best nonfiction writers use all the best devices from fiction in their work too, so I always appreciate observations like these.
Escape rooms. Always wanted to do one, but Laura and I always wanted to get a full team together and never made it happen. Hmmmm... Something to think about while we're still near Galway, because, after we move the nearest Escape Room will be two and a half hours away.
I've just started playing BG3 (alas, I too wish I had the time for more) and the writing in it is fantastic. Made me ponder on writing about writing in games, thinking specifically on recent and superb titles like Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper and BG3.
I love me a great escape room! However, theme parks and theme park rides are perhaps my favorite form of immersive storytelling. When the designers care to craft the ride as a story from the line entrance to the exit through the gift shop, patrons experience the story in a much more visceral way! It’s even more awesome when the theme extends beyond the ride itself and into an entire area of the park. My favorite theme park is Islands of Adventure for this reason. Each land is immersive. Even the food is themed! Have you been there?
I haven't! I went to Florida Disney in the late-80s, and then again plus Universal Studios early-90s, but it looks like Islands of Adventure didn't open until 1999. My favourite was always Universal Studios, because I visited at the time in my very early teens when I was first getting seriously into filmmaking. I love the way they blend being immersive with a glimpse behind-the-scenes.
Precisely! Universal and Islands of Adventure are actually connected via Harry Potter world now. If you get a park hopper pass you can ride the Hogwarts express between Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley! 🤓
Games are definitely my favorite interactive medium. Even for more structured and linear games there's different forms of background or subtle storytelling. What's interesting is that there are even some where it's impossible to see everything on a single playthrough.
DanganRonpa for example is a murder mystery death game where between main story beats you can spend time with a character to learn more about them. But with multiple characters dying each chapter and the length of the game, it's impossible to see all of the free time events in one playthrough, which helps drive in the impact of the deaths when you're cut short from learning more about your favorite character.
I really like the storytelling of fighting games (and other multiplayer focused games) but lots of people into the genre seem actively opposed to it. I'm just glad we're coming out of the period where any sort of single player content was ignored in favor of esports, and major fighting games have single player modes of actual substance again. I love reading different character profiles and piecing together connections, how stages inform the wider setting, and how basic moveset design can reveal connections between characters.
And moving on from fighting games, some MOBAs tell bits of stories through descriptions of character's alternate outfits/skins. Heroes of the Storm is my favorite example because they basically offered glimpses of full on alternate universes with the skins, either what ifs for the original games or putting characters in brand new settings. I saw a Heroes of the Storm fanfic based on the premise of two versions of the same character meeting which inspired me to do my own, but most players probably didn't notice or didn't think twice about the lore for the skins.
For my own writing Battles Beneath the Stars is an odd example with it's faux fighting game approach. In theory people can only read one character story for a complete experience, and do them in any order, but my guess would be that most would at least make an attempt to read all in the table of contents order because that's what comes naturally, to me at least. The profiles and win quotes are more out of the main path and more likely to be genuinely optional. But hard to tell how much people engage with any of it.
For theme park's what interesting is how there are some activities with a bit of story outside of the rides. Galaxy's Edge has this whole thing with using an app to complete missions around the park and choose a faction, Super Nintendo World gives you a whole side quest to do challenges to unlock a fight with Bowser Junior, and I know the main Disney park stuff has something similar with dueling villains.
I also haven't observed it myself, but apparently Disney has a narrative thread connecting a lot of original rides through the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, including Thunder Mountain Railroad and Tower of Terror.
I first noticed that "can't do it all in one playthrough" aspect with the original Deus Ex, back in the late-90s. The apparent possibilities in that game absolutely astounded me at the time (even though a lot of it was smoke and mirrors). Immersive rides operate in a similar way - it's hard to take in all of the Pirates ride in a single ride.
This comment is so satisfying! 😆 Do you write about games often? I’d love to know more about them from your perspective! The immersive extras at theme parks these days are so fun. I’ve always been intrigued with using QR codes as hidden triggers for bonus content.
Thank you. I write about games pretty often, don't have a strictly game focused feature, but it usually comes up. The QR code type stuff at Galaxy's Edge was great, best part was the possibility of some hidden in the queue for rides so you can look for them to pass wait time. If I remember right Super Nintendo World also had some things you could tap with their special wristband thing in the Mario Kart ride for coins and a fun sound effect.
Love love love it!
I feel that a written story is the most immersive and interpretative of all art forms. Every reader interacts and reacts to the words personally. I'm not a fan of overly detailed descriptions like Tolkien's lush landscapes or American Psycho's overt pages of dismemberment. Less allows the reader to imagine more. I've caught myself giving a sci fi feel to a Dicken's classic in my mind, and just by your intro, I was already imagining an "adults" version of it....😜
Every other artform I think presents a specific and preset environment, it's up to the audience to capture the nuances - whether if its the setting of a theme park, the shade of the curtain in a movie scene, or the tambourine in the background - but words due to their subjective nature morphs fluidly.
That's what interests me: with prose, every reader gets the exact same words, in the exact same order. But their interpretations are all unique.
Theme parks, immersive theatre, video games, deliver very different 'text' to the audience. The actual experience can be wildly different for each person. And then there's still a layer of interpretation on top of that.
Fascinating stuff!
We've discussed how Disney uses a full sensory blast for storytelling at length on Substack, so I just quickly note the "dark side" of the Imagineer's skills - carrying the storytelling into subliminals to encourage consumption... Pumping out certain smells near food vendors to make you hungry, or (using Disneyland Anaheim as the specific example), carrying on the storytelling of Pirates to make sure you get dumped into three gift shops on the way out which are always full of tourists buying swords and plastic gold. I don't remember when they stopped selling the guns.
I'd argue writing is still more immersive than you seem to credit it with here. Even writers who bog down in detailed description still rely on the reader's imagination to fill in details. In your own work it's come up a couple of times on how I'd visualized character/location/object XYZ one way and you'd do an illustration which would be different from what I'd imagined.
But, we'll continue with other franchises and use fan art as the example. If one could still easily find fan art from BEFORE the release of "Game of Thrones" you'd see huge variation in how all the "Song of Ice and Fire" characters were rendered. Now, they get drawn as their respective actors. A singular vision replaced individual imagination.
As soon as live-action Thrawn or Mara Kade appears you'll see the same thing happen in Star Wars fan art. Although there isn't as much variation with Thrawn, because the Imperial uniform is a known design. Still, lots of different face shapes and hairlines.
I don't really play video games anymore, but, yeah, I've seen effective storytelling tricks. I'm sure advancements in tech over the last decade have made the audio/visual elements stronger.
Love this! Personally, Disney’s recent Rise of the Resistance ride really feels like a fantastic piece of immersive theatre.
I love this observation! Also, the Pirates ride and the movies are completely unmatched, and I agree-I think it's because of all the genius little details.
After watching The Last of Us on HBO, I have been playing both the first and the second videogames. I'm typically not much for videogames, but I have been blown away by the storytelling in TLOU. I loved the show, but there is something to be said for being able to engage with the environment myself, pick up and read letters, and just generally explore the world.
The visceral sense of personal exploration adds a huge amount to an experience. That's why a game can be hugely impactful even if its story is mediocre and wouldn't hold up in another medium. TLOU, of course, has a great story on top of all that.
If you're enjoying that environmental storytelling do check out Firewatch, Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable and What Remains of Edith Finch - all amazing non-combat narrative games.
It’s funny you mention footnotes and appendices. I tried reading House of Leaves, which is rife with both of those as an integral part to the storytelling and I couldn’t do it. Every reference to a footnote or an appendix or whatever else just pulled me out of the story. I know a ton of people who LOVED the book, but the storytelling style wasn’t for me.
I've seen footnotes work extremely well in comedy, where it's done in a partly satirical manner. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Kavalier & Clay. Otherwise, yes, it can be distracting! Which isn't what you want, really.
Simon, I always try to tell a little bit of a story in my nonfiction pieces. The "poetry of prose" is important, but even more so is getting the setting right. The reader needs to come along with me to where my story (history, usually) begins. I think the best nonfiction writers use all the best devices from fiction in their work too, so I always appreciate observations like these.
Always best to take your reader on the journey with you, rather than just telling them stuff.
Ah, knew I was forgetting something!
Escape rooms. Always wanted to do one, but Laura and I always wanted to get a full team together and never made it happen. Hmmmm... Something to think about while we're still near Galway, because, after we move the nearest Escape Room will be two and a half hours away.
That opening tram car ride in HL1 and immersion into Gordon's world and routine remains one of the greatest experiences in a video game. So good.
Didn't know you'd made videos about games, Simon. That's great.
Also great to read about the storytelling in Disneyland on your trip.
I wish I had the time to do more gaming videos (and articles!). And yes, HL1 is still an incredible intro, and was even more mind-blowing at the time.
I wrote a whole bunch of articles about game storytelling over on Medium. I should port them over here.
You should!
I've just started playing BG3 (alas, I too wish I had the time for more) and the writing in it is fantastic. Made me ponder on writing about writing in games, thinking specifically on recent and superb titles like Disco Elysium, Citizen Sleeper and BG3.