So I'm home and done with dinner so I want to type out my VR ride thoughts.
I'm ok with VR as an application in an attraction but it must use VR's strength: conveying infinite in a finite space. VR coasters never made sense to me because you're taking what's effectively a huge space with large vistas and constraining it. VR offering in a small room can work, BGW Battle for Eire is kinda a fart because it's just a regular motion platform but they can close in the space more without worries of projection equipment.
So, here's my concept for the Potter VR (PVR for short) attraction. I think it does some cool stuff and will leave people impressed. Also to anyone at UC or ThinkWell, this is all my concept if I get it close to anything then hire me. I first heard of PVR from Alicia yesterday so...
We're in the Ministry of Magic Atrium with dozens of agencies, shops, restaurants, and sights to see. We've already visited the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, so time to head to the Department of Magical Transportation. We walk through the department's lobby and past doors for the Appirition Test Centre, Port Key Office and head specifically for the office Broom Regulatory Control. Here we make our way through the offices, stacked with application documentation, prototype brooms, and signed Quidding paraphernalia.
We walk into the back of the offices, towards large bookshelves filled with hundreds of years of records. A department liaison leads us into a marked door, "Broom Certification and Testing", in groups of 48. Inside we are greeted by a Witch and Wizard (live actors would be cool here) who inform us this is the location for the certification of broom usage for those who do not train a wizarding school. We are here for observation and to pass our Broom License Test. After some comical banter and explanation, one of the wizards notes that in the next room we will receive our helmet and follow Department officials instructions on proper wearing.
In the next room, we are split into two groups of 24. We are handed safety helmets similar to the Mario hats for Mario Kart and and instructed to properly wear them. At this point another door opens and we head down a hallway and onto stickers: each sticker is for one guest and will represent a Testing Broom. Here we are given our instructions: fly towards the objects listed and try not to cause any mischief. Soon one group of 24 is let into the testing area, think a brick lined room with a large opening in the roof where a little light and a slight breeze is coming through, and board their broom and place their VR helmet on. In our visors we see the exact same room with fellow witches and wizards around us!
Soon, we are off, by pulling up and we fly out of the room through the opening up top. Our original goal of flying through magical shapes ends as Something Goes Wrong and we are dragged into *waves arms* something crazy and magical where we meet some characters and have fun. We're holding on for dear life and soon we are saved by good guys. They quicly realize we're there for our license and tell us we did well enough they don't see why the ministry wouldn't give us our license. We land in a totally different location than where we started only to remove our helmets and find WE'VE BEEN MOVED TO THIS NEW LOCATION! Turns out the brooms are on a CoP like turntable with multiple sets of 24. We leave our landing area and walk through some hallways and find ourselves in a shop selling the most popular brooms and Quiddich fan merch around.
Ta-da. You got my address, send the check in the mail.