Universal’s Great Movie Escape

[Nick]

Rising Star and Bob Marley’s still hold strong. Don’t think the Groove ever had much of a fan base.

I assume this attraction will be open late? Probably midnight or 2am on the weekends. Will be interesting to see if they also have a bar/cocktail lounge in this place for guests doing the rooms.

Pat O's still does good too.

 

[Grabnar]

Gonna be real, I have tickets to go to the OI event for the first time since the pandemic started and I think I may be more excited about maybe getting to do this during the day than anything else.

 

[Alicia]

If this lock icon is any indication, looks like the missions may be made up of smaller rooms leading to the conclusion.

 

[Clive]

So is this going to be more “Delusion” immersive show than a traditional escape room? That makes me more and less interested.

 

[Alicia]

So is this going to be more “Delusion” immersive show than a traditional escape room? That makes me more and less interested.

I don’t know what that is, but I was suggesting for capacity it would have a series of rooms, each with their own challenge that moves the story forward, rather than keeping each group locked in just one room for an hour. It gives designers a chance to create multiple settings per story, and can have several groups playing the same challenge at the same time, just doing it room by room, one after another.

 

[PenguinCowboy]

I don’t know what that is, but I was suggesting for capacity it would have a series of rooms, each with their own challenge that moves the story forward, rather than keeping each group locked in just one room for an hour. It gives designers a chance to create multiple settings per story, and can have several groups playing the same challenge at the same time, just doing it room by room, one after another.

Unprompted thoughts on the nature of escape games from a former designer of said games; read at the risk of your own boredom:

When I was a design engineer at 5 Wits our philosophy was similar to what you mention above, Alicia. We designed our adventures to be sequential storytelling, where once you progressed from a room, it was sealed so you couldn't go backward, allowing us to theoretically start a new group when the first was about halfway through.

We also built and designed all our games to be auto reset, meaning either they had an "A" solution and a "B" solution, so guests actually would perform the reset for the next group simply by solving the puzzle (let's say moving pieces from the incorrect "A" state to the now correct "B" state), or there was an auto-reset built right into the room (there was a puzzle involving gears on pegs, and the pegs would shoot out of the wall at the beginning of the game, then retract during the dragon attack, causing the gears to crash back into a trough below, resetting the game and also acting as a show element). This meant unless something broke on us, no human reset was needed in any room, so we could keep cycling groups with minimal downtime.

Our adventures were about 30 minutes (not counting the little pre-show), the aim being that you spent about 10 minutes in three rooms which seemed to be our magic number, but it could have also been expanded to more rooms. The added benefit of the 5 Wits model was that all paying guests saw all elements of the show, no matter how successfully or poorly they performed. No matter if they had no idea what was going on and never touched or interacted with a single thing, or if they breezed through every challenge, each person saw each room and each "big" effect, which meant from an expenditure standpoint we also never spent money on an element ~60% of guests would never see, and a guest felt like they got the full experience even if they failed. I cannot tell you the number of times people confidently came striding out proclaiming victory when they just had clearly explained to them by an Evil AI system that they had doomed all of humanity and were being air-locked into space. The central nerve system of the game kept track of the success of the group and then would give them a good, bad, or mid ending depending on their ending score, so there was also incentive to come back too.

I could see a similar approach working well here vs. a traditional escape game for them, as with just 3 adventures we were able to have at least 9 groups in the space at once (one toward room 3, one in the pre-show, one queueing), tripling a traditional escape game's throughput. This also meant time between games was also never more then 15 minutes, so if a group did not want to wait inside the store they were free to wander the mall or wherever we were located, and there is certainly more than 15 minutes worth of time waste in Citywalk.

Ok, end ramblings.

 

[Nico]

Unprompted thoughts on the nature of escape games from a former designer of said games; read at the risk of your own boredom:

When I was a design engineer at 5 Wits our philosophy was similar to what you mention above, Alicia. We designed our adventures to be sequential storytelling, where once you progressed from a room, it was sealed so you couldn't go backward, allowing us to theoretically start a new group when the first was about halfway through.

We also built and designed all our games to be auto reset, meaning either they had an "A" solution and a "B" solution, so guests actually would perform the reset for the next group simply by solving the puzzle (let's say moving pieces from the incorrect "A" state to the now correct "B" state), or there was an auto-reset built right into the room (there was a puzzle involving gears on pegs, and the pegs would shoot out of the wall at the beginning of the game, then retract during the dragon attack, causing the gears to crash back into a trough below, resetting the game and also acting as a show element). This meant unless something broke on us, no human reset was needed in any room, so we could keep cycling groups with minimal downtime.

Our adventures were about 30 minutes (not counting the little pre-show), the aim being that you spent about 10 minutes in three rooms which seemed to be our magic number, but it could have also been expanded to more rooms. The added benefit of the 5 Wits model was that all paying guests saw all elements of the show, no matter how successfully or poorly they performed. No matter if they had no idea what was going on and never touched or interacted with a single thing, or if they breezed through every challenge, each person saw each room and each "big" effect, which meant from an expenditure standpoint we also never spent money on an element ~60% of guests would never see, and a guest felt like they got the full experience even if they failed. I cannot tell you the number of times people confidently came striding out proclaiming victory when they just had clearly explained to them by an Evil AI system that they had doomed all of humanity and were being air-locked into space. The central nerve system of the game kept track of the success of the group and then would give them a good, bad, or mid ending depending on their ending score, so there was also incentive to come back too.

I could see a similar approach working well here vs. a traditional escape game for them, as with just 3 adventures we were able to have at least 9 groups in the space at once (one toward room 3, one in the pre-show, one queueing), tripling a traditional escape game's throughput. This also meant time between games was also never more then 15 minutes, so if a group did not want to wait inside the store they were free to wander the mall or wherever we were located, and there is certainly more than 15 minutes worth of time waste in Citywalk.

Ok, end ramblings.

Thanks for sharing this! Super interesting

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Unprompted thoughts on the nature of escape games from a former designer of said games; read at the risk of your own boredom:

When I was a design engineer at 5 Wits our philosophy was similar to what you mention above, Alicia. We designed our adventures to be sequential storytelling, where once you progressed from a room, it was sealed so you couldn't go backward, allowing us to theoretically start a new group when the first was about halfway through.

We also built and designed all our games to be auto reset, meaning either they had an "A" solution and a "B" solution, so guests actually would perform the reset for the next group simply by solving the puzzle (let's say moving pieces from the incorrect "A" state to the now correct "B" state), or there was an auto-reset built right into the room (there was a puzzle involving gears on pegs, and the pegs would shoot out of the wall at the beginning of the game, then retract during the dragon attack, causing the gears to crash back into a trough below, resetting the game and also acting as a show element). This meant unless something broke on us, no human reset was needed in any room, so we could keep cycling groups with minimal downtime.

Our adventures were about 30 minutes (not counting the little pre-show), the aim being that you spent about 10 minutes in three rooms which seemed to be our magic number, but it could have also been expanded to more rooms. The added benefit of the 5 Wits model was that all paying guests saw all elements of the show, no matter how successfully or poorly they performed. No matter if they had no idea what was going on and never touched or interacted with a single thing, or if they breezed through every challenge, each person saw each room and each "big" effect, which meant from an expenditure standpoint we also never spent money on an element ~60% of guests would never see, and a guest felt like they got the full experience even if they failed. I cannot tell you the number of times people confidently came striding out proclaiming victory when they just had clearly explained to them by an Evil AI system that they had doomed all of humanity and were being air-locked into space. The central nerve system of the game kept track of the success of the group and then would give them a good, bad, or mid ending depending on their ending score, so there was also incentive to come back too.

I could see a similar approach working well here vs. a traditional escape game for them, as with just 3 adventures we were able to have at least 9 groups in the space at once (one toward room 3, one in the pre-show, one queueing), tripling a traditional escape game's throughput. This also meant time between games was also never more then 15 minutes, so if a group did not want to wait inside the store they were free to wander the mall or wherever we were located, and there is certainly more than 15 minutes worth of time waste in Citywalk.

Ok, end ramblings.

Fantastic post. Easy to see how universal could apply this.

 

[Imperius]

All good escape rooms are more than one room. There’s no way this is a one room thing. Go look
At the escape game in Orlando. Each theme is at least three different rooms.

 

[Clive]

Unprompted thoughts on the nature of escape games from a former designer of said games; read at the risk of your own boredom:

When I was a design engineer at 5 Wits our philosophy was similar to what you mention above, Alicia. We designed our adventures to be sequential storytelling, where once you progressed from a room, it was sealed so you couldn't go backward, allowing us to theoretically start a new group when the first was about halfway through.

We also built and designed all our games to be auto reset, meaning either they had an "A" solution and a "B" solution, so guests actually would perform the reset for the next group simply by solving the puzzle (let's say moving pieces from the incorrect "A" state to the now correct "B" state), or there was an auto-reset built right into the room (there was a puzzle involving gears on pegs, and the pegs would shoot out of the wall at the beginning of the game, then retract during the dragon attack, causing the gears to crash back into a trough below, resetting the game and also acting as a show element). This meant unless something broke on us, no human reset was needed in any room, so we could keep cycling groups with minimal downtime.

Our adventures were about 30 minutes (not counting the little pre-show), the aim being that you spent about 10 minutes in three rooms which seemed to be our magic number, but it could have also been expanded to more rooms. The added benefit of the 5 Wits model was that all paying guests saw all elements of the show, no matter how successfully or poorly they performed. No matter if they had no idea what was going on and never touched or interacted with a single thing, or if they breezed through every challenge, each person saw each room and each "big" effect, which meant from an expenditure standpoint we also never spent money on an element ~60% of guests would never see, and a guest felt like they got the full experience even if they failed. I cannot tell you the number of times people confidently came striding out proclaiming victory when they just had clearly explained to them by an Evil AI system that they had doomed all of humanity and were being air-locked into space. The central nerve system of the game kept track of the success of the group and then would give them a good, bad, or mid ending depending on their ending score, so there was also incentive to come back too.

I could see a similar approach working well here vs. a traditional escape game for them, as with just 3 adventures we were able to have at least 9 groups in the space at once (one toward room 3, one in the pre-show, one queueing), tripling a traditional escape game's throughput. This also meant time between games was also never more then 15 minutes, so if a group did not want to wait inside the store they were free to wander the mall or wherever we were located, and there is certainly more than 15 minutes worth of time waste in Citywalk.

Ok, end ramblings.

Sounds like we were actually working on somewhat similar products, albeit with different technical approaches. A room I worked on took place entirely within the space you enter, but it relied heavily on digital media to randomize the game sequence, create repeatability, and facilitate good/neutral/bad endings.

I worry that if this is indeed the approach Universal is taking, they'd be better served to call these experiences "adventures." Escape room may end up being misleading to some if user input does not actually influence whether the group "escapes..." though I suppose few will care if the storytelling impresses. I don't tend to love "escape rooms" where you automatically progress by design, even if your success (or lack thereof) triggers different endings. Just not my thing, as I prefer that these sorts of "adventures" emphasize the journey over the interactivity and puzzle-solving. Delusion shows in Los Angeles are probably the best example of this.

 

[PenguinCowboy]

Sounds like we were actually working on somewhat similar products, albeit with different technical approaches. A room I worked on took place entirely within the space you enter, but it relied heavily on digital media to randomize the game sequence, create repeatability, and facilitate good/neutral/bad endings.

I worry that if this is indeed the approach Universal is taking, they'd be better served to call these experiences "adventures." Escape room may end up being misleading to some if user input does not actually influence whether the group "escapes..." though I suppose few will care if the storytelling impresses. I don't tend to love "escape rooms" where you automatically progress by design, even if your success (or lack thereof) triggers different endings. Just not my thing, as I prefer that these sorts of "adventures" emphasize the journey over the interactivity and puzzle-solving. Delusion shows in Los Angeles are probably the best example of this.

With you totally on the distinction, which is why I definitely offer it with a grain of salt given they explicitly mention "Escape" in the title. We were always careful about calling them "Adventures" even though the best guest comparison was an escape room. We could take 2 to 3 minutes to explain the true story-focused nature of the experience, or just simplify it for the elevator pitch and say "escape room-esque" and often times it was the latter approach which won out.

I'll definitely be checking it out come fall on one of our HHN days, and I'll be curious to see what route they take!

Also also, if anyone ends up going to a 5 Wits location and playing the Castle adventure, you didn't hear this from me, but if you arrange the statues in the throne room in ROY G. BIV order you may hear from a certain famous green Muppet, haha

 

[SpyderDan]

They had me at Back to the Future...

 

[Tbad556]

HHN lineup is fully announced, Mummy has been having TM Previews, Epic Universe info/leaks are flowing... Just waiting on an update here now lol. Was really expecting a date by now tbh.

 

[Kichkinet85]

Can’t wait for this! Hopefully if there is a delay like there is with Mummy it’s not to bad.

 

[minekb]

Universal is currently hiring for Show Control Operators.

Show Control Operator Opportunities (Universal’s Great Movie Escape) – Universal Orlando Resort – 578894 - Universal Parks & Resorts

Search jobs at Universal Parks & Resorts, Universal Orlando, Universal Studios Hollywood, or Universal Creative. Apply today!

jobs.universalparks.com

 

[Frank Drackman]

took a bad photo while walking by last night

 

[SeanPhilly]

But still no word, or even rumors, on an open date?

 

[Tobias]

I can see this opening sometime in Nov., just in time for the busy Holiday season.

 

[Alicia]

Walls are down today. Nice to be able to look around and see the neat billboard on the wall.

 

[SpyderDan]

Really interested in what this is going to be like. No other details have leaked?