Challenge of the Mad Mage™ Introduces Guests to the Revolutionary ON!X™ Theater Attraction
Client: Katmandu Park | Punta Cana
Services: Attraction design, media production, interactive experiences, sound production, art direction, ride programming, installation supervision, character development, project management
Location: Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Several world-first attraction systems made their debut with the grand opening of Katmandu Park | Punta Cana, including Falcon’s Attraction’s patented ON!X Theater. This 4D, interactive, cinematic experience offers a freshly innovative way for guests to actively engage in a powerful, themed story.
The story, in this case, is called Challenge of the Mad Mage, with Katmandu™ villain, Alvis, playing the role of the Mad Mage.
The guest’s journey begins in a dimly lit warehouse that’s dressed in Katmandu’s predominant steampunk aesthetic. Fully costumed staff greet visitors. Contained inside locked cages are rows of shipping crates, masks, board games, and miscellaneous spare mechanical parts that, together, paint a picture of something (or someone) that’s off-kilter.
Through a series of bilingual announcements, guests are introduced to Alvis and his robot adversary. Alvis is a master strategist with an extremely unhealthy obsession with chess. He created the robot because he wanted a foe to play against, but now he seeks more worthy challengers. Perhaps these guests can fill that void, but first, they must choose a side while they make their way through the queue. Alvis wants you to take the ice path, while the robot asks you to play with fire. Each side is respectively themed with these earthly elements. Careful observers will notice fun easter eggs in both lines. Guests pick up 3D glasses before moving into the 32-seat theater.
The guests are now players in Alvis’ twisted game, and they’re armed with blasters. Through media on the screen, they “ride up” an elevator shaft and enter a giant warehouse before loading into a Kingbot. A multidimensional chessboard pops to life as chessbots spawn into the environment through real-time technology, giving players an abundance of targets to hit.
At the end of the round, Alvis tells players to use their blasters to choose one of two realms, which, as a callback to the queue line, are fire and ice themed. Each option comes with its own seat animation profile, color, and effects. Players are given agency to select their path one more time before the robot selects the final realm, ignoring Alvis’ pleas in the process. A humdinger boss battle ensues, and spoiler alert, the audience defeats Alvis and his Kingbot!
At the end of the game, all players' final scores are shown. If a guest landed a top-three spot, their personalized BeyondME™ avatar will appear in the center of the screen.
Challenge of the Mad Mage thrusts guests into the heart of the action while giving them an active role in the narrative. Each seat’s four degrees of freedom - pitch, roll, heave, and sway - deliver a physical, ride-like experience. The motion seat effects include air blasters, leg ticklers, back air bubbles, vibration, and strafe. Scents like mint and smoke are also pumped into the air at key moments.
Through a powerful 7.1 surround sound system, audio precisely follows characters and other elements. Additionally, sound was added to the seats to correspond with an individual player’s input.
Another critical piece of the ON!X Theater puzzle is the exceptionally accurate haptic blasters that are positionally tracked, which ensures precise aiming and interaction with the screen’s content. Speaking of that stereoscopic content, it’s seen in its most perfect form from any seat, thanks to a custom camera frustrum that Falcon’s created to produce the highest quality rendering possible.
ON!X Theater is a first-of-its-kind attraction system that caters to guests of all ages who appreciate intuitively designed player controls, surprising and meaningful special effects, competitive scoring with customized recognition, and dynamic gameplay.
The boundaries of interactive entertainment were pushed in this attraction due to the combination of a real-time engine and Challenge of the Mad Mage's enthralling narrative. The result is a fluid, branching storyline and an incredibly immersive experience that stands out in the theme park world. There’s only one thing left to say – checkmate!
