Sally Corp's MINOTAUR & KING TUT Dark Rides

[bkroz]

I don't know about you guys, but when I think of Sally Corp. and their dark rides, I think of the blacklight, 2-D cut-out interactive dark rides like Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle, Boo Blasters, Ghost Blasters, Gobbler Getaway, and Reese's Xtreme Cup Challenge. It's true that Sally rides have a very distinct style, but in my research for my Theme Park Tourist articles, I happened across a really unique ride at Terra Mítica (formerly managed by Paramount Parks) that really turns it up a notch.

El Laberinto del Minotauro is a Sally Corp dark ride that uses full sets, complete animatronics, and trackless ride vehicles that can rotate during the ride. It's also interactive with laser guns, just like Boo Blasters.

Not only is the ride awesome for having trackless vehicles and basically being Disney-quality in terms of its sets and special effects. It's also got a really cool twist.

Taking advantage of the trackless technology, riders must work together to score enough points, or they're ejected from the ride!! You can see two ejection tracks on the layout map above. Only cars that successfully score enough to stay in the maze make it to the finale encounter with the Minotaur himself (which is achieved thanks to six separate 12-foot tall animatronics)!

Another view of the ride including the queue and loading area:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkbJ4JxkegM

As a dark ride fan, I think this one has been added to my bucket list.

What a way to make interactivity part of the story and setting rather than distracting from it!

Whaddaya say Kings Island? How about an incredible Sally dark ride like this? An interactive German castle in Oktoberfest? A haunted mine in Rivertown? This beats screens any day!

EDIT: Here is the ride's page on Sally's website, and a great (but old) official video through them:

[BoddaH1994]

Did Sally's do the audio animatronics for Phantom Theatre? I know DH Morgan did the ride system, but I thought Sally's did the experience part. If so, that's a clear indicator of the type of product that can be produced by them if the money is right.

[thedevariouseffect]

Pretty freaking neat..

But gimmie a dark ride like that sans shooting. It's awesome to have a bit of fun and compare scores and all, but let me sit and be amazed by it's magic

[The Interpreter]

Did Sally's do the audio animatronics for Phantom Theatre? I know DH Morgan did the ride system, but I thought Sally's did the experience part. If so, that's a clear indicator of the type of product that can be produced by them if the money is right.

No. Sally Rides wasn't even in existence.

Shooting rides are to dark rides what musical revues are to shows.

[LoraX]

Oh don't let Princess Sparkles hear that comparison.

[CoastersRZ]

I believe that the animatronics for Phantom Theater were created by R&R Creative Amusement Designs. They were also responsible for the theming/animatronics on Adventure Express.

http://www.randrdesign.com/styled-5/index.html

[upstop]

Ahhh.... those were the days...

[RailRider]

Shooting rides are to dark rides what musical revues are to shows.

I could not agree with this anymore. Give me a classic dark ride where I sit back and watch the magic and the environment engages me, not me engaging the environment as I lay waste with my blaster. This is why a ride like Pirates of the Caribbean, Alice in Wonderland or even a more advanced dark ride like Indiana Jones are some of my favorite park experiences. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the occasional blaster ride, but either do something like Men in Black or go full shooter like Toy Story Midway Mania. I am just not a fan of the cheap looking black light 2-D shooter like Boo Blasters and the countless others.

[Voicetek]

I'm not one for interactive dark rides (I agree completely with the opinions of The Interpreter and RailRider in the above posts), but this particular dark ride has a unique aspect to it that seems pretty interesting. The fact that you will be discharged from the ride if you don't accumulate enough points is an interesting angle. It's almost like being inside a real life video game where you have to be good enough to make it to the final boss and would definitely create a reason for you to come back and ride it again and again. Would I like to see something like this at KI? That depends. If we get a new dark ride and keep Boo Blasters, then I would vote for a classic style dark ride where you just ride through and enjoy the surroundings. If it's going to replace Boo Blasters as an upgrade, then this might be a new, unique experience for the park. After seeing this video, I'm kind of torn.

[Tanna]

Well, you don't have to shoot. You can sit there, if you want.

[bkroz]

Well, you don't have to shoot. You can sit there, if you want.

The problem with that is that - at least if the ride is working properly - not hitting any targets means that nothing happens. Hitting the target is what triggers motion, animation, and effects in most interactive dark ride. Boo Blasters with no blasters is like riding a static black-light diorama.

The incessant push for "interactive" is overkill. Folks pay almost no attention to the ride itself and it's more or less impossible to convey any kind of detailed story. Instead, you just sail past vague vignettes with flashing targets all over them. Even Disney is guilty of that. Their most famous interactive dark ride is Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters / Space Ranger Spin. The very vague story of "Zurg stole the batteries from the toys" is established before boarding. Then you just pass through many different sets shooting. There's no real plot. There can't be. Which I guess is fine once in a while, and it sells, and it's marketable. But that doesn't make it a quality dark ride.

Compare that to DarKastle, Phantom Theater, Spider-Man, or Peter Pan's Flight where your attention is on the story (aka, where it should be).

[BoddaH1994]

I always saw the Toy Story ride at Disney as more of a video game than a dark ride.

The problem with the Sally's target-shoot deal is that it's done on the cheap. There's no two ways about that. MIB at Unviersal has a similar system - although I'm not sure if it was designed by Sally's, but you can hit targets 30 or 40 feet away with ease. Special care was clearly put into it.

[The Interpreter]

But see Kings Dominion, Carowinds, etc.

Why the Kings Island guns are so infernally lousy, and why nothing is done about it year after year, are both complete mysteries to me.

[Voicetek]

There are targets in Boo Blasters (same ones that were in Scooby Doo also) that I've never been able to hit. They are just too far away and year after year I try, but am never successful. That's very frustrating and I feel like you should be able to hit any target on that ride. Something really needs to be done about the targeting system because it just plain sucks.

[bkroz]

Men In Black: Alien Attack has guns that release laser cones. Targets that are farther away are easier to hit because the laser's strike gets wider the farther it goes from the gun. That's not trivia, it's one of those "tips" they announce on their website / in the queue / in Behind the Scenes videos. Obviously this is an artist's rendering, but it captures the idea:

It makes sense. When you think about the laser emitted by Boo Blasters' guns and the laser-sized opening they're expected to hit, it's like threading a needle.

And with the other Boo Blasters rides, at least you can physically see where your laser is landing, if only by red dots on the wall.

So are our lasers just magically "invisible?" Or are THAT many guns really broken?

[Voicetek]

I don't recall that our guns EVER had red dots emitted from them. I rode Scooby Doo the first season it was installed and don't remember being able to see where my laser was hitting. A serious upgrade needs to be done, or perhaps just a removal all together.

[Magenta Lizard]

I assume the guns on KI's BBoBH ride are infrared (like tv remote controls). A laser dot would be nice, though.

I've ridden once this season with a very effective gun, and there were still no dots, so I don't think it is an indication they're broken.

[bkroz]

You have to assume it has to do with our omnimover vehicle, I guess?

All the rest of the Scooby Doo dark rides were created from scratch with individual carts along a powered circuit. One can only imagine that those carts - being directly powered through the track - are somehow able to have real laser guns that ours can't. Our vehicles aren't (or weren't) individually supplied with lots of power that I can imagine (though I have no idea how that works), so in the conversion to Scooby Doo, the old system must've been rigged up with some kind of power supply to run the guns, necessitating infrared ones instead of the proper laser ones?

I mean, maybe not. But it just doesn't make sense. Refresh my memory - was ours the first Scooby Doo ride to open, or did it open concurrently with another park's? Even then, Sally - being in on the dark ride game - would know better than to do infrared guns unless they had to, right? Then again, we are talking about Paramount's Kings Island, whose alleged cheap-way-out on Son of Beast and TOMB RAIDER cost both of those rides dearly.

[bkroz]

But then there's this:

Scooby Doo and the Mystery of the Scary Swamp at Six Flags St. Louis (which is closing forever on September 14th - get your last ride in!) re-used a BOAT RIDE with added laser guns, and still riders' shots are visible. Granted, it looks like the cone-based light emission of Men In Black more than the pinpoint laser of the other Boo Blasters. Still, if a boat can be supplied with the energy to run "real" interactive guns, then that sort of destroys my theory in the post above...

...unless it's a budget thing.

[bkroz]

Found another.

Challenge of Tutankhamun!

This is another INCREDIBLE interactive dark ride from Sally Corp commissioned for Six Flags Holland (now Walabi Belgium).

Like Labyrnth of the Minotaur, low-scoring riders are ejected from the ride early. However, Minotaur had ejection points about 1/3 and 2/3 of the way through the game. In Challenge of Tut, both ejection points are at the end of the ride. If you've scored enough by time you reach 14A (on the layout below), you get to face the golden god Set (sort of like a final boss battle... labeled 15A). Only if you defeat him do you see Tut's treasure room (16A) and the fate of the ride's antagonist and protagonist are revealed.

It's smart. On Minotaur, if you don't score enough you miss the last half of the ride or more. Here, you get the full ride no matter what, but only those who score high enough get the big finale. Pretty smart.

Here's a big version of the layout map below, and a photo of 3D model.

The YouTube video above is official from Sally Corp. and, at the end, mentions their other new dark ride for 2003: Scooby Doo and the Haunted Castle at Paramount's Kings Island.

Both Minotaur and Challenge of Tut are INCREDIBLE. I can't get over it. I don't know which one I'd be more excited to ride. Sally can do great work when budgets are expanded.

[westcoaster]

this ride looks great.

[purdude86]

I would love to see us get a great looking and immersive dark ride like one of those, and then have them convert Boo Blasters into a standard (non shooting) dark ride themed to Peanuts.