I love Knott’s Berry Farm. When living in Southern California I looked forward to every opportunity to visit the nation’s first theme park. Although the rides were definitely geared for smaller kids and were not as high-adrenalin as what could be found at Cedar Point or Six Flags, they park always had a low keyed, pleasant atmosphere around it.
Knott’s Berry Farm, as part of thew Cedar Fair conglomerate, has take its own step into the location based, immersive experience market. Its VR Showdown In Ghost Town is a multiplayer VR experience that costs $6 in addition to the cost of your ticket. It pays homage to the park’s 19th century western theme but with a 21st century twist. IN a nutshell the experience is three minutes long where the participant plays a law keeper in an old west town trying to stop time traveling robots. Luckily the bad guys are not Zombies but there are similarities to other shot-em ups such as Zero Latency.
The experience is wireless as the participant is equipped with only a toy gun and an head mounted display device. The tracking is done with Optitrack cameras which track the headsets and the toy guns.
The refresh rate is only 60 frames per second which will be noticeably slower than the 90 frames per second experienced with the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift. I have not goner through the experience myself but initial experiences report blurring and thick black lines outside the display area in different headsets.
Many amusement parks are venturing into virtual reality to beef up their existing rides. Similar to the Void and Zero Latency, this is an early attempt to get the public involved with larger than life experiences that can not be found in the home. While I am dismayed the experience developers chose yet another “Shoot-em-Up” experience, I am encouraged with the acceptance of this new form of media by location based venues such as amusement parks.
