Jarrett
Most Obnoxious Member 2016
Hello! My name is Richard Young and I'm in charge of the design team for Lionsgate Entertainment's first theme park! Lionsgate, the same people that brought you Rambo, The Expendables, and the SAW Series, (which actually has its own amusement ride in England), have decided to take their wildly popular Hunger Games franchise and turn it into a full-blown theme park. Set to open in 2017, just a year after Mockingjay Part 2 is released, this will be how the series lives on even after the movies are finished; a Disney-esque park that's always growing and changing.
Parkgoers will have a wide expanse of options when it comes to Hunger Games-themed attractions. Fly on the wings of a Mockingjay through the ruins of the destroyed District 13 cheating death on close calls with the smoldering wreckage! If thrills aren't your thing, however, head to the Capitol on the high-speed train from District 12 through the postapocalyptic landscape of Panem. Once there, shoot at targets in the Capitol's training center in order to recieve a good rank from the Gamemakers. Take a relaxing tour through the woodlands of the 74th annual Hunger Games where all the action happened including the burned section at the edge of the arena, the Cornucopia where nearly half the tributes were killed, the riverside cave where Katniss and Peeta went for shelter, and the tree where two tributes were killed by a falling nest full of angry tracker jackers. However, you can still get that adrenaline flowing on a fast-paced launching roller coaster experience through the arena on the run from wolf muttations. Go back to District 12 and enter the coal mines of District 12 through perilous situations on a family friendly indoor-outdoor roller coaster or just look around at The Hob, taste fourteen different breads representing the 13 Districts and the Capitol at Peeta's Bakery, or dig for gems in the District 12 mines. At night, make sure to try your hand at outrunning those mutts through the forest after dark or return to the Capitol as an honored guest of President Snow at his mansion as it lights up the night and make sue to save room for all the gourmet food you'll be served. However, if you want to actually enter the Games, you can either try volunteering in District 12's justice building and get in on a laser battle to the death through a foreign course littered with booby traps, or race against the clock in the 75th Quarter Quell on the world's first robotic arm roller coaster as you evade traps set by the Gamemakers all leading up to an explosive finale! There will be so much to do when this park opens in 2017, just a year after The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 brings the films to a close, allowing for this to be the next step for the series. The Capitol where you enter the park, District 12 and its subsection District 13 accessible by high-speed train, and the arena of the 74th annual Hunger Games that has been converted to a vacation spot for Capitol citizens will make up the initial state of the park, with the potential of adding a trail connecting District 12 and The Capitol that includes small pavilions set up representing Districts 1-11.
I've been at work on this project for about three months now, posting to a design blog sanctioned by Lionsgate, but I've been asked to take to a few public forums to get enthusiasts in on the action.
Let's take a tour!
Before we begin, please keep in mind that these are all computer simulations. Nothing is set in stone, and I can and will change what I need based on feedback to make the park perfect by the time construction permits are filed!
This is the first thing you see when you enter. This is the City Circle. When the Games happen three times a day (nobody dies, don't worry), the reaped tributes will ride down this strip in horse-drawn chariots with the anthem of Panem playing. Parkgoers watching the Games will be encouraged to cheer for and support their tributes, from buying flags with their district seal on it to screaming at them on the large screen as the tributes duke it out on video feed broadcast all over the park.
Behind that facade at the end of the City Circle midway is Quarter Quell, the world's first robotic coaster. A dark coaster featuring numerous of special effects paired with cutting-edge technology, Quarter Quell is based on the traps in the arena from the 75th Hunger Games featured in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
Quarter Quell's queue (Try saying THAT five times fast!) is heavily themed to the new training center built in the movie, complete with force fields and lasers. Here, the Hunger Games: Nation of Panem app that will be of much use in the park will have a feature built in where you point your phone's camera at these lasers and you unlock a mini game where you select a weapon and have to hit holograms in training.
It's details like this that will truly make Katniss's world come alive. Those with a keen eye will catch plenty of neat little bits hidden throughout the park.
First scene of Quarter Quell. Get ready to enter the Games!
It's a transitional scene, but it's a favorite of mine. This is the force field scene, based on the part in the movie where Peeta accidentally chops the force field with his machete and it nearly kills him.
Run! The fog is poison!
Monkey Mutts! This one's actually a bit scary, the arm holds you out over the foliage in the faces of these animatronics.
Next comes the wave that soaks the beach. This bit actually gets you a little wet, though we plan to hold off a true water ride until we can expand, adding a river rafting ride in the Arena or a log flume in District 12.
The decorations in this room are done, the effects are still being worked on. But plenty of holograms and pyrotechnics will prove it to be worth the wait.
It won't disappoint. Promise.
And then the robot arm really shows its potential on what would be a trimmed double down found on a family coaster.
The arm simulates a Thirteen-esque VD element as you enter the brake run room, themed to the collapsed arena at the end of Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The piece from the score that played as Katniss was lifted from the arena will be a loop playing there, suiting it for stacking. The ride is designed to stack on the blocks. In a Disney-style park, it runs 4 people per train, we'll need to do it and we'll need to do it seamlessly. Quarter Quell's a marvel of engineering, it can't be the next Rip, Ride, Rockit.
Don't eat it before your Quarter Quell ride, but this Subway is one of two sponsor buildings in the Capitol. Extended from Lionsgate's contract with them to promote Hunger Games: Catching Fire, you'll be able to order both of the Hunger Games-inspired subs they had there. (POSTING AS JARRETT: I actually took on the polar vortex that hit the Midwest head on on Monday to go grab one of these! I usually get either that, the chicken teriyaki, or the cold cut combo, and the steak sriracha sounded good. I was doing it mainly to help out and get lunch for my mom and sister, but that's why I picked Subway. Took me 45 minutes to get the car operable with the rough translucent ice that had solidified on all of the windows I needed to see through but 5$ footlongs and chicken and dumpling soup made up for it...I guess.)
This is the one Covergirl came up with. Though I still have no idea why you'd want Capitol makeup! XD
Just next door from the Capitol Beauty Studio is Training Days, a dark shooter ride where you aim at dummies and targets and are scored from 1 to 12 at the end, just like the tributes.
This room, where you have to blow up a camp, serves as a finale to Training Days.
Perhaps you desire something more decadent? Head down the street to President Snow's mansion for a nice outdoor lunch. This place is sort of a sophisticated fast-casual place by day. They serve club sandwiches, chips, and of course, lamb stew.
At night, however, it becomes a five-star restaurant with a dinner menu. It's still a work in progress (though more complete than some of the other stuff) but I plan to add platforms for sword swallowers, plate spinners, and fire breathers!
Inside the mansion (actually a facade) is the Presidential Rose Garden. This is where President Snow grows his infamous white roses, and you can take a stroll through this arboretum. Who says you can't stop to smell the roses when you're at a theme park?
If you feel bad about enjoying yourself in a city that forces teenagers to kill each other on live TV, why not jump on that train and go to District 12?
This is one of many things that has a complex multi-loading system in the park, but it's a decent capacity ride. Basically, you can reserve a ride time or walk-in for one, these two quantities are split. From there, you go through the turnstile and wait on the platform before a conductor assists you on the train from one of five loading points, scanning your district card to make sure you can be on that train.
The interior is supposed to feel incredible, a mixture of Roman and Industrial Revolution architecture went into this. It's based on the one from the film but not a copy in any way.
Adios, Capitol!
District 12 has three flagships. One of them is District 12 Mine Ride, the prototype Maurer-Sohne P-Coaster. This indoor-outdoor coaster is themed to a job in the District 12 mines having to get the coal to the surface, racing through underground danger zones, the car swaying on the tracks as it tilts from side to side, barely missing sharp rocks and dangerous mining machines as it twists through the layout.
Because of bits and pieces of feedback I've gotten, I've got this ride in the chop shop, trying to improve the atmosphere and making it a bit more claustrophobic, but this room might be the best one I have. Those rocks don't feel far enough from the train and the cave feels pretty tiny to begin with. It has a few somewhat terrifying scenes, though. There's a series of hops that goes through a really tight tunnel and storms through a really tight hole in an iron brace, and the second lift hill, built over a pitch black floor in a dark room made to look like a very deep abyss...held up by really weak-looking supports!
The outdoor portion is the finale of the ride, when the train barrels down a steep drop, over an airtime hill, swings through this overbank, and careens back into the building while dodging mining hardware.
Further down past the mines is The Seam. The Seam is mostly a visual walkthrough, but there are three attractions here.
This archery range is a midway-style game. You have to shoot the bulls-eye while missing the obstacles in your way to win a prize and a front of the line pass for Mockingjay or District 12 Mine Ride.
This is Hunter's Smokehouse. Here you can try all sorts of North American game, such as antelope, elk, and venison.
Katniss's house is just another clone of the other Seam houses, but twice a day, a handler will bring a goat out to milk it, and let volunteers try their hands at it. Eventually, though, there very well could be an interior you can walk through.
The Seam is located just on the district boundary for twelve. Some say that not far from twelve are the ruins of District 13. If you pass the district boundary, maybe you'll end up in thirteen.
Just outside of The Seam is a subsection of twelve called District 13. It'll hold a simulation ride (haven't started it yet) and Mockingjay, the park's wing coaster. It's not up yet, but these two rusty metal keyholes will hold the District 13 seal between them.
It has a long way to go, but when it's done, Mockingjay will be a B&M wing coaster that gracefully soars through the ruins of District 13, cheating death as it narrowly misses destroyed pieces of the smoldering ruins.
This pond already has a spillway that dumps radioactive sludge into it, but I want another water effect. Iron Dragon misters or Maverick water bombs?
The Arena is the final section of the park I'd like to show you, and it's also the least complete. When you enter through a tunnel, the Cornucopia is the first thing you see. It should serve as a decent photo op for families.
The station for the Arena's coaster, Muttation Run. The Capitol architecture should go well with the woodland setting of this park section.
Muttation Run, which is based on the muttation scene from the first book in the series, is a Mack LSM multi-launched coaster that hugs the terrain of the Arena as it bolts through the trees. It's supposed to feel like you're running from the wolf muttations.
We needed to theme Mockingjay's trains but not Muttation Run's. The industrial look of the Mack trains with the chrome combined with how we want it painted fits the Capitol aesthetics beautifully.
Overview of the layout. (POSTING AS JARRETT: Ignore the in-game supports, I'll be custom supporting it next time I hit it.)
This unique element, called a Panem turn, flips you over the river that runs through the Arena. It's one of five inversions found on the ride.
Pretzel loop towards the bottom of the layout a la Helix.
The part between launches 2 and 3 really isn't much; it's just hopping around these rocks.
Ending with a barrel roll? Yup, it's a Mack.
For those of you who may want to take it easier in the Arena (though in The Hunger Games, that's a REALLY good way to get killed
), Arena Tours might be more your speed. It's a studio tour-esque ride through the woods past sets similar to scenes from the movie. Here you can see the Cornucopia, and later, you'll go past the burned section of forest, the cave where Peeta and Katniss hid, and the wheat field where Thresh hid. Though I did hit a major setback when I wasn't thinking when I rendered the riverbank; it looks horrible and needs redone.
Towering over the Cornucopia is Countdown, the park's drop tower.
Countdown is an Intamin drop tower built around suspense. It has onboard audio that plays the score from the countdown in the movie as it slowly lifts you to the top of the 249-foot tower before it drops you.
Well that's Nation of Panem, folks! Keep an eye out as this project continues to grow! Next time you'll see some concepts I had considered adding that didn't make the cut, and get to decide which ones I reconsider adding!
POSTING AS JARRETT: Realized I never took my projects over to enthusiast sites so here's one I've decided to take over! Let me know what you think, and if I should change anything. Though please note that this park is a computer simulation being designed, so that's why it doesn't look half complete...yet.
Also, as an engineer, this is a big step for me. Partially because I'm making my own CS, partially because this is a real project that was proposed that I decided to do because I wanted to see it done. So Nation of Panem is the first thing I design that could be a reality, just not designed by me.
