Game Nation, an Experimental Videogame Theme Park, is in The Works

When I was younger, I’d think up ideas for new games and I’d think they were the coolest thing ever. One of those ideas (from what I can remember, I can’t find any of the maps or anything that I drew out) was a Kingdom Hearts meets The Pagemaster type romp through an amusement park with variously themed levels. I never really worked out a story, but it probably would’ve been less convoluted than Kingdom Hearts.

My inner child wailed with delight when I perused through my Google Reader feeds and saw that there was a videogame theme park/resort called Game Nation in the works. Not many details have been released, nor a location for the park. If it’s anything like MagiQuest — which was a similar… thing — maybe it’ll be ok. I’m still skeptical though, how are they going to get all of this stuff that they claim will happen to happen? I guess they could give you ridiculous items to carry around that have RFID chips or something?Time will tell, I suppose.

After hearing about Marc Rogers’ GDC talk about everything he knows about game design he learned at Disneyland, this park seems to be turning that notion on its head. Instead of game designers learning from real-world works, architectural, landscape and attraction designers are going to be trying to take something away from modern game design. Let’s hope they leave out Quick-time events, hour(s) long cutscenes, and grey/brown color palettes out of this park, and actually make it something that’s bearable to at least consider going to.