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From a possible old French Disney card-based rpg?
Of all the special events held at Disney World, two have stood out as the most appealing to me: the Epcot Food & Wine Festival, and scavenger hunts throughout the parks. The latter is for D23 members only, which is just another reason why I might want in the fan club.
Now Walt Disney World is taking that whole scavenger hunt concept one step further, with its new role-playing game Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom, announced on the official Parks blog at the beginning of September. The game, kicking off in early 2012, will be hosted by the wizard Merlin. He’ll recruit guests from around the Magic Kingdom to follow maps and clues to learn how to defeat an army of Disney villains.
This could either be really fun or really dumb, depending on how Disney World execs go about it. All we know at this point is the sparse information in the above paragraph; I’m assuming more details are forthcoming. So let’s look at how this might play out.
For those not in the know, a role-playing game involves the players taking on the personas of characters other than themselves through which to explore the world of the game. Sometimes, often with video games, this character is just the figure on the screen that the player controls. In other cases, especially when the game is played live (as it sounds like it will be here), the player actually pretends to be the character.
Because this game is being described as a role-playing game and not just as another type of scavenger hunt, I’m going to assume the latter will be true for Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. I wonder if players get to take on the mantels of various Disney characters, or if they’ll be given entirely new identities.
I think the game’s organizers will attract more people if those involved get to play as Disney characters. But then people might fight over who gets to portray whom, and so it might cause less conflict to either have players create original characters or just go through the game as themselves.
Next I’m curious as to whether this game is for all ages or just children. It would be fun if they’d have different puzzle difficulty levels, so that any adults who might want to play get harder questions or challenges than ones for kids.
I’m also wondering whether Merlin just wanders around the Magic Kingdom trying to recruit players, or if interested parties gather at a certain area. It ought to be the latter; I imagine most people not interested in the game also aren’t going to want to be bothered by Merlin while trying to go about their vacation.
Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom sounds like it has a lot of potential as a unique new Disney World feature. As far as I can tell from the wording in the parks blog post it sounds like it’ll be a recurring event, not just a one-time thing. That might depend in part upon how successful it is after its initial launch. I’m curious to learn more about the game, so I’ll continue to post about it as more information is released.
Related Articles:
Mousejunkies: One Man’s Life at Disney World
Adventures by Disney: New Destinations for 2012
*(This image by andertoons is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.)
