Evermore is Gone
Imagine a place where you did real life quests, sung in a bar, and met actors who were characters in a continuous story. That was Evermore park. It was inspiration for my job, and one of the few Theme Parks that was known in the Pacific Northwest. It has been declared over
There appears to be two parts to this story. One, the person who owned the land had no idea how to run it and wants to build something he understands. Two, the people who did know how to run it were caught up in their own SJW hug box they couldn't see outside of their own problems.
The creator of Evermore also created the Void VR experience company. They did well, but had terrible financial planning. The company has gone into different hands since then, but the original idea is great. Players wear VR gear and walk through actual hallways with props. Everything feels like what is being seen through the visor. It's a genius thing, and way ahead of it's time. They even had a location at Disney world
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Void_(virtual_reality)
Bretschnieder now runs the Grid, which is a giant interactive FEC. Mixed reality go karts, smaller VR experiences and more.
www.thegrid.com
It's not only sad to see it go, but also shows signs of innovation being crushed by bad management and people who prey on these organizations.
I went to some park a little like Evermore as a kid.
You could do a lot with AI art and some trading cards as "quest givers".
Port Arthur Historic Site in Tasmania used to do that (but way before AI). You would be given a card with a convict’s name on it, then you could find out their story in the interactive museum as you went in, and then look for related places around the wider historic site (former penal colony), including with “holographic” projections and stuff, to tell “ghost” stories…
It was actually really quite effective, at helping “personalize” the experience, and I assume you got to keep the card afterwards.
Sadly I doubt they still do it, nearly two decades later and especially after Covid…
Do tell me more about this park?
I would be careful with AI art since Willy Wanker proved how to not use it.
Apparently they closed the park a while ago, but it was a few replica castles (Dunvegan and Woodleigh) and towers with a maze. Probably too small for major events or repeated visits, but now it's a private residence they're trying to rent out for events and such.
I watched the video about Evermore and apparently they did trading cards but gave up on them, and charged extra for them.
I've looked up the place. The original castle showed up so I did a reword and got better results. That is a much smaller castle.
There have been theme parks for a long time. The World's Fair is probably a famous theme park when done right. Much of the landmarks in Seattle are from a worlds fair. But Seattlites don't really think about theme parks as a whole.
It would be fun to have a few castles and mazes just to let people figure it out on their own.