Rage of the Gargoyles is a VR coaster experience that was added to the Demon roller coaster in Six Flags Great America (in Gurnee Illinois) and was added to other Six Flags coasters around the country. This experience utilized Samsun Gear VR powered by Oculus. This experience was advertised by Six Flags as a 360-degree adventure that features a “chilling futuristic battle between good and evil”. Similar experiences of Rage of the Gargoyles were featured on Skull Mountain at Six Flags Great Adventure(New Jersey), Kong at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom (San Francisco), Shock Wave at Six Flags Over Texas (Arlington), Goliath at La Ronde(Montreal), Ninja at Six Flags St.Louis, and Steamin’ Demon at The Great Escape (New York). Each of these experiences follows similar plot lines and uses the same technology. Through this discussion I will primarily be discussing the version of Rage of the Gargoyles in Six Flags Great America, however, I will occasionally discuss the other rides that utilized this experience as each was coded slightly differently based on the ride track.

The premise of the experience is that you are a gunner pilot on a helicopter in the not-so-distant future where the world has been overrun and is being destroyed by bloodthirsty gargoyles. Your goal is to “save the world” by shooting down the gargoyles.

When Rage of the Gargoyles first premiered, guests could fire the helicopter guns by tapping on the side of the headset, this could only take place on lift hills. However, at the end of the 2016 summer season, it was updated so that rather than having the users tap a side button it instead focused on face movement and you were able to target a gargoyle just by looking at it and the helicopter fire would automatically be triggered. In this version, users would get a score based on how many gargoyles they targeted and “killed”. Then the end scene would then change depending on how well the user scores. I will primarily be talking about the second iteration of Rage of the Gargoyles as that was the version that was more wildly used. One advantage of the second iteration in comparison to the first is that it allowed a longer time for the user to interact with the game, as they could play the entire ride. Additionally, this iteration allowed a hands-free experience, which increased the ability to use the experience as when you are on a roller coaster, you likely have automatic reactions on where to put your hands (the air, holding on to the handlebar, etc.).

Immersivity and Interactivity

VR allows for interactivity, and immersivity which are both difficult and expensive to create practically. First, in standard roller coasters, it would be impractical to add a game. If you were using physical pointers or a set, it would be hard to point and track with something like a blaster while doing inversions. VR allows for this to happen as the riders are able to target items with their head rather than using a physical prop. Additionally, it would be difficult to create a set around the coaster infrastructure as it would likely require an indoor environment or a mostly enclosed environment. Additionally to have moving parts would be expensive. However, this VR Rage of the Gargoyles experience is fully immersive as it is a 360-degree environment. This allows riders to fully be in this world and story while the coaster is still going. Additionally, through this experience gargoyles are able to approach the user and appear to almost get in your face increasing the immersivity of the experience. Additionally, adding VR to this experience allows you to create scenes and change things based on the ride and create scenes that are literally impossible to create in sets. Having this also means riders can get a different experience each time. Say, a rider rides multiple times they can try to increase their score and can get different scenes which also increases the rideability of the coaster.

Suspense

One thing that this experience adds is suspense. In a standard roller coaster, you can see the track ahead of you for the most part and see the hills (or feel the suspense of the drops ahead). However, with Rage of the Gargoyles, you can’t see the track and there is no visibility of any type of path within the experience. Thus, if you are unfamiliar with the track it means that drops, loops, and twists come unexpectedly so you are unsure where you are and what is next. This can enhance the original experience as it does bring a new sensation to the roller coaster that normal roller coaster riders don’t feel. This increases the suspense of the whole ride for the majority of the riders.

New Experience

As VR is a slightly newer technology and as it gets more reliable, it means that VR becomes a more usable new medium to be used in themed entertainment and in the amusement park industry. Particularly in 2016, this was advertised as one of the first of its kind experiences. It gave a lot of riders in various places a first chance to experience VR. Additionally, this added areas of theming that couldn’t have been added. As it was VR, in comparison to practical sets it was easy to fix any issues and update it as it was implemented. This was shown between the first and second versions where the interaction method changed. Additionally, as this was a VR experience, it was able to be edited depending on the ride track so it could be implemented on different coasters.

Motion Sickness

While motion sickness is a common complaint on roller coasters (and in some VR experiences), Rage of the Gargoyles was noted to have increased the complaints. As frequently these experiences were added to older coasters (to bring new audiences to it), it meant that these rides were already often times less smooth than expected. This made the ride rickety at times and since the riders were viewing a virtual experience, they were tossed around a bit without the normal visual feedback and it was hard to focus on the scene ahead. Additionally, adding on the experience of Rage of the Gargoyles meant a rider couldn’t see the physical track, and the VR experience does not feature the track, thus if you were unfamiliar with the course you wouldn’t know where they were going. While this did add some excitement to the ride, this was a problem for some as it increased motion sickness. Additionally, it also made it hard to track items as you were spinning already so despite the headset having a fairly steady scene your head moved with the ride making it sometimes hard to view and take in the scene (as well as hard to target any gargoyles).

Headset and Ride/Restraint Compatibility

Another area of complaint was related to the headsets and the ride restraints. When I rode the coaster with this experience, at one point I almost had to catch the device as the straps had gotten loose during one of the inversions. A majority of the rides that featured Rage of the Gargoyles had over-the-shoulder restraints, these restraints often times went close to your face. Meaning any bumpiness on the ride could cause the headset to collide with the restraint (as the ride was not designed with the experience in mind). This could cause headsets to come loose. Additionally as the restraints for the headsets were not very secure, and operators wouldn’t necessarily check all the time it meant that during the ride as you went through loops the device would move, making it difficult to view the scene (or to enjoy the experience as you were worried about the headset falling off. One other minor complaint, related to ride compatibility was that the ride is occasionally noisy, particularly during lift hills. This meant riders could hear a bit less of the experience’s audio as it was drowned out by other larger noises. Finally, there were some reliability and calibration issues with the headsets which caused frustration.

Graphics

In terms of the graphic quality, as this was in 2016, the graphics were not the clearest and were sometimes described as blurry. As the processing power in these headsets still has some work to be done, often times this led to people being underwhelmed a bit by the quality.

Capacity & Long Queue Times

Having worked as an attractions operator in the past, there are guidelines to how long it is to take to load and unload. This time dictates the carrying capacity of the ride as the quicker you are able to load and unload guests, the more guests are able to ride, keeping wait time at a minimum and thus increasing guest satisfaction. Normal operations of Demon consisted of the over-the-shoulder restraints rising, riders stepping off the attraction, the gates opening, the new riders stepping on the attraction, dropping off any items in the bins, and sitting and bringing the shoulder restraints down, the operators checking the restraints are fastened and then the ride is sent along the track. However, adding this VR experience, added additional steps. This required users to now to take off their VR headset, and when they are getting on the ride the riders have to put on the VR headset, calibrate it, and adjust any bands so that the headset doesn’t fly off, and required operators to then check both the restraints and the headsets. While those aren’t many steps, even a fifteen-second delay on each ride can reduce capacity. The rider capacity without the VR for Demon is 1300 guests per hour. Each train has six cars, and each car can hold four people. This means each train if fully operational can hold 24 people. Roughly 54 train cars are dispatched an hour, meaning a train leaves the station roughly every 66 seconds. Say for every guest an extra second is taken to check the headset is properly on (though it is likely greater than that due to people's unfamiliarity with VR headsets). This brings down the capacity to 960 guests an hour, a nearly 30% decrease. While, Six Flags does not give the specific numbers of the expected capacity decrease, upon looking at posts about Rage of the Gargoyles at Six Flags Great America, a good chunk of people complained that they wanted to ride and were stuck waiting a long time. Even riders who wanted to ride without the VR experience complained that they felt they were not moving at the rate expected, which likely means these headsets and the experience did reduce the capacity in some way. This could have also impacted how people viewed the experience, which could impact the reviews they write.

While there are a few drawbacks, Rage of the Gargoyles was seen as an interesting new development to these coasters and enticed riders to try the coaster with the new VR version.