7 Principles for Bringing Play to Attractions

Great play should be for everyone. This principle is our blueprint for inclusive and compelling design.

• Low Thresholds: We invite everyone in with intuitive, welcoming first steps. The experience should be immediately accessible, regardless of age, ability, or background.
• Wide Walls: We support different ways to play. Whether you’re a quiet observer, a boisterous collaborator, a solo adventurer, or part of a large family, the world should accommodate your style. We design for intergenerational and culturally diverse experiences that feel relevant and shared.
• High Ceilings: We layer in depth to motivate return visits, mastery, and surprise. The most rewarding worlds always have another secret to uncover or a new skill to master.

We empower guests with agency, purpose, and presence. In our worlds, the most important rule is that the story happens because of you, not to you. We create opportunities for choices with tangible impact, ensuring every guest feels that their presence matters. By giving guests a clear role and committing to that ‘play promise’, we move beyond simple entertainment to create lasting, transformative memories. Guests should leave feeling changed.

In a world of down-turned heads and glowing screens, we design for human, physical, and social interaction. We prioritise embodied play that gets heads up, hands engaged, and eyes on the world and each other. We champion play that celebrates collaboration over pure competition, using tactile, spatial, and cooperative mechanics to build genuine social bonds. The environment itself becomes a responsive character in the story, reacting to guests in ways everyone can see and feel, creating a truly immersive social space.

The best experiences don’t need a manual. We believe in letting the story teach and letting play lead.

• Story as Instruction: The world itself should do the heavy lifting. We don’t explain; we invite. The environment, the characters, and the narrative cues guide the guest on what to do.
• Play as UX: Guests should understand what to do by doing. Learning happens through intuitive, playful interaction. We build game loops that emotionally reinforce the story, making every action feel meaningful. We also create space for “fun failure,” where getting it wrong is just another delightful part of the discovery process.

A powerful experience lives outside the boundaries of a single visit. We consider the full emotional arc of the guest journey. We use anticipation as a core part of the experience, making pre-show moments and digital entry points matter. We think of the story as a service: what does the guest get to carry forward? By creating unlockables, rewards, and extensions to the world through merchandise, media, and memories, we build an interconnected, always-on experience that deepens a guest’s buy-in to the world.

At its heart, play is about connection. We design for joyful community. We deliberately craft moments meant to be shared between family, friends, and even total strangers, engineering big social payoff moments that become the stories people tell for years to come. The experience provides meaningful, playful feedback that sparks conversation, pride, and social sharing. Our ultimate goal is to make every guest feel part of something bigger than themselves – to build a true community, even if it only lasts for a day.

Before a guest can feel empowered or connected, they must first suspend their disbelief. We build immersive and authentic worlds where every single element, from the largest set piece to the smallest interaction, has a clear and cohesive purpose. Technology must earn its place. It requires a narrative justification and should be used only when it can deepen the story, reinforce the theme, or enable the guest’s role. When done right, the technology becomes invisible, a seamless and magical part of the world’s story.

By adhering to these principles, we don’t just build attractions. We build worlds that invite you in, give you a vital role to play, and connect you to the people you share them with. We build the foundations for memories that last a lifetime.

By embracing play, attractions can achieve deeper immersion, boost repeat visits, grow revenue, and forge stronger emotional connections with guests.

It’s time to move beyond bigger rides and create worlds where guests are active participants in their own stories. Let’s build the future of unforgettable experiences!