The kingdom of Crites is under attack, and Head Knight Johanna needs your help! Brave volunteers will board carriages specially equipped with tools that can be used to defeat any potential threats. The mission may be perilous, but a handsome reward awaits those that return successful. Do you have what it takes to answer the call?
JOHANNA CONCEPT ART BY LIZ ROMAN
In this interactive trackless dark ride experience, guests discover that a mechanical dragon has been terrorizing people with its evil army of mechanical gargoyles. Countless villages have been fully depleted of their metal reserves and have been left destroyed in the wake of the dragon’s path. The dragon has made its way to the heavily guarded Kingdom of Crites and has begun to attack the castle, the stronghold of the once peaceful kingdom. In the chaos of the attack, the entirety of the kingdom’s metal supply disappears, so Head Knight Johanna must rely on the help of volunteers while the rest of her team works to retrieve the stolen metal.
Guests are able to fully interact with the attraction by pressing the buttons situated at the front of their ride vehicles. In order to successfully defeat the dragon and its minions, guests must press the buttons as quickly as they can when the buttons flash red. The faster they press the buttons, the more points they score. However, if a button is pressed while inactive, guests will lose points. The buttons activate according to the story of the attraction, so guests will need to pay attention in order to earn the most points.
This project was submitted by the Knights of Crites team, a group of five students from the Savannah College of Art and Design, to the 2024 Swamp Thrill Attraction Design Competition, which is hosted by the University of Florida’s Gator TPEG Club annually on Zoom. This project was awarded Best Design because our team received the highest percentage in the design category that year according to the competition’s official scoring rubric.
My Work
FACADE DESIGN
Cathedral and show building modeled in Sketchup
Johanna, the fictional protagonist driving the attraction’s narrative, was loosely inspired by the legendary warrior, Joan of Arc. I wanted to ground the architectural language of this attraction in the Gothic style to pay homage to Joan of Arc’s historical background. However, the Gothic style has deeply religious roots, and our team wanted to avoid including any explicit references to religion while still being respectful of the style’s history. Therefore, I chose to replace the traditional cross shape with a diamond divided vertically by a thin rectangle. From far away, the cut diamond resembles a cross, but its true form becomes more recognizable as a diamond when guests approach it. Guests are able to enter the main standby queue through the grand archway in the center. Single riders enter from the right archway and those with paid “skip the line” passes or disability passes enter from the left archway. The ride station is closest to the left archway.
Trees imported from 3D Warehouse
QUEUE LINE - SHOW SCENE CONCEPT RENDER
Props and architectural elements modeled in Rhino 8
Rendered in Enscape
This show scene can be found right across from the archway that connects the first part of the queue to the second part of the queue. This is the desk of the king’s scribe, who left the castle to follow the band of knights who went in search for the kingdom’s stolen metal to chronicle their adventures. Unlike the other sections of the castle, the squire’s writing quarters remain tidy because the squire left the castle before learning about the threat of the mechanical dragon. From certain parts of the queue, guests can read the page that the squire left off on, which explains where he and the other knights went.
FACTION LOGOS
Sketched on Adobe Photoshop
Created in Adobe Illustrator
I created these logos in tandem with Liz’s character designs to represent the four different factions that guests could get placed into while riding Quest of the Dragon’s Den. These logos can be found throughout the attraction as both physical signage and digital media.
Storyboards
Created in Adobe Photoshop
Story Beats by Elizabeth Klamer
Queue: Upon entering the queue, guests follow a wooded path leading to the charred facade of the kingdom’s castle. As they journey through the castle you see paintings of knights along the wall with additional scorch marks, showing damage inside.
Pre-Show: Guests enter a chamber room and are greeted by Johanna and her team of Section Leaders. They inform guests of their task to hunt down the dragon that has been terrorizing the kingdom, and recently broke into the castle.
Loading: Guests are led into the stables and loaded into four-person ride vehicles. They are randomly assigned their ride vehicle, which determines the section they are trained for and fight with.
Transition: Ride vehicles bring guests out of the stables and into the woods beyond the castle. As they journey, they are greeted by glimpses of the dragon throughout the woods.
Training: The light darkens, and the trees thicken in the woods making it hard to notice the mechanical spiders crawling around guests until it’s almost too late. Section Leaders call out instructions for guests to follow to defeat the spiders.
Cathedral: Guests exit the woods and come across the abandoned cathedral, thought to be the den of the dragon. Guests are brought into the cathedral, and they see it’s more of an inventor’s workshop than a dragon’s den.
Fight Sequence: The dragon unleashes a hoard of gargoyles that attack the guests, so that they must use their learned skills and guidance from section leaders to earn points and defeat the gargoyles.
Dragon Attack: The dragon bursts through the stained glass above the guest’s head, initiating another attack.
Dragon Attack: Guests defeat all the gargoyles and begin fighting the dragon taking all the learned skills from their fights with the spiders and the gargoyles to deliver a final crushing blow. The dragon falls to the ground, defeated.
Journey Home: Guests leave the cathedral to return to the castle grounds victorious. Their earned points dictate their knight ranking, with Johanna and her team of section leaders thanking guests for their bravery.
Process Book
Story Lead: Elizabeth Klamer
Concept Artists: Liz Roman (Characters) and Tom Trapp (Environments)
Ride Vehicle Design and Attraction Layout: Colin Carlson
