A Pirate’s Adventure: Treasure Of The Seven Seas Play Test

This morning at Magic Kingdom we caught a play test of the new interactive Adventureland game A Pirate’s Adventure: Treasure of the Seven Seas. The game is similar to Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure and features interactive areas with physical props and narrations that lead guests through a quest to find lost treasure.

Guests begin their journey at an old Cartography Shop (formerly the Crow’s Nest store) near Golden Oak Outpost that has been converted into a central hub for adventurers to help locate missing treasure. Groups of up to 6 people are given a Talisman (a RFID card) that will help them on their journey. Guests use the talisman to activate a screen that will assign them one of 5 different missions. The missions are titled: Guardian’s Curse, Blackbeard, Heads You Lose, Haven Defense, and The King’s Ransom. The group is then given a map and sent off to find their first location.

Once at the location one member of the party touches the talisman to the symbol at the station, and the animation begins. Each adventure has 4-5 stops along the way in a search for missing treasure. Each stop only contains 30-45 seconds of activity (see 2 spoiler filled example videos below) that requires no action on the part of the guests. You just watch what happens, listen to the narration, and then head off to the next location you are given.

We tried 2 different adventures today (the only 2 that were testing): Guardian’s Curse and The King’s Ransom. Both story lines were similar…Treasure is missing, you check several locations where there is no treasure, each location gives you a clue to the next spot to look, finally you find the treasure.

While some of the effects were awesome, I couldn’t help but wish there were more to it. I hoped instead of just telling you the next location there would be a puzzle to figure out, or at the very least some kind of visual clue like at Agent P’s World Showcase Adventure. The game didn’t feel interactive at all. It just felt like we were going through motions, and I wasn’t invested in the story at all.

Although the game is targeted at 8-10 year olds, I believe even kids will find the game too simple. None of the kids we saw playing today were very enthused, and none of the dozen or so I asked were interested in going back to get another mission to complete. Luckily, Imagineers were at the end of each section to ask for feedback and seemed to take our comments seriously. They reminded us that this is just a test and that there will be changes. Ideally, I would like to see more interactivity and see it tailored to different age ranges. It would be wonderful to have a tougher experience for older kids and adults.

Currently there is no official opening date announced for the attraction, and testing is expected to continue in short bursts for the next couple of weeks at least.

What are your thoughts on this new game? Are you excited? Will you play?