Launch Control is an immersive Build > Test > Play experience developed for guests in the new style LEGO Discovery Centres. Launch Control brings the guest’s brick-built LEGO model designs to life digitally, adding multiple layers of play to the LEGO Brick Build Experience.
After building a model rocket from real LEGO bricks, this model is scanned and each visitor then receives a digitized version of the rocket. This is then ready to be used in a multiplayer arcade experience with other guests on a larger screen in a fully realised video game that is only playable in LEGO Discovery Centres.
The story:
It is intergalactic culture exchange day! It’s up to the players to go out and meet the inhabitants of Ice Planet, Rainbow Planet, Disco Planet, Summer Planet, and Jungle Planet, sharing their LEGO pieces with one another. Players scan their original LEGO creations and immediately start playing in the video game.
Players cannot be wrong in their creativity, as such the ships that they create must be scannable no matter how small or odd shaped. Players can choose their own adventure: do they want to collect postcards on each planet, bump into other players or shoot asteroids?
No matter what the player does during their play time there is no ‘losing’. Obstacles do not impede the player’s progression, rather serendipitously help them in their primary goal. ie Wormholes move the player to another planet they have not visited yet; if the player has visited all the planets, then they are brought to a predetermined space nearby.
Players play for roughly the same amount of time which is limited by their power amount. This time includes enough chances to land on all of the planets, if that’s the guest’s chosen mission!
The player’s main goal is to visit as many planets as they can within the energy limit.
Each planet visited has a unique theme and matching icon that are recorded on the touch screen for the player to view during or at the end of the experience. Destroying obstacles are optional “for-fun” interactions and hold no benefit. There is no win/lose state for the player to experience.
Once the player runs out of power, their rocket ship exits the large screen and will land as it returns to the touch screen. After which the real model can be withdrawn from the scanning cubby.
Each play station is equipped with a rumble floor device that activates when certain events occur.
- Initial Launch and Landing or landing/launching from planets
- Activating a Power Up
- Colliding with other players
- Colliding with obstacles
- Shooting nearby obstacles
- Gathering Studs
- Planting Flag & Collecting Bricks