Enhancing theme park experiences through adaptive cyber-physical play

In this vision paper we explore the potential for enhancing theme parks through the introduction of adaptive cyber-physical attractions. That is, some physical attraction that is controlled by a digital system, which takes participants' actions as input and, in turn, alters the participants' experiences. This paper is thus divided into three main parts; 1) a look at the types of attractions that a typical theme park may offer and, from this, the identification of a gap in an agency versus structure spectrum that recent research and industry developments are starting to fill; 2) a discussion of the advantages that cyber-physical play has in filling this gap and a few examples of envisioned future attractions; and 3) how such cyber-physical play can uniquely allow for adaptive attractions, whereby the physical attraction is personalized to suit the capabilities or preferences of the current attraction participants, as well as some foreseeable design considerations and challenges in doing so. Through the combination of these three parts, we hope to promote further research into augmenting theme parks with adaptive cyber-physical play attractions.