@tcool123
The Curse of Chaos: Battle of the Gods
Awards and Honors
SA7 Honorable Mention Award
SA7 MVP Runner-Up
SA3 Sorcerer’s Apprentice
As the #1 seed on ThemeParkPriest’s (unofficial) playoff bracket, Tcool had high expectations to live up to. He answered it with one of his boldest projects to date. The Curse of Chaos: Battle of the Gods is crazy. It’s incredibly inspired, fitting wonderfully within the underbaked Lost Continent area at IOA while also telling an original tale influenced by Egyptian mythos. It’s also one of the grandest ride concepts Universal would have ever made. With an elaborate story, diverse set of original characters, and epic battle sequences, this is about as bold as it gets.
I believe this “go big or go home” mentality both helped and hurt you. Although by no means impossible, it’s not likely Universal would bank on this attraction. I could maybe see Disney going for it, but Universal lives on IPs, and would much rather retheme the Lost Continent to a new, up-and-coming IP. Even so, you’d need this to be a rather profitable IP for them to commit to the crazy scale as this attraction.
Yet despite these concerns over realism, your sheer ambition makes it difficult to truly criticize anything from this project. Everything here was so wonderfully crafted, I want to take the time to appreciate everything you have put together.
Beginning with the flipbook “The Journal of Leonard Conker” pre-project, this is an excellent intro to your project! It’s a tonal refresh that sets the stage perfectly for your project proper. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this, and I hope in the future more players incorporate these types of artistic introductions.
The “brady bunch” drawing is also fantastic. It’s awesome to see you taking up drawing more and more since the Body Wars project, I hope you continue to do so. This is especially useful given their original IP (albeit inspired by Egyptian myth), as readers may not have a visual image in their heads.
I also loved how you described each and every character in a short paragraph, although I’ll be honest -- even I, who knows a decent amount of Egyptian mythology from reading Rick Riordan in middle school -- felt a tad overwhelmed by the end. I understand there’s a lot of complexity to Egyptian myths, but perhaps some of the characters could be trimmed down? If not, perhaps in the future when handling so many characters make (as silly as this sounds) a character chart showing everyone’s relationships with each other. That may be unnecessary, but if I had to give one suggestion that would be it.
But onwards to the ride itself. The overall land changes are much appreciated, although not required of you by the prompt, it’s nice to see how such a major e-ticket would impact the land as a whole. The queue lasts a while and honestly could be trimmed, but realistically I think repeating information is more likely with a backstory this expansive. Honestly, as much as I loved the Leonard Conker intro, I think he and the 8th Wonder Expedition as a whole could have been cut. This may help shorten the complex backstory, which while I appreciate for these kinds of projects, recognize in reality would fly over most viewers’ headers.
I love how detailed the map is, outlining every story beat for readers to follow along while reading. Most of my thoughts regarding the ride-through itself can be found earlier in this review - it’s expansive, communicating the grandeur of the Egyptian Gods while still remaining cohesive enough to understand when riding. I do wish some of the dialogue was simplified, but otherwise, it's a great write-up. Highlights (for me) include the underworld river journey and the reveal of Apep, because who doesn’t love a giant snake animatronic?
Overall, this is an epic final project for one of the season’s heaviest hitters. Tcool, you’ve been in this much longer than I have, but you are still learning new tricks as this season shows. I hope you continue to develop your artistic talents and potentially incorporate them, alongside your excellent writing and team leadership, in future competitions. I’m looking forward to it!
The Curse of Chaos: Battle of the Gods
Awards and Honors
SA7 Honorable Mention Award
SA7 MVP Runner-Up
SA3 Sorcerer’s Apprentice
As the #1 seed on ThemeParkPriest’s (unofficial) playoff bracket, Tcool had high expectations to live up to. He answered it with one of his boldest projects to date. The Curse of Chaos: Battle of the Gods is crazy. It’s incredibly inspired, fitting wonderfully within the underbaked Lost Continent area at IOA while also telling an original tale influenced by Egyptian mythos. It’s also one of the grandest ride concepts Universal would have ever made. With an elaborate story, diverse set of original characters, and epic battle sequences, this is about as bold as it gets.
I believe this “go big or go home” mentality both helped and hurt you. Although by no means impossible, it’s not likely Universal would bank on this attraction. I could maybe see Disney going for it, but Universal lives on IPs, and would much rather retheme the Lost Continent to a new, up-and-coming IP. Even so, you’d need this to be a rather profitable IP for them to commit to the crazy scale as this attraction.
Yet despite these concerns over realism, your sheer ambition makes it difficult to truly criticize anything from this project. Everything here was so wonderfully crafted, I want to take the time to appreciate everything you have put together.
Beginning with the flipbook “The Journal of Leonard Conker” pre-project, this is an excellent intro to your project! It’s a tonal refresh that sets the stage perfectly for your project proper. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this, and I hope in the future more players incorporate these types of artistic introductions.
The “brady bunch” drawing is also fantastic. It’s awesome to see you taking up drawing more and more since the Body Wars project, I hope you continue to do so. This is especially useful given their original IP (albeit inspired by Egyptian myth), as readers may not have a visual image in their heads.
I also loved how you described each and every character in a short paragraph, although I’ll be honest -- even I, who knows a decent amount of Egyptian mythology from reading Rick Riordan in middle school -- felt a tad overwhelmed by the end. I understand there’s a lot of complexity to Egyptian myths, but perhaps some of the characters could be trimmed down? If not, perhaps in the future when handling so many characters make (as silly as this sounds) a character chart showing everyone’s relationships with each other. That may be unnecessary, but if I had to give one suggestion that would be it.
But onwards to the ride itself. The overall land changes are much appreciated, although not required of you by the prompt, it’s nice to see how such a major e-ticket would impact the land as a whole. The queue lasts a while and honestly could be trimmed, but realistically I think repeating information is more likely with a backstory this expansive. Honestly, as much as I loved the Leonard Conker intro, I think he and the 8th Wonder Expedition as a whole could have been cut. This may help shorten the complex backstory, which while I appreciate for these kinds of projects, recognize in reality would fly over most viewers’ headers.
I love how detailed the map is, outlining every story beat for readers to follow along while reading. Most of my thoughts regarding the ride-through itself can be found earlier in this review - it’s expansive, communicating the grandeur of the Egyptian Gods while still remaining cohesive enough to understand when riding. I do wish some of the dialogue was simplified, but otherwise, it's a great write-up. Highlights (for me) include the underworld river journey and the reveal of Apep, because who doesn’t love a giant snake animatronic?
Overall, this is an epic final project for one of the season’s heaviest hitters. Tcool, you’ve been in this much longer than I have, but you are still learning new tricks as this season shows. I hope you continue to develop your artistic talents and potentially incorporate them, alongside your excellent writing and team leadership, in future competitions. I’m looking forward to it!
