purejentaclassifieds

The $80 Million Inspiration For Disney’s Latest Wii Game

By Dr. Evelyn Reed | November 03, 2025 | 7 min read

Movies, books, comics, even a 14th century poem have inspired video games, but Toy Story Mania! is the first game designed to recreate a Disney ride experience.

Toy Story Mania! is being developed for the Wii with the help of Disney’s imagineers and designed to replicate the experience of the 4D ride of the same name.

Toy Story Mania! the ride opened in Disney’s California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 2008. On the ride, park-goers board a carnival tram and ride along a track that whips them in front of large screens featuring stereoscopic 3D animation. The ride also features blasts of air and water, with four plastic pop guns that are used to shoot virtual pies, darts, balls and hoops at the screen to score points.

The attraction is broken up into a practice round and five games, including balloon pop and plate break levels, and a Woody-themed pop-gun shoot-out on a faux western set.

To shoot the virtual ammo, people on the ride pull back on a string attached to the over-sized guns and let go to fire, simulating a pop gun. Disney Interactive show producer Stephanie Pickens, one of the imagineers who worked on the ride, said the gun can register up to ten shots a second.

The ride also tracks each players scores, showing the scores at the end of each run and also listing the park’s high scores for the day and month.

The ride cost an estimated $80 million to create and requires more than 150 computers to run. It ทดลองเล่นสล็อตฟรี is, Pickens said, the first true video game ride in a Disney park.

The team behind the ride faced a lot of challenges, said Sue Bryan, Walt Disney senior show producer.

“It was harder than you might have thought,” she said. “We have 3-year-olds, grand parents, teenagers, avid gamers, people who swear they never want to play a video game who might be riding this.”

And because the ride is relatively short, people need to feel successful instantly to have fun.

“Traditional carnival games are fun, but are not necessarily out to make people feel successful,” she said.

So the team started by creating a mock-up of the ride, building the set with foam core, the car out of plywood and the guns out of PVC pipe.

“Our big goal was immersion,” she said.

After deciding on the ride’s design, the team of imagineers started mocking up guns for the attraction.

“We tested levers, buttons, but we ended up with a pull string because it feels like a pop gun, viscerally, when you use it,” she said.

When Walt Disney Imagineering started working on the virtual portion of the ride, it became a lot like making a game, Pickens said.

The giant screens and the graphics needed to have accurate physics and had to be able to know exactly where the shooter was located and pointing at all times.

“We needed to render projectiles precisely to make sure it feels like it comes out of your gun,” Pickens said.

Both Pixar, the people behind the Toy Story movies, and Disney animators worked on the animations for the ride’s games. The games, while relatively simple on their surface, also have a surprising amount of complexity built into them.

Some of the animations โปรโมชั่นสล็อต have two stages, like a hen house that when shot sprouts chickens. There are also Easter eggs, or secrets built into the games, like clouds that shower high point targets when shot.

When Disney decided to create a video game based on their ride they turned to Papaya Studios.

“We spent a lot of time with the video game development team,” Pickens said. “It’s crazy, crazy detailed.”

While the Wii game doesn’t have air or water effects, some of the games levels will include stereoscopic 3D graphics. Where the ride features 56 game screens, the Wii version has 30 mini games.

Because the game relies on the motion controls of the Wii remote, it does manage to capture much of the same feel of the ride and Disney hopes that spells increased sales. In fact, the game will be sold at the two parks right outside of the ride.

https://kotaku.com/toy-story-mania-in-action-5244232

If successful, it sounds like Disney may explore bringing other forms of video game interactivity to some of their parks and with those new rides will likely come new video game ports of theme park reality.

“Interactive play is really popular at our parks,” Bryan said.

Well Played is a weekly opinion column about the big news of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

Discussion (3)

BetGuru9748

The mobile interface is smooth and intuitive. I can play all my favorite slots on the go without experiencing any lag or glitches. The design is responsive and user-friendly, which makes gaming on my phone just as enjoyable as on my computer. The variety of games is excellent, including table games like blackjack, roulette, and baccarat, in addition to slots. This keeps the platform interesting and allows me to switch games depending on my mood.

ReelFanatic718

Customer support has been outstanding whenever I had any issues. They respond quickly and professionally, ensuring that any concerns with deposits, withdrawals, or gameplay are addressed immediately, which makes me trust the platform more. The progressive jackpots are thrilling, and it's exciting to watch the jackpot amounts grow as more players spin the reels. I hope they add even more jackpot slots because it adds a lot of excitement to the gameplay. The mobile interface is smooth and intuitive. I can play all my favorite slots on the go without experiencing any lag or glitches. The design is responsive and user-friendly, which makes gaming on my phone just as enjoyable as on my computer.

LuckyPlayer3497

The mobile interface is smooth and intuitive. I can play all my favorite slots on the go without experiencing any lag or glitches. The design is responsive and user-friendly, which makes gaming on my phone just as enjoyable as on my computer. I appreciate the themed slot games, especially those based on movies and TV shows. They make the gaming experience more engaging and immersive. The combination of storyline, visuals, and bonus features makes each game feel unique. I really enjoy playing the slot games here. The variety is amazing, from classic reels to modern video slots with interactive bonus rounds. Every spin feels like an adventure, and the graphics and sound effects are top-notch, making the experience immersive and exciting.

Recommended Reading

Guitar Hero’s World Tour Plays Final Show for PC, Mac Fans

It’s company policy at Activision to exploit franchises. And you can’t very well exploit Guitar Hero: [[link]] World Tour if it’s not on PC, can you? So Activision are bringing the game to PC (and Mac!). Aspyr...

Gunnar Gaming Glasses Review_ Why Buy Wi-Five_

I ran into the Gunnar Optiks folks last year during the Penny Arcade [[link]] Expo. The idea of glasses designed to reduce eye-strain from extended computer use or gaming sessions appealed to me. Not only were...

Half A Billion EA Sports Games Played Online In A Year

EA Sports marches the big numbers out onto the field, announcing that as of this week, more than [[link]] 500 million online sports games have been played since the ’09 line launched last June. EA Sports title...