Protecting the Secret
In this fully immersive interactive game, visitors find themselves being led by the man in the hat through a series of virtual environments across time and place where the secret formula has been kept through the years.
Innovative use of Microsoft Kinect depth-sensing cameras, large-scale projection, and sound design creates a seamless 16-foot-wide gaming environment for visitors to visit three locations the secret formula might have been through the years.
Visitors see a representation of themselves in the story world. As they move through the real world, their representation can trigger Easter eggs in the story world, unlocking and revealing clues and hidden objects.
In the first scene, visitors search for clues related to the ingredients in the triangular room where the formula was mixed in the early years of Coca-Cola, looking in cabinets, unpacking boxes, rolling away barrels. The game tracks the group’s progress. When they’ve uncovered enough, the man in the hat invites them forward.
In the second scene, visitors proceed through the security barriers in a moving train car. Finally, they are ushered to the final scene, in which they try to find the combination to the vault. Their story selves react and change in colorful ways—they have unlocked the fun behind the secret formula!
Each scene is rendered dynamically by the 3D game engine. As the depth data from the Kinect cameras shows the visitors moving and altering the scene, lighting, camera angles, shadows, and various elements in the scene all react with each other and the visitors themselves, in real time.
A large monitor adjacent to this immersive experience shows a grid of six security camera feeds that purport to be of the alleged times and places the secret formula has been, some of which visitors are playing in that moment in Protecting the Secret (and some from as far back as the 1880s!). Fun infographics add to the mood.
The entire Protecting the Secret system works within the exhibit’s show control system. The experience acts as a flexible time buffer, keeping visitors entertained and immersed in the story before they move on to the final part of the exhibit.
When show control indicates that visitors can move forward, the large screen to the left declares “Access Granted,” and the Protecting the Secret experience comes to its conclusion, as the story world and the real world converge: The man in the hat appears to step out of frame and trigger the real doors to open, pointing the way to where the secret might be found.