Have you ever been to Walt Disney World? The Stag with Silver Antlers is an independently-produced walkthrough attraction in the spirit of the Disney dark rides (think Pirates of the Caribbean or anything in Fantasyland).

This is an idea almost ten years in the making. In high school, I began thinking about what it would take to build a theme park. Realizing that such a project was too large to even dream about, I narrowed the concept down to what I considered the most important pieces: themed design, the idea of manufacturing a “natural” environment to evoke a certain mood or feeling; and the dark ride, a story told through a series of dioramas which the audience rolls past in a cart on a rail. Combining these pieces brought me to the walkthrough.

A walkthrough is slower-paced and more immersive than a traditional cart-based dark ride. Because the viewer moves herself through the show, there is more time to consider her surroundings. And there’s more opportunity to turn those surroundings into something worth considering: a major technical reason that dark rides are so dark is to hide the ugly rail mechanisms. But a simple footpath can be beautiful.

I had my medium, but now I needed something to say. Taking another cue from the early Disney productions, I found a copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales and started reading. I ignored the stories that were already featured in well-known adaptations—“Little Briar-Rose,” “Cinderella”—and soon found one that seemed to have potential: “The Fisherman and his Wife.” It’s a simply-structured tale of a man who accidentally catches a talking fish and a woman who doesn’t know when to accept a good thing.

I mulled over the story for a long time, but the farthest I ever took my idea was a few couplets (in iambic pentameter!) and some experimental websites where I would document my work (heh). The idea slipped away into the back of my head as I started thinking about college.

But it never left. Though I stopped thinking about my fisherman story, I never stopped thinking about designed experiences. Finally, last week, I tried to remember everything I had done with that idea in an effort to work toward it once more, and I haven’t stopped playing with it since.

Lots of details are different. The story follows the same flow as the Grimms’ tale, but I’ve condensed some parts, expanded others, and added nuance and drama where I felt the two were lacking. The fish is now a deer. But I don’t want to give away too much yet!

I have lots to share with you already, and there will be much more as we turn this dream into something real (walkthroughable!) over the next few months. I’ll be working away at this as publicly as I can and sharing new details every Monday.

Next week, we’ll talk about the history of dark rides and other themed attractions. I hope to see you then!