WED’s letterhead was immaculate.
I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
31–40 of 207 posts
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#32This is amazing!
I did a similar thing with Roller Coaster Tycoon. I sent screenshots and explanations of my designs to Six Flags. I was probably around 10 or so. I think I got one generic letter back from them unfortunately.
For some time, I wanted to become a Roller Coaster designer.
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#33Around this age I went to a water park and was similarly inspired. I had the idea for making an entire water park dedicated to making sure people would get wet and jump onto rides from beginning to end. I called it "Totally Wet People", drew up an elaborate concept art for water slides, sprinklers, pools, tubes, etc. My mom thought it was hilarious and brought it to work (alas, she worked for the Navy at the time, no…
sounds awesome tbh. If you build it, I will come.
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#34I once wrote a letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein to end her war on drugs when I was in college. I recall it discretely.
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#35When I was 10 I pitched a game to Lucas Arts. Sent a letter and everything. Their lawyers responded telling me why they cannot make my game. Feel like that opened something in me..
What was the reason? Anything beyond concerns over ownership of the ideas, characters, etc. (which I presume is the boilerplate legalese)? Did they even admit to reading your letter?
Yeah, it was about the ownership of the characters that was at-issue IIRC. From memory, they said they couldn't use the characters because I made the suggestion.
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#36At least you tried pitching something I used to write long emails to Riot Games back when League first came out cause I kept losing games haha
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#37As a 10y old, my father taught me about logical ports. I took a very large piece of paper and in a few days, I designed a tic tac toe "computer". It had LEDs that indicated the next computer move, based on the position of the pieces: every single possible state of the board led to a specific "next move" led. I do not think it actually would have worked, but of course I was very proud of my design at the time. Unfortu…
That really hits home. I spent a couple weeks in primary school sketching my own blueprints for great inventions. Nothing that could've ever worked (I didn't know what a transistor actually was, but my machine certainly had a lot of them!), but in hindsight a good start for a curious tech-minded child - switches that opened/closed circuits, wires to connect the various imaginary lasers and electromagnets, and so on. On the back of the paper I scrawled documentation to remember what the darn thing was actually supposed to do (the biggest one? Save people who fall out of airplanes, which to my 9 year old mind was a big issue that needed to be solved)
One day my teacher noticed me doodling in the back, so she promptly grabbed all the "blueprints" I was so proud of, tore them up, and tossed them in the trash. I guess I get discouraged easier than you though, since I didn't design a thing for many years afterwards.
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#38These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…
> weird VHS tape
I don't remember this episode of Firefly
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#39These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…
Back then the working class was simply more powerful. Companies had to have good PR, hence feeling 'magical' or 'mysterious.' Of course now in the later stage of capitalism, these execs, investors, etc can just do full-on mask slips.
I think some of this is definitely childhood nostalgia, but its also very different world today. I don't know any kid that sees Nintendo as magical as I did. The Legend of Zelda was this weird, dark, and mysterious thing. So many games were oddly mysterious or weirdly ported from places like Japan, which had their own design language and often the translation was odd which only added to the mystique. Games came out with little to no fanfare and you just had to sort of figure them out. There were cheat books and magazines and such, but generally you had to approach this art with an open heart and open mind and sort of drink it in. If everything is a google or AI search away, then there's no real mystery anymore.
Kids today are forced to be savvy and 'realpolitick' at a young age. They just complain about the pricing and more 'inside baseball' about games and absolutely get a little brain fried by youtube gaming culture that often runs on outrage so no game is good enough. Suddenly, everyone is a critic and magic and love are hard to cultivate in a highly critical environment. Its like everyone is stuck in a Philosophy 101 class with an overly argumentative professor, forever, and its unrelenting and makes us miserable.
Also kids aren't ignorant, in fact they can be very savvy. Games constantly begging them to buy DLCs or sell them microtransaction items absolutely hurt the 'magic.' How can you develop these feelings when you feel like you're locked in the room with a shady used car salesman constantly?
I don't know if kids today can even experience that old magic. At least not in games. It seems now its only in books and getting lost in novels where magic exists now. A book can't beg you to buy an extra chapter or make you pay gems for the next sentence.
Re: I pitched a roller coaster to Disneyland at age 10 in 1978
#40These letters matter a lot to kids. I sent my video game idea to Nintendo as a little kid and I had the same reaction seeing that envelope from Nintendo in the mailbox addressed to me. I think it was also a bit more special pre-internet as these companies felt a bit more magical and mysterious. You can only read about them through video game magazines and see their names in the credit scenes at the end of the games.…
Back then the working class was simply more powerful. Companies had to have good PR, hence feeling 'magical' or 'mysterious.' Of course now in the later stage of capitalism, these execs, investors, etc can just do full-on mask slips. I think some of this is definitely childhood nostalgia, but its also very different world today. I don't know any kid that sees Nintendo as magical as I did. The Legend of Zelda was this…
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