Sasu's Mystical Quest
- Brand
- Royal Caribbean
- Year
- 2018
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Installation
Objective
Royal Caribbean wanted a showpiece attraction for its new ship Spectrum of the Seas — something that would impress guests on sight, get talked about on social media, and run unsupervised around the clock. The brief also called for an experience accessible to guests with limited mobility, with measurable gains in play sessions, session length, and guest satisfaction.
Solution
You step into a room lit like an underwater world and climb onto an LED balance board facing a big screen — no instructions needed. Leaning side to side steers Sasu, a neoprene-suited character, through four underwater worlds; jumping on the board makes Sasu jump over obstacles and collect crystals; shaking the board breaks Sasu free from a kraken's tentacles. It plays like an arcade runner, with helper creatures along the way, and your score lands on a leaderboard mounted next to the zone, where you can compare runs against other guests. Players who can't stand on the board get a separate controller — leaning to steer, pressing a physical button to jump — and each player hears their own audio through directional speakers without disturbing their neighbor.
Results
By the time the project was handed over to Royal Caribbean, 548 hours of gameplay had been recorded across 16 tested character versions.
- 1
The game is installed as a physical attraction in a themed room on a cruise ship, where the walls, screens and lighting are dressed as an underwater world and a visible leaderboard displays the current high score. Up to four players can play at once, each standing on a custom-built LED balance board that serves as the sole controller — no joystick, no on-screen buttons — and all rules are taught visually through character animation rather than text.
- 2
The player character, Sasu, auto-advances through the level while the player steers by shifting body weight left or right on the board, and triggers a jump or climb by physically jumping on it; the board's weight sensors introduce a slight input delay that the game's pacing is tuned around.
- 3
The core loop is a side-scrolling run: players collect gem pickups for score, dodge obstacles that vary in appearance but share the same avoidance mechanic, and spot hidden magical creatures in the background that, once noticed, aid Sasu. Obstacle sections are assembled from a pool of prebuilt segments in random order, so each run follows a different layout.
- 4
A kraken or octopus occasionally grabs Sasu by its tentacles, and the player must rock the board back and forth to shake the character free before continuing.
- 5
The run progresses through four underwater worlds, each widening the environment and shifting its lighting mood and resident creatures, such as fish schools and plant and animal life.
- 6
The session ends on a final score, with the leaderboard continuously displaying the room's current record, prompting players to run again and try to beat it.
- 7
A seated accessible mode, including wheelchair play, replaces the standing board: steering is done by leaning left or right while seated, and the jump action is triggered by an external physical button with oversized controls.
