Nintendo Land (fan project): time for some F-ZERO!

If this park was ever made, this would probably be the main ride, or at least the craziest one!
WARNING : LONG EXPLAINATION AHEAD (but it's worth it)!

AREA A10 : Mute City
R100 : F-ZERO™ - Twisted Track
Type : high speed racing circuit, steerable magnet-guided hovercraft.

Welcome to the fast-paced world of flying car races! In this high-tech ride, you (and your team) will ride your own futuristic flying vehicle, and compete against six other teams in a three lap race to become the fastest racers in the universe, and a prize of 40 coins!

Prizes : 1st place gets 40 coins, 2nd place gets 20 coins, 3d place gets 10 coins, riding over a boost arrow grants 2 coins.

How it works

The vehicles in F-ZERO are equipped with hovercraft technology: they host hidden fans which capture and compress surrounding air, which is then pushed into the ground to maintain the vehicle in a stable standing position, from which it can be "pushed" around, and to form airbags at the sides (to prevent hazardous collisions). Vehicles also feature a metallic base which reacts to magnetic fields (they are used to push the vehicle around), and a cockpit with room for four people (one of them rides, three sit at the back). The vehicle sends wireless radio signals to various computers, which adapt the ride according to the player's inputs.

The track is rather flat, with not very steep hills or sharp turns, and is divided in six "rails". These "rails" are covered with electronic magnets of variable intensity, which are mainly used to push the vehicle down the "rail". This magnetic "pushing" can be compared to how a surfboard is pushed by a wave of water. If the rider turns the wheel, the magnets will push the car over to the next "rail" aside, whose magnets will take the relay and keep pushing the car down. If the car is close to another vehicle, this vehicle is also "pushed" to the next "rail" aside, but if there are no more "rails" aside (a wall), the action has no effects.

Players may also choose to "boost", and cumulate more speed, whenever they want (this effect is achieved by increasing the intensity of the magnetic field). Players may use up to 3 boosts at once (they are lost after usage, and earned after each lap), but upon "collision" (steering against a wall or being pushed by a player), or after a certain time, all cumulated speed is lost. There are also certain patches in the track (marked by yellow LED arrows) which make the vehicle "boost" to full speed when stepped upon.

How it looks like

Vehicles are of course based on flying cars form the F-ZERO franchise: while a set of three cars is racing, another is being set on track and two others are being held for maintenance and reparation. The track extends all around the Mute City area, circling around building façades and passing next to walkways and under balconies where customers can stand and watch the ride. The track also features small walls (and some security nets) at its sides.

The entrance to the ride is reminiscent of a comic book, with various monitors of different sizes displaying animated shots of an ongoing race and characters from the F-ZERO games. The queue area is decorated as a "futuristic garage", with various cars from the series. Players meet various animatronic characters from the series, like Captain Falcon or Samurai Goroh, who explain the ride's features with the help of glass projection screens (to give the effect of holograms). While queuing, guests can also watch the ongoing race from a set of monitors, and bet for each vehicle to win a few extra coins.

Concept Story

It's been a huge mental challenge to create a ride that would do justice to the F-ZERO universe. I could have made a multi-track steel rollercoaster, but that would take away the interactivity, and leave the race results to random chance; I could have made a motion-based simulator, but that would take away the thrill of watching the race happen live around you in the park. Finally, as crazy as it sounds, I decided to make an actual racing track and put steerable vehicles in it, of course taking into account the many hazards that would come with high speeds (note that in the games themselves F-ZERO racing is considered a very extreme sport, causing many fatalities and sometimes even being banned).

Trackless roller coasters have successfully been made in the past (take for instance this bobsled-like coaster), but this project would require much more safety afterthought. For instance, since many vehicles are on the track at the same time, I had to find a way to avoid harmful collisions, and of course ban loop-the-loops, sharp turns, and very steep falls (which appear a lot in the game). In the end the racing track would look more like a go-kart track with a bit more relief than an actual roller coaster.

Then came another challenge: F-ZERO is about flying maglev cars, how do you accomplish that in real live? Of course maglev technology itself is not an option, since it's still relatively young and the results could be unpredictable, but magnetic fields could provide a good guiding and steering mechanism, as seen for instance in this water coaster. If dynamic enough, magnetic fields could even steer the cars in order to avoid any collision. To make the cars "fly", and reduce friction, I had two alternatives: water and compressed air. Since water would be very unfitting (unless the track is based on Big Blue, and still not), compressed air was obviously the way to go.

This time inspiration came from Disneyland itself, more precisely from the early 60s ride Flying Saucers, and its Cars-themed successor. Since that ride had many maintenance problems due to the many vents used in the ground (and the number of vents for a racing track would be unthinkable), I preferred to equip the cars themselves with compressed air pipes that would keep the car in a stable hovering position. Everything fitted now: the car floated by pushing compressed air into the ground, and was moved by dynamic magnetic fields produced by the track, which in turn were controlled in real-time by the main computer, based on the general setting (speed, position, proximity of other vehicles) and the inputs of the player.

Nintendo Land, F-ZERO, and all related content are intellectual propreties of Nintendo EAD. This is a non-profit fan work.