Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise of the Demon

[400400]

  On 7/12/2016 at 4:05 PM, cianjs said:

There are three platforms for each of the 3 trains, all in the same London Underground station room but mirrors disclose the fact that each 3 stations are aligned next to each other. One of the 3 trains will exit the Victorian Train carriage (which is a shell) out to the left end of it, but you can't see that as mirrors also hide that. That train will then accelerate (you feel the train move relatively quick) and eventually stop at platform 1. Meanwhile, train 2 pulls back into the Victorian carriage, offloads then on loads and takes them to platform2 then train 3 goes to platform 3 and then it just circulates from there

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spoiler tags ????

[L7123456]

  On 7/12/2016 at 4:31 PM, cianjs said:

In a spoiler thread? No thanks.

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However your post does tell everyone the entire secret that is meant to be kept a secret because it is secret...

That was a lot of secrets but you get my point

[400400]

he put it all in the spoiler thread ........

[jack holmes 12]

  On 7/10/2016 at 7:27 PM, MilesK said:

Derren Browns Ghost Train was meant to open at 11am today.

We get to the ride at 10-45 to be told the ride would be opening at 3.

We come back at 2-30 and we got let into the queue.

Two groups get let in at 3. At 3-10 everything stops. No music, no more groups going in...

30 minutes later, we get told that it won't be opening today due to a power cut.

Absolutely dreadful for it's third day of it's official operating life.

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I was in the 2nd group ...

[jack holmes 12]

I dont have very good luck ...

1.trains cancelled from Three Bridges to east croydon early morning 
2.trains delayed from east croydon to staines 
3. get to park DBGT (apparently opening at 11) opened at 3 
4.got in the que was the 2nd group in and power cut FML 
5.Staines to clapham train delayed 
6.clapham to brighton delayed 
7.Brighton to worthing Cancelled.


so overall trains went well for me sunday (out of every bloody day to go) 

went on Saw The Ride 3 days after they opened it... shut.  

[Benin]

Is the factor that the ride carriages move really the apparent big secret?

 

Like, really?

[Mitchada04]

I still don't get why it seems so complicated as well? Or maybe I just didn't grasp your post cianjs! 

 

3 trains. Load onto Victorian carriage, shift out of shell left. Stop. VR sequence, move further left to the station where you get out for the live sequence. Get back on the other side of the train, headsets back on, move out the way you came in, just a different track. Stop, wait for motion platform, get on that, tilt a little bit, then shift back into Victorian carriage horizontally. Train unloads, loads, moves on and the sliding track moves back to pick up the next one for the motion platform. If it's more complex than that then I don't understand why. And if that seems like a complex thing, then Simworx really weren't the best company for this at all. And the fact remains, as cool as the ride system might be, it doesn't come through as amazing on ride.

 

It's like being on the underground with VR, but the underground moves faster and has sharp banked turns. And is probably creepier.

[L7123456]

  On 7/12/2016 at 6:35 PM, cianjs said:

Apologies for the confusing explanation. I got the info from the ride operator and I'm still a bit baffled

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Well you didn't personally get the information... And it wasn't from the ride operator...

However, it is very confusing how it all works. It is quite impressive as well!

[Celia Mae]

@cianjs, @MilesK, It's not that complicated or baffling, think of it as a flat triangular coaster (not necessarily on coaster track) with three block brakes that the carriages stop at at the three corners. One is load. One is the live action scene, the other is a motion platform that happens during the second VR sequence. The carriages move in between them at the same time, hence why when there's a delay at the loading station there's a loop that plays in the second sequence that people would have seen during the last week of technical rehearsals.

[Joegibbon]

I went on twice today, and considering its been officially ope for less than a week I felt really let down by it. Especially after my great rides during rehearsals.

 

The amount of headsets that are broken already is madness, I had one train today where an entire section of the train was broken. My friend also had to hold his headset to his face as the strap was broken on one. Hopefully these broken headsets are just technical errors that they can get sorted quickly

[MattyMoo]

  On 7/12/2016 at 10:52 PM, Joegibbon said:

The amount of headsets that are broken already is madness, I had one train today where an entire section of the train was broken. My friend also had to hold his headset to his face as the strap was broken on one. Hopefully these broken headsets are just technical errors that they can get sorted quickly

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I don't like the sound of this... sounds as if the headsets aren't really fit for purpose/up to the abuse that guests throw at them.

[Mark9]

Part of me thinks this was inevitable. Especially with the kind of clientele that Thorpe attracts. 

Edited July 13, 2016 by Mark9

[OldFarmerDean]

  On 7/12/2016 at 5:48 PM, jack holmes 12 said:

I dont have very good luck ...

1.trains cancelled from Three Bridges to east croydon early morning 
2.trains delayed from east croydon to staines 
3. get to park DBGT (apparently opening at 11) opened at 3 
4.got in the que was the 2nd group in and power cut FML 
5.Staines to clapham train delayed 
6.clapham to brighton delayed 
7.Brighton to worthing Cancelled.


so overall trains went well for me sunday (out of every bloody day to go) 

went on Saw The Ride 3 days after they opened it... shut.  

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Was in the second group too on Sunday... Was so annoying! 

[Owen]

  On 7/13/2016 at 10:36 AM, cianjs said:

 

 

Problem? That's where spoilers go, so I put one there..

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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I think he says it like that due to how you had previously expressed that you weren't sure if you could post it to then state everything in the other topic, no one is trying to start something you don't need to get defensive!

[Benin]

It's very common that technical items designed for a commercial purpose always suffer from constant use for 7/8 hours a day...

[Coaster]

Group of idiots ruined the experience today - shouting all the way through the preshow and screaming like idiots the whole time (so loud I could hear it despite having the headphones on)!

[Ryan]

  On 7/13/2016 at 12:45 PM, Coaster Jamie said:

Group of idiots ruined the experience today - shouting all the way through the preshow and screaming like idiots the whole time (so loud I could hear it despite having the headphones on)!

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So it went from a 4.5/10 to a 2.5/10?

[Owen]

  On 7/13/2016 at 12:37 PM, cianjs said:

I would totally agree but considering the fact that him and others have been trying to argue with me via other forms of social media, it's getting relatively repetitive and irritable now. I appreciate your passiveness :-)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Ah I see, well if you feel it's unnecessary then I'm sure one of the TPM team would be happy to help with anything if you drop them a message

[Benin]

  On 7/13/2016 at 1:01 PM, Ryan said:

 

So it went from a 4.5/10 to a 2.5/10?

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I wondered how long it would be until we welcomed the Law of Diminishing Returns back to the forums...

[Coaster]

Issues with the headsets again at the end of yesterday, the staff were better at dealing with it though which was good.

[400400]

interested to hear what people think about the ghost train. 

What do people rate it out of 10

Personally I rate it 8.7536763/10

[Marhelorpe]

After riding it again yesterday when it officially opened it seems that there have been some minor changes made to the attraction compared to the technical rehearsals the previous week:

• The intro or pre-show with Derren Brown at the beginning has been shortened slightly and some parts of his speech have been cut out before he appears in front of you. I can only assume that this is to help speed up the groups going inside. As a result, when it skips this section, the rest of what he says afterwards doesn't fit together as well anymore.
• As mentioned previously, when you reach up the flight of stairs into the warehouse with the train carriage you can hear an ambience track of people shouting against fracking which fits with the posters all around the ride.
• Maybe I was lucky both times, but the in the second half of the VR experience the looped scene where the carriage is filled with smoke/dust only lasted about 10-15 seconds instead of the nearly 2 minutes as previously. Maybe it's because they were sending groups around the attraction much faster or used all three trains this time.

However, it's been less than a week since it officially opened and already we are seeing issues visual and audio wise with the headsets. More were unavailable to use than before, both times I rode one of the stereo headphones was dead/broken, and the visuals kept on jumping around (literally) by forgetting which direction I was facing in. Thankfully, the visuals fixed themselves immediately.

Another point of interest is I'm beginning to wonder if these 12 different experiences and 2 different endings that are supposedly offered by the attraction are actually being used. I've ridden this 6 times now and I've had the same first half with only 2 different people and the same ending every time. If you look at the behind the scenes footage broadcast by the BBC a few weeks ago, it showed more characters, different creatures and different speech to before. Have these been scrapped due to technical difficulties with the content during the 8 week delay period or are they not rolling it out just yet?

Without them being used, it's literally the same thing every time you ride now, the only difference is you either get a woman or a man on the train with you in the first half of the VR experience.

[JamminGamer]

  On 7/14/2016 at 7:32 PM, Martin.C said:

After riding it again yesterday when it officially opened it seems that there have been some minor changes made to the attraction compared to the technical rehearsals the previous week:

• The intro or pre-show with Derren Brown at the beginning has been shortened slightly and some parts of his speech have been cut out before he appears in front of you. I can only assume that this is to help speed up the groups going inside. As a result, when it skips this section, the rest of what he says afterwards doesn't fit together as well anymore.
• As mentioned previously, when you reach up the flight of stairs into the warehouse with the train carriage you can hear an ambience track of people shouting against fracking which fits with the posters all around the ride.
• Maybe I was lucky both times, but the in the second half of the VR experience the looped scene where the carriage is filled with smoke/dust only lasted about 10-15 seconds instead of the nearly 2 minutes as previously. Maybe it's because they were sending groups around the attraction much faster or used all three trains this time.

However, it's been less than a week since it officially opened and already we are seeing issues visual and audio wise with the headsets. More were unavailable to use than before, both times I rode one of the stereo headphones was dead/broken, and the visuals kept on jumping around (literally) by forgetting which direction I was facing in. Thankfully, the visuals fixed themselves immediately.

Another point of interest is I'm beginning to wonder if these 12 different experiences and 2 different endings that are supposedly offered by the attraction are actually being used. I've ridden this 6 times now and I've had the same first half with only 2 different people and the same ending every time. If you look at the behind the scenes footage broadcast by the BBC a few weeks ago, it showed more characters, different creatures and different speech to before. Have these been scrapped due to technical difficulties with the content during the 8 week delay period or are they not rolling it out just yet?

Without them being used, it's literally the same thing every time you ride now, the only difference is you either get a woman or a man on the train with you in the first half of the VR experience.

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I'm gutted to hear that they've cut down on the pre-show as in my opinion it's one of the best parts of the attraction!

 

In terms of the differences in the VR I've experienced on old lady, an old man and a young man give the intro speech and I've had an old woman and a little girl break into the train during the second half of the first VR bit and I've only been on 4 times!  As far as I know they are only using 1 ending currently and in terms of other VR content I have absolutely no idea.

 

Apologies for content spoilers but it is in the thread title!

 

 

[Matt A]

I'd give it a 6.5/10

[Matt A]

So I rode the Ghost Train today and I thought I'd post my experiences/review. (it's quite long, but I wanted to get all my thoughts out)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

I'll start from the pre-show, I thought this was quite nicely done, the flickering lights were a nice touch. Although I really feel they missed a trick for a jump here, I was expecting one the whole time. I did think it was a bit irrelevant a points though, more of a "pre-ride safety video" for some of it. When the video ended we were shouted at to move as fast as possible to the next section, which is the beginning of a big problem I found with the ride: everything being rushed.

Once into the next section I thought the victorian train carriage looked nice and well done, and the mood in the room was very mysterious. 

When we boarded the train I was impressed how good the carriage looked inside, I found the headsets quite confusing (I had used VR before) but I couldn't work out which was mine and the staff weren't paying any attention to check everyone had theirs on properly, I didn't have time to adjust the headset or headphones so spent part of the ride doing so. This part of the ride I very much enjoyed (although it was a bit quiet). The sense of movement on the carriage really added to the illusion and I did feel like I was on a train for a bit. I wasn't scared by anything though, maybe it's just because I don't find VR realistic or I'm just not scared by this sort of stuff I don't know. When this section ended I was very confused since I thought there was a genuine emergency with a very generic voice going "there is an emergency, please remove your headsets", the part of removing the headsets is what made me think it was genuine because I didn't think they would be "included" in the illusion if that makes sense.

The next section went over my head since I still thought we were being evacuated at first (we were being rushed out of the train), and it wasn't at all realistic as being an evacuation from a tube train, since we went from a platform into a mis-mash of tube tunnels somehow. Why couldn't we just go out the station normally? Needs a reason to enter the tunnels. Once we were in the tunnels I was even more confused because I couldn't work out what was happening (since I still half thought we were being evacuated properly), I couldn't hear anything the actor was saying through the microphone (just using speakers here would be much better for audio quality), I was too far from the centre for the tube train to shock me, and the room didn't feel like tube tunnels either so it didn't make much sense. 

Onto the final section, which was even more confusing why we were running back onto the tube when I thought they'd all been suspended but I guess not. This section was disappointing, for a start my headset was uncomfortable (it was missing the padding I think), the image was blurry, and my left earphone didn't work. The VR here was a very missed opportunity I thought, we spent a lot of time just waiting for things to happen, none of which were scary. And the graphics quality was quite disappointing, looked like low-budget CGI, a big step down from the realistic looking VR in the previous section. All the jumpscares had no effect on me, because I just felt like I was watching a video, if there were some 4D it might work better (stuff under the seats maybe or behind people's legs?). After the long time spent looking at smoke the the train set on fire, which would have been great if it was hot around me, I was surprised they didn't do something like this since I didn't think it was too hard to pull off. Then the fell down through the ground, which didn't feel realistic at all, and then it was over!

Immediately I wanted more, I felt like it had ended far too soon, which must mean I liked some of it! Once off the train I started wondering various things, for example: What was all the victorian theming for on the outside when the rest of the ride was on the London Underground? Where were all the things shown in the trailer? The dolls? The beast? And why did fracking play such a minor part in the story when there was so much on it around the building? And on the topic of fracking, there seemed to be a theme of some sort of fracking company, which looked like it ran a lot of the trains but it was never explained. Everything just keeps me asking questions! Unless it's meant to?

 

Overall I'd give it a 6.5/10, I had enjoyed some of the ride, but found other parts disappointing. Although I imagine a lot of it can be improved in the future which I hope is the case! And I just wanted more to the story, it felt like I hadn't experienced it all.