Frightful Design

Over the weekend, I went to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom's Fright Fest to partake in some good old Halloween fun. What I did not realize what that I was entering into a world of frightful design. Frightfully bad, I must say. Overall, the design of their three haunted mazes was typical of many haunted houses I have experienced in the past--tight hallways with black walls, dancing strobe lights, and heavy fog. However, two of the three haunted mazes failed to appeal to me, and from what I heard, as well as many others.

The first maze we entered was the "Bayou Hazard." About five steps into the maze, the first major flaw in the design was apparent as I began choking on the smoke produced by the fog machines inside the building. Overall, we spent about five minutes in the maze, and the majority of that was spent stumbling blind through narrow hallways that had no attractions. The second maze, "Slasherville," was much better than the first, with less smoke and more attractions. The third maze we went through, "Kamp Khaos," failed in comparison to both previous mazes. After waiting in line for 45 minutes, we spent less than two minutes walking along an outside path with three or four actors jumping out at passersby.

Overall, the three mazes at Fright Fest were typical of the average run-of-the-mill haunted houses, not a design I would have expected at a major theme park. There was poor planning involved in the overall layout of the mazes, as well as the use of the fog machines. The haunted mazes could have been improved by adding more visual interest and reducing the amount of smoke inside the buildings.

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