Joyland, USA

Joyland amusement park is located in Wichita, USA. It began its journey as “Mackenzie park playground” but later on was changed to “Joyland amusement park.” The park was founded by Lester Ottaway and was open for around 55 years opening from 1949 to 2004. In regards to size, the park itself is rather small (as shown in the picture) in comparison to other theme parks. The park itself featured around 24 rides some of these were a log jam, roller coaster, the whacky shack, zumur, giant slide and a ferris wheel. The roller coaster which was named both “Nightmare” and “Roller coaster” was one of the last surviving wooden roller coasters plus one of the only roller coasters in north America using vintage rolling stock with lap bars. The Carousel within the park was built in 1949 and contains all of the original horses. Within May 2014 it was restored and donated to the Botanica (Public Gardens) in Wichita.

The park encountered a few issues. One of these was an accident in 2004, the accident happened on the Ferris wheel in which a young girl fell from the ride and was seriously injured. This was one of the reasons why there were many safely concerns and due to this the park faced financial issues. The park closed within 2004 and was open again in 2006 for a single season but since has been closed and left with no up keep of the park. The park has faced a lot of vandalism since its closure with nearly everything within the park being touched by some form of graffiti plus signs have been stolen from within the park. In 2012 the maintenance building within the park managed to catch fire in which people believe was caused due to arson.
Within the park there was an animatronic clown called Louie the clown who plays the organ located within the park. This clown was stolen but returned after being found within a former Joyland employee’s home after a decade. Looking at the clown reminded me of similar animatronics I have seen such as the T-rex in Jurassic park and the characters from five nights at Freddy’s. I find these animatronics to be really ghoulish and that it is something which should look motionless becomes animated. This causes people to become nervous and uncomfortable as its unnatural and something that we associate with horror films. I feel having something such as a doll or statue slightly move within my environment would be a good way of causing the player to feel uncomfortable and keep their interest within the environment.