“Welcome to the world of Pokémon!” For hundreds of millions of people of all ages across the globe, those words – often spoken by a kindly Pokémon professor preparing a brief tutorial on the basics – have served as the jumping off point for incredible adventures.
The elders among us (y’know, Millennials like me) ventured into the world of Pokémon Red and Blue alongside Squirtle, Charmander, or Bulbasaur, tasked with traveling the Kanto region, collecting Pokémon, battling other trainers, toppling Gym Leaders in each city, and “catching ’em all” (which, at that time, meant just 150) on a black and white handheld Game Boy screen with no backlighting. Fast-forward to today, when Pokémon Scarlet and Violet introduce a ninth generation set in the region of Paldea, releasing players into a fully rendered “open world” on the Nintendo Switch alongside Fuecoco, Sprigatito, and Quaxly. (Those looking to “catch ’em all” today have a tougher task, with 1,015 total Pokémon.)
No matter which generation was your first, what console you played it on, or how old you were when you played it, something remains deeply, fundamentally true about Pokémon: it is a world we want to inhabit. To be set free into a region that’s yours to explore, and with a chosen companion at your side… To be armed with Pokéballs and Potions, and to travel the routes between towns, encountering and catching wild Pokémon as you fight your way to the safe harbor of the familiar Pokémon Centers… To face off against Gym Leaders in each town, collecting badges and evolving your Pokémon into stronger and stronger forms…
In a way few franchises can, Pokémon continuously renews itself. Outside of the long-running (25 season) television series (with its permanently pre-teen antagonist, Ash), there are no recurring characters, per se, with players basically controlling avatars of themselves, encountering new regions, new Pokémon, and new gym leaders each go-round. That soft reboot every generation doesn’t affect the franchise’s the core appeal: to battle, train, fight, win, heal, catch, and evolve your own team… This is a world begging to be made real in a theme park. So I hope that you’ll join me as I introduce my fan-made, hand-drawn plan for bringing the Pokémon World to life at Universal’s Islands of Adventure…
The What, Why, Where, and How
To start with the basics, you may have already read through my hand-drawn “Blue Sky Build-Out” redesigns of Disney California Adventure and Disney’s Hollywood Studios here on Theme Park Tourist. As in those projects, the Pokémon World we’re about to tour is just one component of a larger refresh and build-out of Universal’s Islands of Adventure that you can read on my personal blog if you’re interested in the full, “grand circle” tour of the expanded park and want to see it in context.
But if you’ve been around Theme Park Tourist long enough, you know that I love Islands of Adventure a lot. It seems to be the only park in Disney or Universal’s portfolio that’s mostly allowed to not be about movies. This is a park that does not and should not feature Minions, Transformers, Shrek, Fast & Furious, or other hot box office properties. Instead, Islands of Adventure really brings to life timeless, intergenerational stories: Dr. Seuss’ picture books, funnies from the Sunday paper, the comic book versions of Marvel heroes, ancient myths and legends… Even Harry Potter and Jurassic Park began as books, and both have the sort of timeless, evergreen, fantasy nature that elevates them above the kind of “blockbusters” you’d expect from the Studio park next door.
So for me – as a defender of Islands of Adventure – the bar to entry for this park is really, really high, and the idea of having a video game come into the park is sort of weird to consider. And honestly, I don’t think I’d want Super Nintendo World plopped down in Islands of Adventure, where it would be totally out of place stylistically and narratively. But the Pokémon World is different. Pokémon is about adventure and mythology and interactivity and immersion in a way that I think fits Islands of Adventure’s spirit very well. For me, the Pokémon World fits here more than it would in the Studio park or Epic Universe.
Which leaves the issue of where to put it. I won’t beat around the bush. For my build-out, I made the decision to replace Toon Lagoon. I think most visitors to Universal Orlando would agree that Toon Lagoon is the weakest of Islands of Adventure’s lands. There are certainly a few reasons…
- The IPs it leans on (Dudley Do-Right, Popeye the Sailor, Rocky & Bullwinkle, etc.) were surely “retro” and nostalgic when the park opened in 1999, but going on 25 years later, they haven’t had a come back, leaving increasingly little relevance to new generations of guests. It’s clear that unfortunately, this band of cartoon characters doesn’t have the same staying power or timelessness as, say, Dr. Seuss.
- The land’s focus on water rides (both of which get you totally, squishy-sock soaked) makes it pass-through for many guests who just aren’t in the mood or season for it.
- It has great bones. Toon Lagoon is more or less organized into three distinct “regions” – the “Comic Strip Lane” area where retail and dining is focused, the “Popeye Island” area of trails that wind around the park’s coastal raft ride, and the “Northwest Camp” area around the large Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls log flume. It also “benefits” (in a build-out sense) from the large Toon Lagoon Amphitheater, which has basically been empty since the park opened.
So while Toon Lagoon totally plays into the park’s focus on timeless, literary stories, it’s definitely the land most available for reimagining. So I decided I’d use parts of Toon Lagoon if I wanted to, and “demolish” others. Which, in itself, is a pretty scary thought… After all, there’s a whole lot to the Pokémon World…
THE POKÉMON WORLD
In practice, staring at the park map with a big empty chunk here, I really couldn’t even think of where to begin. A Pokémon land wouldn’t be anchored by a ride, because sitting down and bopping around in front of screens isn’t the point. It would be an expansive world of various environments; a city to stock up on Pokéballs, heal your team, and battle… then wild areas to catch new Pokémon, train them, evolve them…
Pokémon’s current nine generations of mainline games direct the series’ geography, with each game set in a new “region” of a wider Pokémon world. Those regions always bear a striking resemblance to a real-world country in layout, architecture, culture, and creatures. (For example, the current ninth generation – embodied in the Scarlet and Violet video games – is Paldea, clearly based on the Iberian peninsula with heavy Spanish influence in its climate, language, cities, and Pokémon.) Slowly but surely, the Pokémon World’s map is filling up, and looking quite a lot like ours.
What there has not yet been is a region based on Italy. So with that in mind, I just started assembling. Even though I intended to basically level Toon Lagoon and start from scratch, I ended up surprising myself with how much of it I didn’t need to change at all. Instead, re-wrapping much of it – and even re-using one of its rides – my World of Pokémon came together as a whole new region – Dominio (doe-MIN-ee-o)– based on our real-world Italy.
And folks, I am telling you, I fell in love with this concept…
First Steps & Starters
You have to imagine that each “region” we visit in the Pokémon world is meant to be as expansive as a country, with dozens of cities (each with their own Pokémon Gyms) connected by wild areas and routes traveled by many trainers seeking to “catch ’em all.” With that in mind, though the Italian-influenced Dominio Region I picture is vast, we see just a small part of it – Cipresso City and the outlying wild areas: Costa di Spruzzi and the Ruins of D’aquavallo.
Obviously, I wanted this little slice of Dominio to feel real and immersive and alive, and what makes the Pokémon World feel alive is… Pokémon. They would be present in this land in many, many forms… but obviously, a central focus of this interactive environment would be catching, battling, training, and evolving them. So let’s talk about how that’s done.
As anyone who’s stepped foot on Route 1 in a Pokémon game will tell you, it’s not wise to head into the unknown without a Pokémon companion at your side. Every Pokémon game begins with a Pokémon professor briefing you on the world and inviting you to begin to your journey by selecting one of three “Starter Pokémon,” unique to the region you’re exploring. (The first generation’s – Squirtle, Charmander, and Bulbasaur – probably remain the most iconic Starter trio, but every Pokémon fan has their favorites.)
So just as in the games, if you want to really dive into the Pokémon World, your first stop should be the Pokémon Lab, right in the heart of Cipresso City (and just to your right when you enter the town from Marvel Super Hero Island). Here, I’ve tried to create an all-in-one experience. It’s a tutorial for how to find, catch, battle, heal, and evolve Pokémon; it’s a mini-show akin to Ollivander’s in the Wizarding World; and it’s the way you get to choose the Starter Pokémon that will accompany you in Dominio… What are your choices? We’ll find out on the next page…
Basically, the POKÉMON LAB experience would be in the form of two continuously-presented mini-shows, where a few dozen guests are invited into what we might call a “preshow” space. There, a Pokémon Professor would lead a slideshow, introducing the basics of Dominio: how to access the Pokédex app with which to find, battle, and catch wild Pokémon and the spaces in Dominio to do it.
But surely, the Professor’s main job would be to use their slideshow to introduce the three Starter Pokémon of this Italian-inspired region. And yes, I am absolutely lost my mind and designed three brand new Starter Pokémon for this made-up, Blue Sky, Italian-inspired Pokémon theme park land that will never exist! As is tradition, there’s a fire, water, and grass-type starter (though I added a secondary type to each just to keep things interesting since theoretically everyone would start with one of the same three). Thank you for so kindly humoring me by letting me introduce them!
Pompeiiano (pom-pay-AH-no), the fire-type, is a volcanic goat Pokémon drawn from the Campania region of the real Italy. Inspired by real life mosaics of goats found in Pompeii and based on an Italian breed with spiral horns, Pompeiiano is a sturdy, dual fire- and rock-type who wears the mosaic tiles and tapestries of a town destroyed by volcanic activity.
Lontralier (lahn-tra-LEER) is Dominio’s water-type Starter, with dual fighting-type. Inspired by Venice in northern Italy, it’s inspired by real Eurasian otters that populate the town’s waterways. Its name is derived from lontra (otter) and gondolier – the profession that steers gondola boats down Venice’s iconic waterways. The red sash around its neck mimics those gondoliers wear on their hats, and as it evolves, the sash moves to its waist recalling not just gondoliers’ traditional outfights, but Karate belts as it gains fighting-type moves.
Finally, Aquilonico (ah-kwee-LO-nee-co) is Dominio’s grass-type starter, with secondary flying-type. A young eaglet, this Pokemon is adorned with ivy plumage that’s still growing in. In the meantime, its exposed gray skin is an advantage since it can roost at the top of Roman temple columns without being seen. The stone adornment it wears on its chest is actually pecked off of an ionic column to increase its camouflage. Its name is taken from the Italian word for eaglet (aquilotto) and ionic columns.
Having been introduced to these adorable little Starters on-screen, the Pokémon Professor would then explain your next steps: in the lab beyond, you’ll find all three Starters (in animatronic form!), with a circular array of pedestals around them. All you need to do is select which of the three Starters you want. Then, you can either place your phone on a corresponding pedestal around that Pokémon, or grab a Pokéball off the wall, link it to your app with a quick QR code scan, then use it on the pedestal to load your Starter.
Just like that, you’ll have your first Pokémon – either Pompeiiano, Lontralier, or Aquilonico – and conveniently pass into the Pokémart. There, you can purchase a Pokéball if you decided to use one for your Starter, as well as buy extra supplies – like leather Pokéball Straps to wear across your chest, Pokéball Slings to clip onto your bag, or shells to magnetically snap onto your Pokéball to create collectible and regional variants.
Which means it’s time to head out into Dominio to strengthen your Starter, build your party, and take on the Pokémon World!
Catching, Battling, and Healing
Hold your tomatoes, but let’s talk about the phone thing. Yes, if Universal Orlando is going to offer a land where you can battle and catch Pokémon, it’s pretty much certain it’ll involve smartphones. Niantec’s Pokémon Go app provides the perfect model for this, allowing users to “see” Pokémon in the real, built environment through their smartphone’s camera using augmented reality (AR).
So for this dreamy build-out of mine, instead of resisting that clear good fit, we’ll embrace it, imagining that Niantec were brought on to develop either a “Dominio Pokédex” functionality within the Universal Orlando app, or a standalone app able to connect to guests’ Universal Orlando account. I think the focused aspect of such an app to a relatively small physical space with built-in environmental props and hidden proximity markers would make this a really compelling combination. Imagine water Pokémon realistically swimming in the park’s lagoon; “ground” Pokémon leaning out from behind stalagmites in caves; “flying” Pokémon appearing to roost in physical trees, all seamlessly and accurately.
To that end, there are four specific spaces within the land dedicated solely to tracking down wild Pokémon: the Wild Zone (a forest of grass, poison, normal, and bug-type Pokémon), Costa Trails (with water, flying, and steel-type), Cavern Trails (with rock, dark, and fire type), and the Temple Trails (with ghost, grass, ground, and dark type), highlighted above. Ideally, I’d love to see these four areas filled with people finding Pokémon, like the heyday of Pokémon Go on steroids.
Once you’ve caught Pokémon, they all appear in your Pokédex, linked to your Universal Orlando account. The result is that when you go to battle other wild Pokémon, you’ll actually draw from your assembled party, using your smartphone to engage in battles just like on the beloved Pokémon games! You can defeat wild Pokémon to gain experience for your party working toward leveling up and evolving your creatures.
As anyone who’s played a Pokémon game will you, though, battling wild Pokémon is just the start. A major component of Pokémon is pitting your creatures against other trainers. And here in the Pokémon World at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, it’s possible thanks to a brand new invention: BATTLE PODS. There are 10 Battle Pods positioned around the land (six in the plaza leading to the Cipresso Pokémon Gym and four out near the Ruins).
Armed with either your smartphone or your Pokéball and a team, you’re ready for battle to test and strengthen your Pokémon. Here, you can really-for-real face off against a family member, friend, or virtual trainer with the Pokémon on your team in real-time battles.
As anyone who’s played a Pokémon game will you, though, battling wild Pokémon is just the start. A major component of Pokémon is pitting your creatures against other trainers. And here in the Pokémon World at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, it’s possible thanks to a brand new invention: BATTLE PODS. There are 10 Battle Pods positioned around the land (six in the plaza leading to the Cipresso Pokémon Gym and four out near the Ruins).
Armed with either your smartphone or your Pokéball and a team, you’re ready for battle to test and strengthen your Pokémon. Here, you can really-for-real face off against a family member, friend, or virtual trainer with the Pokémon on your team in real-time battles.
And just like in the games, after battles (wild or Trainer), your weakened party will need healed by visiting one of three Pokémon Centers around the region! There (and we’re talking some serious wish fulfillment), you can place your Pokéball in a perfectly-shaped recess, press a button, and hear that iconic “healing jingle” as your ball vibrates and flashes, healing up your Pokémon to head out into the wild again! (Alternatively, you can scan or insert your smartphone into a recess to heal your team, but I mean, who can resist a Pokéball?!)
Plus, if you’ve got a Pokéball, when you feel it vibrate and light up white, it means a member of your party is ready to evolve… Simply head to a Pokémon Center and place your Pokéball (or phone) in the recess of an Evolution Chamber to watch as your beloved creature grows right before your eyes, in real time and to-scale! With a puff of digital confetti, your newly-evolved creature would be loaded back on your Pokéball.
Wild zones to battle; Pokémarts to buy Pokéballs; Pokémon Centers to heal… I kind of love that this is a land you could spend all day in, just building a team, watching them grow, and becoming more and more advanced. As in every Pokémon region, though, the city’s activity centers on the looming Pokémon gym, where trainers face off against Cipresso’s Gym Leader… How does it work? Read on…
The Pokémon Gym
Across from the Lab is the POKÉMON GYM. Nearly every city or town in a region has a gym, overseen by a Gym Leader who typically specializes in a given Pokémon type. Here, this experience will have replaced the unused Toon Lagoon Amphitheater.
I thought a lot about how to create a Pokémon Gym for a theme park. On one hand, it needs to be a “capstone” experience to the land, providing a sense of participation and victory, satisfying the land’s narrative arc of learning about, receiving, catching, training, and battling Pokémon. On the other, it needs to be high capacity (as all things in a theme park do), and to involve every member of the family at once.
Those needs leave some holes in the most obvious concepts – like filling a facility with Battle Pods just like the ones outside, but where you battle against a digital AI Gym Leader. Not only does that lack the sort of scale, finality, showmanship, and importance a Gym Battle should have – it also means families would need to queue again for each participating member to have their battle.
For that reason, I settled on a concept that would be much grander in scale, with the trade-off being that you, personally, don’t get to battle the Gym Leader. But you do participate by way of a fast-paced, action-packed special effects show!
Basically, entering into the Cipresso City Pokémon Gym (a modern glass and steel facility built into the historic marble columns of Dominio’s past), you’d enter a grand, column-supported lobby built around a statue of the city’s Gym Leader. At the opposite end of the lobby, the path into the stadium would split, giving you the choice to support either the Gym Leader or a Trainer challenging the Leader for a Gym Badge.
With the queue having split, guests would be routed into pre-show spaces where they’d get the pre-battle rundown on their chosen participant – either the Gym Leader (a constant) or one of three Trainers cycled throughout the day, each with their own Pokémon lineup. This pre-show would give you the chance to learn your contestant’s Pokémon. From there, guests would routed into a Grouping Room, with their entire party assigned a space to stand (for example, in the diagram above, smaller parties would be assigned “Green A” while groups of 4 or more would be assigned “Green F,”) each corresponding to a small, family-sized seating area in the stadium.
With all guests grouped, the doors to the arena would open with Team Members ushering each party to their own assigned viewing space. Larger parties would end up at semi-circular “conversation pits.” Smaller groups would be assigned curved bench areas located a level down on the arena’s floor. Regardless, all party’s seating would be oriented toward the Battle Arena in the center, with a digital touchscreen monitor in front of them.
With everyone seated, the Gym Battle would begin! Both the Gym Leader and the trainer would be live, costumed actors, with Pokémon appearing on stage via Audio-Animatronics, rising from a hidden conveyer system under the stage. In-theater effects (like fog, fire, lighting, surround sound, and projection) would bring the battle to life. But guests would direct its course, using the monitors at their seat to select moves for either the Gym Leader or trainer, watching both creatures’ battle in real time!
The result, I think, is that guests would feel that this was a sort of participatory experience, and that their selections impact the battle. I think being invested in either the Gym Leader or the Trainer would also add such life to the experience, with cheering and excitement and investment that would be really, really cool to see.
And if you imagine an average of 4 people in each of the 64 seating pods, each continuous show could accommodate 256 guests, or about 800 people per hour (with 3 shows). That’s not very good versus a pack-’em-in arena show, but in a Blue Sky project, it’s easy for me to sacrifice that capacity and add significant complexity to operations in order to focus on interactivity and personalization. And in any case, it’s a not-insignificant capacity add versus the empty Toontown Amphitheater.
Oh yeah, and rides
Basically, I wanted the Pokémon World to be a part of the park you could literally spend the whole day in. If you just wanted to dedicate yourself to catching Pokémon, battling them (either with friends via Battle Pods, or out in the wild on your phone), and evolving them, you could. I just think that’s such a powerful level of immersion, that this literally becomes a land so interactive and so wish-fulfilling, we haven’t even needed to mention a ride yet.
Speaking of which, this land does have rides. I actually salvaged Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge Rat Barges – the white water rafting ride. Orlando parks need a water ride, even if I might remove some of the turbulence-causing planks from the waterway to create more of a lightly-spinning, floating water ride where you’re sprayed by effects, not torrents of water.
I called the refreshed ride POKÉMON SNAP: SPLASH SAFARI, as I think the ride winding through various environments would be perfect for lightly-animated and static Pokémon figures to peek out from behind trees, pop up from the water, etc. as riders try to use on-board Snap Cameras to catch photos of them while floating past.
Something about the winding river, the spinning, the splashing, and trying so hard to snap these Pokémon as they move… it just sounds like good, chaotic fun that’s 100% optional for those who don’t like water rides. I can see a lot of laughing families on the ride, which is cool. Plus, you could maybe see the photos you took either via linking to your Pokédex app, or in a sort of post-show showcase wall of the best (and worst) photos of the day.
I also kept the current “Me Ship, The Olive” as the S.S. SQUIRTLE since you can’t have too many family play areas (and especially splashy ones) in an Orlando park.
The land’s major attraction is JOURNEY TO HIPONEA: A POKÉMON ADVENTURE. In keeping with the Italian setting, I created a temple of the outskirts of town (the ancient columns of which still sprawl throughout the otherwise-modern Cipresso City). This Tempio del Mare – Temple of the Sea – is a flooded ruin, with water pouring down its steps and from a nearby waterfall, collecting into a rocky basin below (which also finally separates this island and Jurassic Park with a bridge, which the transition today lacks. To accommodate this, I had to shift backstage access to VelociCoaster, but it all still works.)
Journey to Hiponea would be an indoor, boat-based dark ride – again, filling the niche of a “Pirates of the Caribbean” style attraction, which Universal lacks altogether. This ride would send us in a search for Dominio’s legendary Pokémon, Hiponea the seahorse, whose ability to control the oceans is all that stands between Dominio and tidal ruin. Though it’s been centuries since Hiponea has been seen, legend has it that he waits deep in the Temple, to be awakened by those brave enough to find him.
In this Pokémon World, I really tried to create a really compelling, built-out land that just feels so filled with life, energy, and activity. This is a land you could spend a full day in, “gaming” and advancing and growing, like Super Nintendo World on steroids. I really, really like that. I think this land feels like Pokémon even if – like the games – it’s a new place and new Starters. More to the point, I think it fits Islands of Adventure, too – a land that’s fantastic and immersive and exploratory, rewarding those who dive deep.
And remember, this Pokémon World: The Dominio Region is just one land in my fully expanded and built-out Blue Sky reimagining of Universal’s Islands of Adventure… so if you loved this concept or love Islands of Adventure the way I do, check out the rest of the park to see what new and reimagined adventures await…
