The horse jumped over the moon, the story of Namco, part 11

I was originally going to write about the classic Namco games aesthetic last year. As I started researching the designers, artists, and musicians that created the early arcade hits like Galaga, Galaxian, Pac-Man, and Mappy I came across a theme park called Wonder Eggs. The more I researched the more I realized that I needed to share the history of the defunct park with you. It was a major part of Namco, and deserved to be shared with my English-speaking audience. In order to capture the park in the proper context I needed to give you a history of the company. I compared Masaya Nakamura to Walt Disney. Both men saw tremendous potential in building new forms of entertainment. Animation, film, and amusement parks had existed before Mr. Disney. Yet he was able to elevate those forms of entertainment by recruiting creative geniuses.

Walt guided his team through the design of Disneyland, a couple of World’s Expo attractions, and much more. Similarly carnival rides, and arcade games existed before Mr. Nakamura. He also recruited artistic minds, and through them built new rides, robotics, electromechanical, and video games that would turn Namco into an entertainment juggernaut. Wonder Eggs was critically important to the evolution of the video games, and theme parks. Mr. Nakamura made play the central theme for his business. The concept of play informed every decision from his company. Disney, and Universal were the modern theme park giants. For generations it was assumed that nobody could teach them how to make better rides. Several of their attractions had play elements which could be traced back more than 30 years ago to the opening of Wonder Eggs.

I could have written a short summary for this blog, and just mentioned that Namco built a theme park in the early ‘90s. In fact they built two parks side-by-side, the second gate was called Tamago Teikoku aka the Egg Empire. For those curious about the names of the attractions when each location opened they are listed below. 

Wonder Egg original attractions 

1. Galaxian³ 

2. Carousel of Pyrallis 

3. The Laperopter 

4. Pyrallis Fortune Telling 

5. Carnival Arcade 

6. Future Colosseum

7. Möbius Creek 

8. Magical Illusion 

9. Sim Road 

10. Phantomers 

11. Cyber Station 

12. Tower of Druaga 

13. Hotel Ghost 

14. Diamura 

15. Pyrallis Pockets 

16. Seventh Grocery

Egg Empire original attractions

1. Fighter Camp 

2. Miracle Tours 

3. Q-Zar Arena 

4. Drift King 

5. Circus Plaza 

6. Cyber Station II 

7. Empire Kitchen

A list of names wouldn’t mean anything without descriptions. In doing research I found out that a lot of the attraction details were never translated into English. For the sake of preserving history I decided to put together a chronology for theme park aficionados. For non theme park fans I also wanted to explain the roots of the industry, and the inspiration behind the Wonder Eggs attractions. The best way to do this would be by going back in time to the origins of what we now call a theme park. My wife was a theme park historian, she taught a college-level class on the subject. She retired years ago, and after much coaxing from her former students she finally agreed to turn her notes into a podcast. That was the focus of the Pink Monorail Podcast series titled “Manufacturing the Magic.” I helped her produce the episodes.

She taught me that the origins of the theme park extended thousands of years, back into the earliest civilizations. I’m talking about ancient China, Greece, and Egypt. It was the early caravans, and the latter Silk Road that lead to the exchanges of goods, services, food, and entertainment that would establish the first types of fairs. These fairs would grow over time and be collectively known as trade fairs. The fairs would evolve into pleasure fairs, and religious fairs that hit their stride in medieval Europe. Suddenly cultural influences from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Europe started intermingling. These fairs would explode during the renaissance. With industrialization the pleasure fairs also evolved. Their biggest impact could be felt with the rise of World’s Expositions. The exchanges of culture became critically important in the biggest European cities. It reinforced alliances with fellow countries, and helped elevate the status of each country as a major player on the world stage.

The United States of America had barely turned 100 years old when it was invited to host an Expo as well. This act cemented the reputation of the USA as a young superpower. Official, and unofficial World’s Expositions started crossing the Atlantic, and Pacific in the late 1800’s. Attractions, rides, and prototypical roller coasters started showing up in pleasure gardens, beer gardens, carnivals, piers, and expos all around the world. Elias Disney, Walt’s father, was a carpenter that helped build the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, better known as the White City. Elias inspired a young Walt with stories of the expo, and the many groundbreaking attractions. Walt would eventually pull the best elements from the various parks, expos, and attractions into a themed environment he called Disneyland. Disneyland opened in 1955, the same year that Namco went into operations. The creators at Namco were influenced greatly by Disneyland, and Tokyo Disneyland. In the early ‘60s president Nakamura even secured the Disney license to create kiddie rides in Japan. Yet he saw a better way to grow his business. He saw potential in creating hybrid attractions that pulled together elements from the game industry, motion pictures, and amusement rides. He argued that they should not be treated as separate industries, but instead part of an interconnected form of entertainment.

Play was the element that Mr. Nakamura believed tied everything together. Wonder Eggs was proof that his idea had merit. Wonder Eggs was not Namco’s answer to Disneyland. Instead it was a call back to the roots behind the theme park itself. It was a place that took fantasy, the past, the future, and presented it to the world. The team at Namco also dug into ancient history, trade caravans, pleasure fairs, expos, and amusement parks that were centuries old. It took in elements from the near, and far off future. They were creating a park using the same elements that inspired Walt almost forty years prior. These details were not necessarily caught by visitors to either park. They were some of the thousands of little details that went into the creation of Wonder Eggs. For example the World’s Expos of the late 1800’s, and early 1900’s happened during the The Belle Époque “The Beautiful Era” prior to World War I. This was a period of time that gave birth to the Art Nouveau movement, and the iconic Alphonse Mucha. Mr. Mucha created several brilliant posters advertising the World’s Expos in Paris, and the US as well. His art conjured up images of flowing grace, and beauty. The team at Namco wanted to capture that spirit, literally. They created a “Goddess of Play” who was named Elds. The goddess was modeled after the painting “Zodiac” by Mr. Mucha.

Visitors to Wonder Eggs did not know about the mythology of the park right away. When they stepped through the gates they entered a village that had been liberated from invading monsters by the Goddess Elds herself. It was up to Dreamers to find the clues, and put together the story of Laperot Village. This was the actual name of the small town that Wonder Eggs was based on.The clues to this were sprinkled throughout the park. This history was a sort of puzzle for visitors to figure out. Guests were called Dreamers, they were welcomed by the residents to enjoy a variety of games which were gifted to them by Elds. She left eggs behind that each opened up to reveal a new form of play, or an attraction. The eggs also represented the currency of the park. Attractions ranged from 30 eggs to 100 eggs depending on the length, and complexity. Guests could purchase cards worth different egg values to use at the various attractions.

There was much more detail to the park yet to be revealed. I would continue discussing it in the next entry. Were there any defunct parks that you visited? Please tell me about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

Wonder Eggs, and Egg Empire research collected from: Wonder Eggs Guide Map, Namco Graffiti magazine, the book “All About Namco II", NOURS magazine, The Namco Museum, Namco Wiki, Ge-Yume Area 51 Shigeki Toyama Collection, mcSister magazine, first person attraction details from Yoshiki. Event details from Hole in the Socks