Friday morning of SDCC 2018, we had planned to hit the offsite for Amazon’s Jack Ryan. Jack Ryan is a character from Tom Clancy’s books, which typically are based on political and espionage plots. For those curious about the show, it is releasing on Prime Video, August 31st, 2018. Now onto our experience with the offsite at San Diego Comic-Con!
Violet and I knew this would be a popular offsite, so we decided to get up at 5am to get in line for it. The offsite was pretty big, containing a lot of ambiance for what the show will feel like, along with an escape room to complete, and a VR obstacle course. Our buddy Jason Koh (@Corgikohmander) informed us that the obstacle course was the way to go, so we planned to head there right away. Plus, we had done a Jack Ryan escape room at New York Comic Con, so we weren’t sure if it was just the same one. A co-worker of mine, Carlos, was meeting up with us too, so the three of us arrived at the offsite, which was at the Children’s Park, which was right across the street from out hotel, the Marriott Marquis.
When the three of us arrived, we got in line, and were about 20 people back or so. Eventually, at around 6am, a security guard came by and separated the line into two—those that had already been to the offsite, and had their “Analyst Badge” (meaning they had already come into the offsite the day prior), and those that had not yet. After that separation, we were 13th to 15th in line with the people who did not have a badge yet.
As we waited in line, the lines slowly grew on both sides. Eventually the line for the non-badged line was so long, it was wrapping around the block. As we drew nearer to 9am, the time the offsite opened, staff for the offsite began preparing for the day. Eventually we learned that the offsite would be taking 50 people from the badged line and 50 people from the non-badged line for the VR obstacle course, which caps at 100 for the day. This was good news for us, as we were 13th through 15th in line.
Luckily, Carlos and I decided to get some food right before the offsite opened up, because what came next for the Jack Ryan Experience was a bit of an annoyance, and that is an understatement. We got into the offsite, and did our registration at their computers which asks some basic information about who we are, and our experience with Prime Video and related matters. Then we get a printed “Analyst Badge” to wear. From there we get to move to wherever we want, and we hit the VR obstacle line right away. We were still pretty far back in line, probably in the thirties by the time we got through, but still, well within the 100 they said would be allowed into it.
So we waited in line. People started going through the course, while an offsite worker narrated what was going on, which apparently was streaming on Twitch, as well as playing on a big screen for everyone inside the walls of the Jack Ryan offsite to see. An hour went by and we had not moved in line, and we became a bit concerned as to what was happening. Then another went by and we still hadn’t moved. The offsite characters mingled with us a bit in line, giving us some popsicles and offering water and oranges, which was very kind of them. Eventually I took a nap on the asphalt. Apparently while I was in and out, a photographer came up and took my photo, and quite up close according to Carlos and Violet. I felt violated, and a little irritated because Violet and Carlos just let it happen, but, I let it go.
Unfortunately, the line still didn’t move, and I was trying to keep my cool as this was really starting to concern me. Eventually we figured out the problem—VIPs, aka more popular media people, were being taken ahead of the regular line. And apparently a lot of VIPs showed up on Friday. This was a bit irritating because there was a full media day on Wednesday, so it was bizarre so many showed up Friday, but the line was not moving because of how consistently they were showing up. To Amazon’s credit, I understand them taking media—they wouldn’t want bad press over them having to wait in a long line. The average person isn’t going to cause a big stink that will affect the success of the show. Still, it wasn’t any less irritating. Especially because we had hoped to catch the Castle Rock panel back at Comic-Con, but that was not going to happen at this point.
At a certain point, probably around noon, a very official looking lady came and informed us that they would start assigning appointment times for people to come back. After a bit of them working out the details, the three of us finally got an appointment for 2 to 3pm. They informed us we could stay in line if we wanted, or come back at the designated time. We only had about an hour for the time to arrive, so we opted to stay. We only had a few people ahead of us, so we figured it might be quick.
Unfortunately, the onslaught of media did not stop, so we remained in line for quite a while still. Eventually the director for the show, Carlton Cuse, arrived for the experience. We had to wait for him to get through it, and then finally it was our turn, right around 3pm. Unfortunately for myself, I had become tired, irritable, hungry and impatient to the point that the experience was not as fun as I had hoped, but here is how it went.
We put our items into a locker and proceeded into a tent. In that tent, they had us line up on some numbers on the ground. The tent felt like a military barracks. On the walls of the tent hung harnesses for the zip line, and the VR suit which was worn on the face, hands and feet. The hands and feet aspect was providing sensors so we could see them when the VR headset was on.
After being suited up, we did a quick “intro” video for ourselves, which would be emailed to us. Unfortunately, the timing was off on mine so I look silly. Violet’s worked out pretty well though. Once that was done, the adventure began, being loaded into a golf cart dressed to look like a military hum-vee. We then got out, and ascended some stairs to reach a helicopter. At this point, the staff put our VR headset on, and we were put into the VR world. We could see our body in VR, due to the sensors we were wearing. While it did a pretty good job showing where our body was, there was some quirkiness to it, where limbs and such looked strangely contoured in VR.
The offsite actors then proceeded to guide us through the course, beginning with descending down a helicopter via a rope. What happened in reality was we were harnessed to a automated pulley that slowly lowered us straight down, but in VR it seemed like we were hanging from a helicopter that was moving at a high rate of speed, and we were descending quickly. At the bottom the staff would disconnect our harness, and we had to then navigate across a treacherous beam that was only about 6 inches wide, and in VR looked to be 20 feet off the ground. In reality we were actually only about 4 inches off the ground, because there was a wide bridge beneath the beam we were on.
After navigating the beam, we were told to look around for clues in an area, but were suddenly ambushed by hostiles. We had to find the taser and use it to take the hostiles out. The gun was kind of unresponsive, and certainly did not shoot the way I thought it would, but once I figured out its quirks, I was able to use it effectively enough. After a few minutes, that phase ended, and we were guided to the zipline. This part of the VR experience was an actual zipline, but in VR there were explosions and excitement added to make it more intense. This part felt a little weird, because as I descended down the zipline, the VR representation of my body felt like it was raising so high, it felt weirdly contorted. At the bottom, the actors unhooked us from the line, and we were guided to a vehicle we were supposed to use to escape. One thing I forgot to mention earlier was at some point during the day, there seemed to be technical issues with the vehicle so that part of the event was skipped for us.
At the end of the course a couple more actors congratulated us on our mission and gave us some goodies to take with us. This included a coin, water bottle, and a tote bag. Carlos lucked out and received two coins, somehow obtaining one for the escape room without having done it. Apparently one of the workers had slipped it to him near the end of his mission. For those who had both coins, they were able to receive an Amazon Fire Stick. Unfortunately, Violet and I were not that lucky.
Finally we were done though, and the experience was emailed to us, showing clips of our journey through the course spliced in with footage from the show. As I eluded to earlier, while the experience was really interesting, I was pretty exhausted from the whole ordeal, and didn’t have as much fun with it as I had hoped I would. The good news was I finished quite a bit before Violet did, so I was able to record most of her journey through the course.
After finishing up, we had a break between what we were planning to do, since we had already missed the Castle Rock panel. We thought about trying to get into the Glass panel, which was the M. Night Shyamalan follow up to Unbreakable and Split which was taking place in Hall H, but when we walked by the line around 3:35pm, it seemed too long for us to have a shot at getting in, especially considering that the panel started at 3:45pm. So instead we resolved to get food, as I was dying of hunger. We decided to rest up at the Fox Sports Grill which was on the lower level of the Hilton Bayfront hotel. Luckily that line was really short, so we were able to eat relatively fast, and recharge some for the rest of the evening. Sitting down in an air conditioned restaurant felt like heaven for the time we were there.
Stay tuned for more reports of our adventures at SDCC 2018!
As a side note, we were walking over by the Manchester Grand Hyatt on Sunday, and a guy dressed in black and wearing a black hat (in)conspicuously handed Violet a manila envelope as he walked past that read “Top Secret” on it. There was a map of the Jack Ryan Experience inside.
