Almost anything will be better than the boring farm exhibit which used to occupy this space.

The Great Piggybank Adventure is aimed at the younger crowd, presumably aged six to fourteen. Certainly my six-year-old loved it enough to demand an immediate return to the line after our first run-through; that's got to be some measure of success!

Visitors go through a very quick queue, with pictures of a pig family on vacation or otherwise living it up; these turn out to be scenes that foreshadow what we're saving for. A Cast Member holds the line here, for there are only four stations up ahead for the next part, the visitors need to be spaced out.

These pictures are a kind of foreshadowing of your options later.

Once we're granted access, we head to a touch screen to meet a cartoon piggy bank, who promises that our adventure today will be to save money and then grow it through investments, as a way of saving up for something. We're given a choice: what would we like to save for? There's retirement, a perfect vacation, college, and a bedroom makeover (to include a waterslide right there on your bunkbed!) Wouldn't you know it, my six-year-old chose the waterslide bed on our first visit. It was the least practical (and plausible) of the options, but must have sounded like the coolest one to his mind.

The interaction has some flair to it. The onscreen cartoon piggy promises to help us get going, but then needs us to free him from the "box" he is in (really, just a frame of lines around the outside of the screen), and we touch a button onscreen to release those lines and let the pig wander off. This part was so remarkable because it's entirely unnecessary; it's not part of the learning curve, it doesn't teach us anything about finance or savings, and it could easily have been left out with nothing lost in the translation. But with it present, the interaction takes on a slightly quirky feel. Somehow that little bit made the experience less cookie-cutter, and perhaps even more authentic (don't ask me how, but it did).

Once we "free" the pig, he wanders from the screen down to the drawer right below it, and the screen tells us to open up the drawer. As if for the first time, we notice that the station we're standing at is themed like a dresser, with drawers giving it height and the "mirror" functioning as the screen. The knobs on the drawers didn't work before, but something must have clicked open, because now the top-right drawer will open up, and inside is a physical hard-plastic piggy bank. We're to carry him over to the next station, and keep him with us during the adventure.

The theming supports the story without being overkill; here we're in a bedroom to start things off.

In this sense, the Piggybank Adventure is quite a bit like the trash exhibit, Don't Waste It, where visitors similarly bring along a physical token as they navigate from station to station. The physical object (in that case, it's a tricycle-sized garbage truck that we push along) holds some manner of electronics to remember who we are and our game statistics so far. It's a bit like carrying around a flash drive from computer to computer, adding to our score as we go.

At the Piggybank Adventure, which seems to occupy a bigger footprint than Don't Waste It, our goal is to save enough money for our dream (whichever of the four we had selected). It was unclear to me whether the difficulty level is higher for the realistic savings targets. Would it be harder to save for retirement than a bedroom waterslide? We tried only the waterslide and a vacation, and in that unscientific experiment, they seemed equally easy.

As our pig moves from station to station and we rack up more savings or compound interest at each location, our total amount of money in the bank rises. There are three stations that add to our savings. The first is a game to generate savings and steer money away from expenses, and toward savings. This is fine as far as a kid's message goes, but the nature of the game may be just complicated enough that the message is lost. Coins fall from the sky, and our team must switch a series of "trampolines" to point either left or right in such a way that the falling coins are all diverted to a savings pot, rather than an expenditures pot.

Watch out for the wolf!

Once you set it up, it just runs on autopilot, which is why after a few moments, the computer injects a wildcard. An onscreen wolf appears and switches pots around, so that while previously money was falling from the sky and bouncing into a savings pot, now it's going into expenditures. You have to quickly alter the bounce path of the trampolines to make the coins land in the new location for the savings pot.

It's engaging enough, and doesn't last long enough to become boring, but I would imagine this could be hard for teams of one person, or even just two people. The game is written for three people (and so are the others in this exhibit), and while you can do it physically with two people, the game doesn't change, and you have to make up the slack. So two people have to watch three streams of coins, and make the necessary adjustments as time goes by.

Our pig was inserted into one end of the kiosk when we first arrived here, and had moved itself via conveyer belt into the middle. After the game, the screen directed us to find the pig on the other side of the kiosk, where the conveyer belt had moved him automatically. The pig's position and movement was one of the highlights for our six-year-old, who delighted in watching the pig move. At the next station, the pig was inserted into a box and he rose via platform up to the ceiling, inside a clear plastic tube. At the third station, he stays put inside a box. Having the pig move around even while at the stations was another stroke of genius; these designers knew what would appeal to kids.

Conveyer belts on both sides of the kiosk.

In the second game, we are gathering additional savings (collecting more coins) while avoiding inflation. This is all given form as a game in the clouds, with coins falling from the sky that we collect, while the wolf drives around a balloon that gobbles up coins we miss (which results not only in lost savings, but also a deduction in our total overall, as a kind of proxy for the effects of inflation).

Complicating matters, the coins don't just simply fall; they move with the "streams" onscreen, some which go down but others of which go up. Our vehicle similarly can only go down when in a down stream, or up when in an upstream. The players control only the side to side motion of the vehicle; each person has an oversized handle for shoving to the left or right, and the majority wins as to which way we go (and how fast we go there). You have to shout out directions if you want to work together to get the most coins. Overall, this is a more engaging game than the last one, and it's quite a bit harder.

If you have only two people, the extra levers remain unoccupied and not part of the game.

The third station is less difficult, but perhaps the most fun of all in its own Scrooge McDuck kind of way. We're here to grow our savings via investments and compound the money.

Clutter atop the kiosks give them character.

This is given form in the game as a stack of coins to start, and we can stash them around the room. Different hiding spots yield different returns; some only yield 2 or 3%; others 4% or 5%. After a few moments to let you hide things, the wolf appears and will scratch around at three of our hiding spots, and steal whatever money is there. But whatever he misses will yield its promised returns, so the game preaches diversification. Put your money in different spots, and even if the wolf gets three of your high-yielding spots, you will still multiply your grand total amount after each level (remember, though, that you must redistribute winnings to all stations after each level, even the ones the wolf just emptied). It's kind of fun to watch the gold coins multiply as you silently mutter "take that, you wolf!"

When you depress the button and then move your wand, the coins will follow.

I'm not sure why a wolf was chosen. They are typical villains in children's stories (even in Disney's version of Peter and the Wolf), and perhaps are best known for the role in Little Red Riding Hood. The common association is with a dastardly miscreant who plays by his own rules and flaunts society, and in that vein, it makes sense that he might try to steal our money. But it takes a moment of thinking to make that connection. My first time through I wondered why a wolf would sabotage our savings, embody inflation, or invade our homes to steal our stash.

The finish line: how much did you save?

When all that is done, you take your pig to one final station for "weighing" to see how much money you saved and compounded. We made our target savings with a wide margin both times we played the game, but the nearby CM assured us that the game is possible to fail, and some people don't make the required money. For those who do, you are rewarded with an animation of your pig on vacation (or enjoying that bedroom waterslide), so it's not like winners receive something extra in a physical sense.

The experience overall is fun, engaging, and eminently repeatable. It wasn't until a few hours later that it occurred to me to ask my six-year-old what the game taught him. "You have to save money," he replied after a few shrugs. This was disheartening on a couple of levels. First, we've had him on allowance for half a year to teach about money, and by default he is forced to put 50% into a box labeled "retirement." What can I say, we're trying to install certain habits in him early and forcefully. The other money he can spend freely or save up to buy toys, so he's familiar with most of this already. Perhaps this is why he thought only of savings. He missed entirely the problems of inflation and investment diversification during the Piggybank Adventure. Upon retrospect, though, a six-year-old is probably never going to get that. Older children, I'm sure, will get the point, and the game designers were wise enough to craft something that younger kids will enjoy even if they don't get the message.

Here's an idea: why not give out a golden chocolate coin to winners,
perhaps even stamped with the sponsor's name?

I'm a little less certain what's in it for the sponsor. Perhaps only advertisement of their name and their brand? I only caught the mention of T. Rowe Price once at the beginning of the game, and once at the end, and neither time was it a very long endorsement. Instead, it was more of a mention of the sponsor's name, and that's it. This is a very soft sell indeed, and refreshing when put side by side with more blatant advertising and sponsorship in the parks.

Overall, I'm a fan of this new addition. This is the kind of thing Innoventions should be full of; fun games that are crafted to appeal to multiple audiences (not just one) and which put a priority on FUN, not sponsor MESSAGE. The sponsor's message is there, but it's under a few layers and it doesn't hit you over the head.

Innoventions at Walt Disney World already beats the Anaheim version by a country mile,
and constant upgrades like this one only make it better.

As noted last time, I teach about fairy tales, most recently at the University of Central Florida in the honors college. You can read a profile of the course on this UCF marketing page.

At its heart, the class functions as an examination of the Disney movies. We look at the Disney plots, symbols, and characters to suss out deeper meanings. That can only be accomplished by reading the source material at the same time. Disney's Cinderella, for instance, comes pretty directly from the Charles Perrault version, but the Grimms' version of the story is relevant to examine also. The Disney movies make more sense when we look at the messages and morals of the original tales. Almost always, those messages change in the Disney version, so it's instructive to get specific about HOW the change occurs and WHY.

The net result of this level of investigation is a much richer, more nuanced understanding of the Disney movies. I wouldn't say that the class "ruins" your appreciation of the movies and fairy tales. If anything, your appreciation will deepen because you understand the layers of meaning much better.

Fairy Tale princesses are big business for Disney, seen even in their marathon events.

Naturally, the logical next step is to explore how the story evolves still further when brought into physical reality at the theme parks. The Snow White story meant one thing in the original Grimms (and it's not what you're expecting, to say the least), it meant something different in the Disney movie, and it means yet a third thing at Disneyland/Walt Disney World. We dive into all that in my class.

A colleague at the University of the Pacific (in Stockton, CA) came up with an idea to bring my fairy tales class to a wider audience: why not make it an online-only course? And to make it as interactive as possible, why not do it in the persistent online environment of Second Life? That way, we could still have class meetings (albeit virtual ones, with our avatars standing about). This raises an important point: the class is not your typical "do it whenever you want" online class, with students free to perform the work asynchronously. Instead, we will have defined meeting times, just like a face-to-face class. In this case, Tuesday and Thursday nights, 6pm-9pm Pacific time (aka, 9pm-midnight, Eastern time). The class will run from June 22 through July 24.

Because we'll be in Second Life, which is like a computer game but without specific rules, levels, or objectives to accomplish, we will leverage the abilities of that environment: flying, building objects, teleporting to external locations to see what other people have built, changing our avatar identity/appearance, and communicating with people, even strangers.

Second Life is fun and interesting all by itself!

The course content is being adjusted from an honors-level class to a general-interest audience of differing academic skill levels, meaning that we're aiming for maximum fun and interest rather than rigid expectations of academic rigor. It's still a lower-division college class, with one essay and a final exam (and some quizzes sprinkled in), but if you graduated from high school, you should be able to handle both the workload and the academic expectations.

Stories discussed in the class include:

Let me stress that these stories did not, originally, mean what you think. So if you're ready to find out how rape, incest, mistrust of the peasantry, starvation, sexual conquest, deviant sexuality, and power politics play into the Disney and other common fairy tales, then sign up. It's open to all high school graduates, located in the United States and overseas alike.

To register, click on this PDF link. Print it out, fill in the required fields (the course fee is $395), and mail or fax it in. Second Life is free, but there's a class textbook/reader to purchase for about $19. You can call 209-964-2424 with any questions, or visit www.pacific.edu/cpce for more contact information. You do not have to be a student at Pacific (or a college student of any kind, for that matter), to participate.

Sign up quickly; the deadline is June 10! Email me with any questions at the below link.

I hope to see you online!

Kevin is the author of many books on Disney theme parks, including:

• Mouse Trap: Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member provides the first authentic glimpse of what it's like to work at Disneyland.
• The Walt Disney World Menu Book lists restaurants, their menus, and prices for entrees, all in one handy pocket-sized guide.
• Tokyo Disney Made Easy is a travel guide to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySeas, written to make the entire trip stress-free for non-speakers of Japanese.
• Magic Quizdom offers an exhaustive trivia quiz on Disneyland park, with expansive paragraph-length answers that flesh out the fuller story on this place rich with details.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Disneyland is a list-oriented book that covers ground left intentionally unexposed in the trivia book, namely the tributes and homages around Disneyland, especially to past rides and attractions.
• 101 Things You Never Knew About Walt Disney World follows the example of the Disneyland book, detailing tributes and homages in the four Disney World parks.

More information on the above books, along with ordering options are at this link. Kevin is currently working on other theme park related books, and expects the next one to be published soon.