China’s theme park boom is taking a nerdy twist. World Joyland, a new theme park being built in Changzhou, China, created some buzz on the Web recently when concept images made it to the States. The images depicted a theme park that looked like the insanely popular PC games World of Warcraft and Starcraft. Some American sites thought that the news might be a hoax as the creator of the games, Blizzard, hadn’t mentioned the project. Kotaku confirmed that the park is indeed real, but it doesn’t have an official connection with the computer games.
The gaming geeks should have just asked the coaster geeks. Our favorite resource, the Roller Coaster Database confirms the existence of World Joyland because of its custom Bolliger & Mabillard flying coaster that the park is calling Starry Night Ripper. The popular coaster designers’ attractions are closely watched by coaster enthusiasts, no matter where they’re built. The park looks really cool and its addition, along with China’s other newer parks like Happy Valley and Knight Valley, are making me want to experience Asia’s theme parks almost as much as I want to visit Europe’s parks.