The Wand and the Window
I recently went to Universal Studios because we have games down there, which still feels a little unreal to say. Twenty-five years in, I get to play and build games in places like this for a living, and this time my daughter got to come along.
We tested their Harry Potter wand experience. It’s a scavenger hunt, but with a wand connected to an app on your phone. Across three different Harry Potter worlds, you find a spot on the ground, see a symbol for the spell you need to cast, and when you cast it correctly the wand vibrates, lights up, and something happens. A window display changes. Things appear in an alleyway. The phone unlocks the next stop.
What stayed with me wasn’t the technology itself. It was what the technology made room for.
The real thing
What was inspirational wasn’t the wand. It was watching parents and kids working on something together at each stop, figuring out the clue side by side.
We did rides too, which is fine. But on a ride you’re just experiencing something together. With this, you were collaborating. You had to read the symbol, try the spell, and figure out what you’d missed if nothing happened.
And when we got stuck, older kids or more experienced players would sometimes step in and help us through. That’s the thing about shared experiences, they create the conditions for the kind of small, spontaneous collaboration you can’t manufacture in a meeting room.
Off the screen
My whole thing is, can we use technology so that people don’t look at their devices?
That’s what the wand does. The phone is in the background, doing the work of tracking where you are and what you’ve unlocked. The wand is in your hand, but your eyes are on the window, the alleyway, the kid next to you trying to figure out what spell comes next. You don’t have to look at the device. The device is doing it the whole time without you.
It’s the same instinct behind how I learned to use technology to take care of my body without letting it take over, the tech earns its place by getting out of the way.
That’s what I keep coming back to at cityHUNT, the idea that the best experiences pull people toward each other and the world around them. The piece that excited me at Universal was the three-part interaction: the wand in your hand, the city or display reacting around you, and the phone holding it all together in the background. Three things talking to each other so you don’t have to stare at a screen. It’s also why AI won’t replace what cityHUNT does, the value is in the people next to you, not the tool in your hand.
What I’m taking home
The trip was a fun working trip. We have clients who run events at Universal Walk, so I was there to write clues and collect material. My daughter helped me pick out things to photograph across the three Harry Potter worlds and the Super Mario worlds. A mood board, basically. Stories told in pictures, which is how I like to work.
I don’t know exactly how something like the wand fits into what we do yet. But I saw enough to know there’s a future where 3D objects in the world interact with phones to deepen real-world connection, not replace it. Parents and kids are collaborating at a marked spot on the ground. Older kids stepping in when someone gets stuck. There’ll be some ways we might be able to bring that into our experiences down the line.
If your team is overdue for a real connection, one that doesn’t involve a conference room or a video call, come find us at cityHUNT. We’ll take you outside.
