Are you looking for a way to get more involved with the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge story? The Play Disney Parks Datapad, an interactive game that brings the denizens of Black Spire Outpost to life, gives you a hybridized version of Live Action Role Play (LARP), through text-based story building and some real-world application to immerse you in the Star Wars universe at Disneyland.
If you want to get started, just download the Play Disney Parks app, navigate yourself to the Outer Rim planet of Batuu, and open up the Datapad “game” on the map.
So how does this “Datapad work?” There are four sections, Tools, Jobs, Map, and Profile:
Tools
Let’s look at the types of tools and what you use them for.
Hack
Hack is the most interactive tool, as it allows you to “hack” different things around Black Spire Outpost. For the most part, that means visiting surveillance panels like the one above. Panels seem to be the only things that really react to the app, they blink sporadically and make noises when you begin the hacking procedure.
The main hacking menu is above, but you can find hack points via the map as well. Neither the map or this menu is really all that helpful in finding which specific element you’re hacking, though, it’ll be the flashing lights and noise that will alert you to which panel you selected.
Since this is really your main tool, it’s used in almost every aspect of this app. I’ll get into it later on, but it’s an important tool for jobs and Outpost Control.
Translate
This tool is meant as a way to translate alien languages into English. Almost everything in Galaxy’s Edge is written in Aurebesh, a written version of Galactic Basic (fun fact, it first appeared in Return of the Jedi). The tool isn’t really used in any jobs or anything, it’s meant to be used for discovery. While I’ve been told it was intended to mostly be used in a “visual input” mode, I never got it to work. Every time I hit the tool it would boot me straight to manual input.
I decided to at least translate Dok-Ondar’s sign, which translates to “Antiquities.” Manual input is far too clunky for me to use more than once, though.
I’d love to walk through the land and translate things, but I haven’t had access to the options for “visual input” or “audio input.” Let me know if you’ve been able to get them to work properly.
Scan
Throughout Black Spire Outpost there are scan points that look like QR codes. Scanning them will reveal what’s inside.
Tune
This tool is very much like Hack, but it operates using gyro controls by moving your phone in the right direction. Whereas Hack gives you things like parts, cargo, etc, Tune gives you intercepted transmissions.
Map
The map shows you where you can use your tools and where you need to go next for your job. There are icons for locations to use each tool and the big blue icons are for jobs.
You might need to use the maps and tools to unlock the job list. Start by using one of your tools at a point on the map. I found that a scan point worked best. After you’ve scanned something once, the job list will become available to you.
Jobs
This is the most important part of the app, as it allows you to connect to the denizens of Batuu. There are two categories:
- Available: A list of basic jobs from different factions around the outpost. Mostly fetch quests and purchasing goods with your “credits.”
- Advanced: The Outpost Control game and a Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run exclusive job “Flight Crews Wanted.”
When you finish a job it’ll be stored under “completed” so you can play it again.
Each job employer is from a different faction, the Resistance (blue), the First Order (red), the Scoundrels (purple), and a neutral Black Spire Outpost citizen (yellow). The icons are a little small so it’s easier to just go off the colors.
Available Jobs
Tuning For Hondo
Once you’ve accepted a job, you’ll enter into a text chat with the employer. The first one on the list is a job for Hondo, he wants you to find him a passcode. Most of the jobs give you response options during the conversation. Often times they’re just options that don’t do anything different, but sometimes you’ll get something extra.
I noticed some options giving more in-depth explanations of how to do things, extra lore about different things at the outpost, and some actually affecting your status. For example, when I finished a job for the Resistance, I decided to squeeze some more money out of the spy and it gave me credit towards Scoundrels rather than the Resistance. Hondo would be proud.
When you accept the mission parameters, it will take you to the map and show you where to find the item you’re being asked to fetch. The particular mission I accepted from Hondo took me to the First Order controlled sector where I had to use the “tune” tool to tune into their communications.
Of course, the First Order doesn’t want me poking around in their comms, so it was scrambled and needed to be decoded. After finishing the mini-game, I got to read what the comm chatter was.
When you’re done, you get paid in credits. These can be used to…what else? Purchase things. I’ll get back to that in a minute.
The tuning tool lets you keep the comm data, it goes right to your profile so you can read it whenever. Notice how I keep saying “read,” because that’s how communication is completed. Everything is done through text messages. I fear this will be a major turn off for some players, especially since the individual job stories are self-contained and have no bearing upon one another; there really isn’t much incentive to read the messages.
Most of the jobs are a simple exchange like: scan the crate, get the info, hand it over (keeping a copy for yourself), get some credits. There’s no real difference in how any of the jobs work, just how you complete them and how you interact with the characters via text. After doing a couple it almost feels…tedious.
Advanced Jobs
There are two “advanced” jobs that are a bit more special and in-depth than the others. Flight Crews Wanted is meant to be played while you’re in line for Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run while Outpost Control is a multi-player game.
Flight Crews Wanted
This job is more akin to the games you can play on the rest of the Play app throughout Disneyland. It’s meant to be a distraction while you’re sitting in line and thus uses elements of the queue in the tasks you’re asked to perform. The trouble was that I always rode when the line was so short I could almost walk on, as I suggested in my “Know Before You Go” article. Although I tried to let folks go around me, it was really hard to play without blocking traffic in the queue. This will be less of a problem when virtual queuing is implemented and the line maintains a more consistent length.
Beginning the job, you help Hondo’s assistant, Kel’cy bring the inventory system back up by scanning the contents of crates. My app wasn’t scanning properly so I didn’t scan any crates. Kel’cy wasn’t happy about that but sent me to Hondo anyways.
The next area in the queue is the maintenance hangar where Hondo has decided that I need to change my identity. Below, my new ID card. I don’t really see the resemblance.
Hondo then quizzes you on the contents of your ID to make sure you know you’re stuff in case you need to…lie to someone? I suppose I don’t really want the First Order to know what I’m up to. I appreciate that since you’re constantly moving in the queue, you get options to skip ahead if you’ve finished that section of the queue.
At this point, the app assumes you’re at the overlook for the Millennium Falcon and now quizzes you about things on it. Fuel drive pressure stabilizers, red thrust vector plates, just random bits on it and how many there are.
After completing Flight Crews Wanted, I received some schematics to go into my Datapad.
Outpost Control
This advanced job is supposed to be the bread and butter for the Datapad, a multi-player game where players are tasked with taking over Black Spire Outpost and giving control to either the Resistance or the First Order. To do so, you’re tasked with going around to all the First Order surveillance panels, hacking them, and either installing surveillance for the First Order or a defense for the Resistance.
The trouble with this job is that it’s very confusing on multiple levels. Not only is it not really a “job” in the way the other jobs work, more like a collection of small jobs. There’s also some sort of lock that doesn’t necessarily unlock, at least that was my experience.
I had to go into my Android settings and reset the entire app. And even after doing so, if I signed into my Disney account it wouldn’t work.
After resetting and not signing in, I was able to try Outpost Control. The invite above actually came after I started playing Outpost Control already. You should receive it immediately upon logging into the Datapad if Outpost Control is active.
A mysterious character, Tu’lus, explains that the First Order has put up surveillance all over Black Spire Outpost and that the Resistance is trying to stop them; it’s your choice which side you want to help.
Outpost Control is mainly played through the map below. I make a point of mentioning this specific map because you can’t play it without hitting the “show map” button in Tu’lus’ chat. I already mentioned jobs feeling a little self-contained, and this feels like two layers of disconnection between the rest of the app. If you hit any other tab and go to the standard map, you don’t get this user interface (UI). Ultimately, this led to a pretty confusing UI experience.
The main component of the game is looking for these hack symbols all over the map, they signify where the panels you’re looking to hack are. If they have a color, that means one faction is winning control over it. At the top, a bar signifying which faction is winning.
Hacking Panels
Once you’re in range of the panel, you can decide to hack it, install a defense for the Resistance, or install surveillance for the First Order. They’re all the same experience, the different outcomes are just that one faction gets points. You’re not locked to one faction, either.
I often had trouble getting within range of panels. The app was almost always inaccurate in calculating where I was and it took an awful lot of time before giving me the option to actually tap on one of the items. It seems like there’s some sort of location checking interval and that while it’s checking if you’re in range, it greys everything out so you can’t tap on anything. On many occasions, I would stand next to the panel waiting for the app to realize I was there. Confusingly, some panels weren’t even on the map even though they were physically there.
When you finish hacking the panel, a bar signifies which faction is winning control over that specific panel, updated with the points you just sent. If a panel has a faction symbol on top of a grey background, that means it’s locked to their side for a period of time and it can’t be hacked until it unlocks again.
Data Skimming
At some point, Tu’lus might offer you some data skimmers. These are nasty little devices you can install on panels that skim credits from other players as they hack into them. They help neither side, they only help you get more credits. You can leave them on panels as long as you’d like but you have to pick them up before Outpost Control resets; skimmers reset with the game.
Tu’lus will give you two of them to play with and they show up as a new option underneath the ones for the Resistance and First Order when you hack a panel. I’m not sure if they can be installed on every panel, but you’ll know which panel you’ve put them on because they’ll have a purple line next to them on the map.
Considering it drained my battery from 80% to 15% in a matter of an hour, I’d rather just do something else with my time that doesn’t drain the important resource that is my smartphone battery. If you want a great Star Wars RPG to play in line, the classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is available for $10 on the Google Play and iOS App Store.
Side note about battery drain . . . why don’t they have FuelRod stations in Galaxy’s Edge? They are located throughout the Disneyland Resort and are most needed in Star Wars land. Because you can’t get back into Galaxy’s Edge once you leave, you can’t go to the nearby Hungry Bear to exchange your Fuel Rod . . . and you need them . . . you could easily use up 4 of them during your time on Batuu.
Profile
So what’s the point of doing all these jobs and getting credits? Well, you can obtain a myriad of things for your Datapad profile. It seems you need the credits mainly to buy digital cosmetics like equipment and outfits. The star maps, schematics, droid data, transmissions, and titles seem to be related to completing jobs.
While some equipment can be acquired for just completing a job, others can be bought. These scenarios where you’re actually purchasing things are listed under “jobs,” though, which is slightly confusing. A “marketplace” option under the “available” jobs might be better so you know what kind of job you’re getting yourself into. Usually, the Black Spire Outpost citizens were the ones trying to sell you stuff.
If you can’t find what you want but your friend has, you can trade with other players as well.
Telling a Story
Beyond all the technical issues I had (and they were many), the game itself felt like all the boring parts of Legends of Frontierland put in one place. Legends of Frontierland used live actors to interact with guests, the Datapad is purely digital. That’s a lost entertainment option that is much needed in the land, even if guests aren’t fully interacting with the game.
The app exclusively uses what is referred to as “fetch quests” in the video game community. They’re generally accompanied by either a reward that improves your character or sandbox elements which are fun because they bring you into contact with other players in some interesting way. The Datapad has neither of those things.
I do have some suggestions on how to improve the Datapad. The fact that this thing happens through an app means that it has an incredible amount of flexibility, just look at something like Pokemon Go. The expectation was that this experience was going to be Legends of Frontierland inside an app and it’s entirely possible that the Datapad could be a self-contained story that changes based on your actions like Legends of Frontierland or a real RPG video game. The technology is already there and working, it just needs a few tweaks.
The Marvel Galaxy’s Edge comic books have a story format that’s ripe for adaptation for normal guests visiting Batuu. There’s an overarching story (so far) about smugglers trying to steal a Sith relic from Dok-Ondar, but each edition has a focus on a side story like how Han Solo retrieved the baby Sarlaac that lives in Dok-Ondar’s shop.
A side story like Solo’s could be told through jobs, Dok-Ondar could ask you to go see Hondo to get some Sarlaac food or something and upon your return explain the story of how he received the Sarlaac as he did in the first edition of the comic. The overarching story could be unlocked as an advanced job as you finish related jobs. Maybe you find surveillance footage of the smugglers talking to Dok-Ondar or you physically have to go talk to the First Order on behalf of Dok-Ondar. Can you imagine if Dok-Ondar could be programmed to react to you like the Pirates League props at the Magic Kingdom?
Live actors could have access to a version of the Datapad that tells them how far you’ve progressed in the game to inform them what they need to talk to you about. Right now the quests only reward you with credits and digital things that don’t do anything, but a reward of tangible story elements could really make Galaxy’s Edge an interesting place to visit. LucasFilm has spent a lot of time developing a wonderful backstory for Black Spire Outpost and seeing it come to life outside of the comics and books would help deal with some of the complaints about Galaxy’s Edge feeling a little empty.
The Play Disney Parks Datapad app right now is not something I can recommend you try for the four-hour reservation period. While in concept the app is a wonderful idea, the execution needs work. However, if you’re unable to visit the Cantina and have already been on the Falcon, or you are on a return visit, this is definitely a thing that could help occupy your time.
If Disney fixes the technical issues and gives guests a story incentive to play the Datapad, this could be a real winner. I do hope that happens because this was one of my most anticipated elements of the new land and I’m disappointed by its execution. I really wanted to love it. But I’m still willing to try again. . . if they can solve some of the issues.
HAVE YOU PLAYED WITH THE DATAPAD?
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