In this week’s Theme Park Rangers Radar, we’re getting acclimated to Universal Orlando’s new Minion Land, catching up with Peppa Pig and making plans to ride a gravy boat in Indiana. Honest.

Radar is a weekly fact-finding mission about Central Florida attractions. It appears on OrlandoSentinel.com on Wednesdays.

Blaster bits

In the lead-up to Friday’s grand opening of Minion Land at Universal Studios, theme park visitors had some access to its centerpiece, Illumination’s Villain-Con Minion Blast. The new attraction puts participants on a moving sidewalk and arms them with blasters to aim at animated targets on enormous screens.

There’s a definite video game vibe to it, and like other regular-size games, the more you play, the more you’ll learn about how to achieve a high score.

Rather than ride-queue-repeat all day, I reached out to some theme park website owners who I knew had been making the minion circuit for their best tips.

But first, the basics: Each room is themed to a Vicious 6 villain; blasters have two triggers, one that has unlimited virtual ammo and one that’s more powerful but not nearly as plentiful; options can be adjusted (and top scores found) on the official Universal Orlando app.

(Speaking of the app, my tip is to make sure you have the latest version on your phone before heading to the park.)

Now, just keep shooting.

“If you see a gold item box appear in the center of the screen … shoot it with your standard blaster to equip it. This is the current villain’s special weapon, and if you use it against them, launching it using the front trigger, you’ll earn more points than regular blasts,” says Alicia Stella of Orlando ParkStop.

“Some of the more powerful weapons shoot slower than others, making it hard to time your shots. If you find the slower weapons more challenging, use the app to switch your gun to use one of the faster powerful weapons like the pinballs,” says Matt Roseboom of Attractions Magazine.

“The biggest points aren’t in the easiest areas. In the water pipe scene there is a treasure chest hidden within a boat. You will need numerous riders shooting at the same boat to break it, then you all can destroy the chest and get lots of bonus points,” says Tharin White at EYNTK.info.

“Stay on your dot [the shooting spot on the floor] or your blaster will temporarily deactivate,” says Taylor Strickland of Orlando Informer.

A tip on stance that helped me: Hold the blaster up high so you can hear the sound effects more easily. That’s especially helpful when the moving sidewalk is filled with players.

Three two-sentence updates

• Peppa Pig Theme Park in Winter Haven has extended its Breakfast With Peppa experience through Sept. 2.  It’s a “preschooler-friendly” buffet with characters.

• The Friendship Boats that connect Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and select Walt Disney World resorts are getting a new color scheme. Each will have a unique look but all will have a dark-blue bottom.

• Steven Amos’ recent marathon on Epcot’s Living With the Land ended up raising more than $14,000 for Give Kids the World Village. “The attraction is longer than most people remember with it coming in at just under 20 minutes per pass,” Amos said of his long, long, long, round-and-round day.

Exclamation from afar

Every so often we ponder expanding the scope of Radar to include out-of-region tidbits. Here’s the item that rips it wide open.

Holiday World, located in Santa Claus, Indiana, is planning a family coaster called Good Gravy! (The exclamation point is theirs, but it could be ours.) It will be located in the Thanksgiving area of the park. The ride vehicles look like gravy boats, and the journey goes through a can of cranberry jelly.  The new area surrounding GG will be called Stuffing Springs.

If this sounds like it’s a post-holiday dinner fever dream, here are some facts: the ride will go 37 mph, top out at 77 feet high and last just over a minute, according to the online Roller Coaster Database.  Reported cost: $10 million.

Weekend outlook

• Eat to the Beat, the concert series for Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, continues with “American Idol” alumnus Ruben Studdard and Haley Reinhart on Friday and Saturday, then The Fray (“How to Save a Life”) on Sunday and Monday.

• Friday is the first Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party of the season at Magic Kingdom, but it has sold out already … as well as the next few after-hours events.

• Universal Studios introduces its Taste of Terror, a preview of some of the food serves at Halloween Horror Nights, on Thursday.

• SeaWorld’s Summer Spectacular is on a Friday-Saturday-Sunday schedule again. The same goes for its Craft Beer Festival.

• It’s the final weekend of operation for the Flying School coaster at Legoland Florida, which has not yet said what will replace the attraction.  The final day to ride is Aug. 16.

• Island H2O water park in Kissimmee will start its family-friendly foam parties this Saturday and Sunday. (They’ll continue on weekends through Aug. 27.)

What’s on your radar? Email me at dbevil@orlandosentinel.com.