A new startup wants to make American robotics fun again. Dynamic Creatures, a spinoff of Boston Dynamics, launched out of stealth yesterday with a focus on making robots for hospitality and entertainment, starting with theme parks and retail spaces. Boston Dynamics was once best known for its viral videos of robots doing cool tricks, but that space has been taken over by Chinese humanoids and their flashy dance moves. The American sector, meanwhile, has poured into manufacturing, industrial, and defense use cases for robots.

Dynamic Creatures is building software, and using hardware from Unitree, AgiBot, and Boston Dynamics. The plans require rethinking safety “from the ground up,” CEO Marc Theermann told Semafor, since he wants to make robots that people will be comfortable hugging.

High-end entertainment deployments in robotics require “both the artistic vision and the engineering capability to deliver a truly interactive experience,” and “that kind of character development just isn’t our core space or area of expertise,” said Nikolas Noel, Boston Dynamics’ vice president of marketing and communications. Entertainment bots come with different engineering challenges, like whether a costume obscures vision or causes overheating.