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 Hello everyone, and welcome to a screenshot Let's Play of Roller Coaster Tycoon. I will be doing all the scenarios for the first game, as well as the two expansion packs: Corckscrew Follies and Loopy Landscapes. What is this? Roller Coaster Tycoon is a management sim where the goal is to create a profitable theme park. Probably the most popular game in its genre, and it spawned a huge wave of imitators that never managed to catch its success. It lives on today through successors like Planet Coaster. The original was released in 1999 and was a huge hit. I remember this game and Episode 1 Racer being big hits at the computer lab at my youth center, and while I wasn't good at it, I certainly spent a lot of time on each of the games as a kid. The basic gameplay loop is that you must build up a theme park to attract customers to spend their money and generate a profit. Getting a profit lets you invest in more attractions and improvements to the park to attract even more customers. Gameplay is from a top down 2D isometric perspective with sprites. This makes coaster building fairly intuitive as each piece is easy to judge how many tiles it will take up. What are the scenarios? The scenarios in Roller Coaster Tycoon are essentially the game's campaign mode. Supposedly, Chris Sawyer always saw these as the main reason to play the games and not the sandbox mode. That was obviously not what drew people to the games as most just want to create their dream park or see what crazy roller coasters they can come up with. Each scenario has an objective to complete. They can consist of having a certain amount of guests inside the park, having a certain amount of roller coasters, and so on. Many of the later scenarios will also place restrictions on you, making it so you have to think outside your normal strategy for your park. Updates I plan on doing at least one update a week. These updates will typically consist of two or three parts. First, the scenario itself which is the main meat of the let's play. The next two parts are what I would consider supplemental material. I currently work at a major theme park so I can relate my experiences there to how it works in the game. The third part would be history related, going in to the background of the various rides featured in the game. This looks cool, how can I play? Steam sells the game on its store, and I am using the copy of the first game sold on there. There is also a mobile release called Roller Coaster Tycoon Classic that contains all the scenarios from RCT 1 + 2. The ideal though is Open RCT2: an open source project of the first two games you can find here: https://openrct2.org/ It's essentially a modern update on the games, and weirdly includes online multiplayer. It requires the original game files though, so you would have to cough up some cash for them. How can I contribute? Personally, I suck at designing coasters. You all are more than welcome to submit your own creations for me to feature in the Let's Play. Alternatively, you can always ask to have a ride or stall named after you. In the first update, I had a friend who goes by Ridley watching me play, so I named almost everything after him. I don't think he saw that I named the bathrooms "Ridley Watches You Pee" and "Ridley Watches You Poop" though. Finally, since I know people will be curious: I would prefer to keep which theme park I work at private. However, if you PM me with a correct guess the first person to do will win a prize that may or may not be useful*. *Void if that person then shouts about it here. Updates: Forest Frontiers Dynamite Dunes Roth fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 00:35
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Forest Frontiers So, here we are with the first scenario of Roller Coaster Tycoon, Forest Frontiers. Our objective is straight forward: have at least 250 guests and get a park rating of at least 600 by October, Year 1. This is essentially training stage of the game, and very difficult to fail without trying to do so. Guests are a self-explanatory mechanic as they are the customers with money you need to try to bleed dry. The Park rating is a value of how good your park is and is affected by various things like ride variety/quality, cleanliness, and price. A higher park rating will attract more guests, making the two objectives go hand in hand.  To begin with, we're going to start off with a classic cornerstone of many theme parks, the Merry-Go-Round. It's a basic ride, but it tends to be popular with guests because it's not intense at all. Historically, merry-go-rounds are some of the first theme park attractions, having been operated in fairs since the early 18th century.  Next we're going to place down the restrooms and get our stalls going. If you have never played Roller Coaster Tycoon before, your eyes do not deceive you. Charging for the bathroom is fair game here because we are the most evil of capitalists. A twenty cent fee is enough to cover costs once things get rolling.  Next thing of note in this early stage is the staff. There are four kinds of staff: Handymen, mechanics, security, and entertainers. Each performs a useful function for your park. For instance, if you don't hire any handymen you can begin to see your walkways covered with "protein spills". I currently work at a theme park, and while it's not my job, I did have to once clean up a "protein spill" right in front of the gate. A disgusting job, but someone has to do it. Staff is generally self-explanatory. Mechanics fix and inspect rides. Security makes it so that people don't break benches. Entertainers keep people happy.  Next is another classic ride, and our first thrill ride: The Swinging Ship. Normally these are rides themed after a pirate ship that swing back and forth, to simulate a turbulent sea. More intimidating than the merry-go-round, but nothing that will cause most people to lose their lunch. Also in the corner there by the restrooms are stalls for burgers and drinks. I wish real life food places at theme parks looked like that, but on the downside they can apparently only sell the food they're modeled after. Have fun lining up for a burger and then again for a drink.  Our first roller coaster is a mini steel coaster. I am not a very good designer of these using the custom, so I welcome readers to submit their own creations to me to use. I'll continue to try to make good roller coasters though. Roller Coasters are the main attractions of your parks in the game, and tend to attract the most guests and profits. You can either select a pre-build that the developers made, or create your own. Creating your own is quite a bit more involved, as you build one piece at a time. There's the station pieces where you start off at. The first lift requires chains to move the coaster up the first hill, and then whatever you do, you must connect the track back around to the beginning station. Some coaster types will have features that other coasters do not, like launch modes and access to special features like loops. Always do a test run before opening.  The results of the first test show our ride isn't very exciting, however it is incredibly intense and will definitely make people run to the nearest trash can. I have a bad feeling this ride is going to be trouble for us. I decided to keep the roller coaster as is. A: Just to run with it for the heck of it. B: To show that a complete custom roller coaster does not necessarily mean a successful one.  A feature a lot of players tend to forget about is setting patrol routes for your staff. A good rule of thumb is four spaces per staff member. This will keep your staff focused on the areas you want to make sure are covered, and especially important for handymen, keep them from mowing the other side of the park for eternity.  Quickly grabbed a screencap here just to show off the results of research that happens in the background. Periodically, the game will finish research projects for you giving you access to new attractions. Here we unlocked the Ferris Wheel.  Next up, we have built the Ferris Wheel. Another classic ride that you can find in just about any theme park, or even just on its own. Like the merry-go-round, it's a pretty reliable earner. Also, we won an award for the best value park in the country! Awards are good to get, because they drive up the park rating.  You can check your recent awards here!  Another ride on the usual suspects list. The Scrambled Eggs as the game calls it. It spins. People consider this something worth spending money on.  This is another mechanic that can be overlooked: advertising. You can determine what kind of ad you want to give, and for how long. Like my work's actual marketing department, it's instant and without warning that they're now offering free tickets. For now, we're just going to see if we can attract people who actually want to ride our terror coaster. Now named Euthanasia because we're going for the edgy teen tough guy crowd.  A good way to get a sense of what your guests think is this window. It'll sort most common thought to least common, so if there's any big problems with the park that need your attention, this is it. Looks like Euthanasia isn't the most popular of rides.  If there's anything I've learned from work though, it's forget the complaints, build more rides. Here's a haunted house ride ominously off in the distance. The sprite in the game seems to be based on the famous Disneyland ride to me, though it's obviously not a unique concept.  Next is the scenery tab. Here you can lay down trees, bushes, flowers, statues, and benches and trash cans. Scenery also affects the park rating as well. Most importantly, trash cans and benches help keep your guests from making a mess of the place. I'd place both near the exits of intense rides and by food stands.  Guest 24 is correct, the others are all wrong.   Going more in-depth on r&d now. You can set up how much funding you want to put into it, as well what kinds of things you want developed. If you want more roller coasters, just deselect the others. Not hugely important this early on, but it is something you can mess to get a feel for it.  Here's the finance screen so you can check if you're making a profit, and what needs to be taken care of. As you can see, we're just barely starting to come out of the negative, but this is normal as we had to build a lot and attract a customer base at the same time. You can also increase or decrease your loan. I would generally recommend to take out a loan if you're in serious trouble, or you want to quickly get a project completed. Optimally, you can generally maximize your loan early on to get as much cash as possible and easily pass the interest rate.  If only this was a complaint I had at work. In Roller Coaster Tycoon you can set the price of admission and for individual rides. In real life, it tends to be one or the other, and most major theme parks will just charge for admission. When I went to Magic Mountain I recall a few things were extra like the go karts. Disneyland used to do both as well with the e-ticket system.  Ok, now we're profiting! I took out the loan to max just to help demonstrate what it does, so that's why we suddenly have $20,000.  And this was the primary reason why we took out that loan. I am honestly not sure what these pre-built rides in my game are that are just titled "u[numbers]" but they seem to be cool rides. I named this one The Emoji Movie: The Ride.  With an actual good roller coaster built, it's time we made Euthanasia a bit more appealing. We essentially added a banking turn and removed the last hill. Renovations for actual rides like this tend to be rare. In reality, a lot of renovations tend to be updating the theme, fixing/improving animatronics, and adding Johnny Depp to Pirates of the Caribbean. God I hope they add The Rock to Jungle Cruise.  Eh, good enough.  It's worth mentioning that by now we have already hit the requirements of the scenario. However, victory does not actually activate until the time limit expires. So, if you hit the requirements early, take the time to continue making your park better. We researched a steel coaster in the final stretch here, so I thought to put it down just to show off that it has an alternate launch mode. This one makes it so that the ride is now centered around a fast launch into a loop, up a hill, and then backwards.  Our final ride is the observation deck, aptly named "See poo poo". It's entire purpose is to go up to the top, give guests a view of the park and then come back down. The only one I'm personally aware of in real life is one at Magic Mountain.  And that's the first scenario done. I am pretty rusty with my gameplay, so not the most amazing park ever, but it got the job done. A lot of these early scenarios are pretty straightforward, but they'll ramp up in difficulty soon. I will personally try to aim for a mix of aesthetic and optimal gameplay for these. Roth fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Apr 9, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 00:38
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I'm down for Mr Bone's Wild Ride 2.0.
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Apr 9, 2020 01:13
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I've worked in an amusement park as well. I know full well the joys of "protein spills". And customer "service".
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Apr 9, 2020 01:18
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looking forward to further amusement park hijinks. i forget... can you name guests or is it only rides?
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Apr 9, 2020 01:22
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Dash Rendar posted:looking forward to further amusement park hijinks. i forget... can you name guests or is it only rides? 
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Apr 9, 2020 01:24
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Ooh, I love this game! Never managed to churn through all the scenarios. I'm going to disagree with you on loans. Take the screenshot right after you took one: Looking at your past finances, your loan interest was at $16.40 per month. In other words if you can make more than $17 bucks a month off of 10k in spending, you've profited from the loan. In my experience it is almost always beneficial to expand your loan and get as many good coasters in as you can right at the start. The higher guest counts, ticket prices and ride income early on massively outstrips the cost.
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Apr 9, 2020 01:47
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There's a couple of times where you'll lose money in the long run, but yeah, it is effectively free money almost all the time. Edit - Let me fix up my wording there. Roth fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Apr 9, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 01:55
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Oh boy, I can't wait for the hell coasters to come. I know that I certainly never managed to make a coaster that wasn't hellmurder the ride any time I played this game.
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Apr 9, 2020 02:00
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Excited to see how far this goes
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Apr 9, 2020 02:43
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I loved this game as a kid even though I was no good at it. Can you name one of those elevator rides that shoots people up and down after me? I loved them after I found out that if you made one with max height and launch speed that it would shoot people off the top, but they would land safely.
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Apr 9, 2020 03:02
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Charge more than 20 cents a piss 
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Apr 9, 2020 04:17
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So this is the first supplementary post of the update, relating my personal work with how the game represents it. Now obviously, as a game, much of the reality of running a theme park is abstracted so it can still be fun for a casual player and the kids the game will undoubtedly attract. However, it does make it funny for me the ways that the game matches up with reality (perhaps unintentionally) and the ways that it does not. To start with, my role at the part is with the Admissions/Guest Services department where I am a relief lead. Essentially, I'm a sometimes shift manager, but I can also fill in for shifts at guest services, the gate, ticket booth, bag checks, tolls, and the parking lot. On a busy day like, say, 4th of July, there's upwards of 100+ of us just for my department alone.  As you can see in Roller Coaster Tycoon all of this is abstracted down to guests presumably buying a ticket at the entrance itself and walking in with parking and bag checks presumably happening off screen somewhere. The amount of staffing for a theme park tends to be considerably larger than the average retail store, and this also does not account for staff that will be on the park such as: Ride operators, medics, retail, cooks, stocking, purchasing, HR, cash vault, photographers, animal specialists, payroll, and marketing. Nor does it account for expenses for staff that may work off site such as an off-site warehouse and call centers. Also, my experience is that we are encouraged to upsell as much as possible. Memberships, extra days on the tickets, and hoppers are our most common options, none of which exist in the game itself. Memberships especially are valuable since it gives guests incentive to keep coming back over and over again. Luckily, myself and the other shift managers don't tell our team members to keep pushing upsell options beyond just asking "Would you like to add on X and/or Y?" It may be annoying to some people, but there are definitely guests that will show up, ask "I want a ticket" and expect us to know exactly what they want out of several different options. It helps to be accurate. There's also thankfully no 3rd party tickets nor vouchers for tickets in the game neither. Typically there's two ways those go down for us. Either everything is hunky dory and there's no problems or everything is wrong and because those tickets aren't sold through our system we can't do much other than direct them to call up the 3rd party vendor. It may surprise you to know that what we tend to do for guests is sell them new tickets for the day, and then refund them when they get their ticket situation sorted out. A lot of guests are surprisingly cooperative about that because they just want to get inside at that point. Finally, I just want to point out that the goal of this scenario was to have at least 250 guests by October. That's a lot by the standards of a restaurant or a retail store, but laughably small for a theme park. For us, a slow day is budgeted for around 2,000 guests. An exceptionally busy can be upwards of 20,000 guests. On one hand it is nice that we don't really get regulars that we'll see every day like with a retail store or fast food place. On the other hand, it makes it so that I can sometimes never remember most of our guests on the same day. I still think of when this lady in the Summer approached me and went "Oh hey, I remember you from last Halloween" and I had to very awkwardly pretend like I remembered her. I suspect that she may have been somebody that was wearing a costume based on Kiki from Kiki's Delivery Service who was really excited that I was the only person who understood what it was. Also, don't take these the wrong way. It's a customer service job so it's not amazing, but I still do overall enjoy it. My co-workers are a great bunch that are pretty chill, and most of the guests we deal with are at worst just kind of annoying due to all of them asking the same questions. But, I've found it's a lot easier to forgive it when ultimately we're doing it primarily for the kids to have a good time. These kind of supplemental posts may drop off as I run out of things to talk about, or if they turn out to be a lot less interesting than I think they are. 
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Apr 9, 2020 04:53
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I've always found that putting bathrooms near your ride exits cut down heavily on the pathway mess. It may be illusion, but I'm pretty sure I've tracked Sick guests go in and come out not Sick.
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Apr 9, 2020 05:11
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Knott's Berry Farm happens to have an observation deck: https://www.knotts.com/play/rides/sky-cabin And at the time this game came out (or at least in the years leading up to it), bag checks weren't as frequent or obtrusive as they tend to be now. No metal detectors either, except at Magic Mountain.
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Apr 9, 2020 05:33
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nine-gear crow posted:Charge more than 20 cents a piss Generally tends to be a bad idea. If you’re charging too much you’ll be getting a bunch of complaints that... they can’t find a bathroom, even if you have 10 of them spread out to be easily accessed. Unhelpful, that.
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Apr 9, 2020 05:33
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Walt Disney said there should always be a garbage can every 20 paces because that’s about as far as the average person will walk before they throw whatever they’re carrying on the ground. He didn’t go far enough, in my opinion. You should charge people to use the garbage cans.
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Apr 9, 2020 05:36
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nine-gear crow posted:Walt Disney said there should always be a garbage can every 20 paces because that’s about as far as the average person will walk before they throw whatever they’re carrying on the ground. He didn’t go far enough, in my opinion. 
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Apr 9, 2020 05:40
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yessss
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Apr 9, 2020 06:03
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nine-gear crow posted:You should charge people to use the garbage cans. *Tries inserting one dollar bill* *Rejected because too crumpled*
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Apr 9, 2020 06:04
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idhrendur posted:Knott's Berry Farm happens to have an observation deck: https://www.knotts.com/play/rides/sky-cabin This is true. My park still doesn't have metal detectors despite trying to get them instated for a while. Also worth pointing out that unlike a lot of the major theme parks everyone has heard of, a lot of the parks in this game are the kind of theme parks that only locals would really be aware of.
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Apr 9, 2020 06:08
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Oh man RCT2 was my introduction to deliberately making terrible things because it's fun to watch the little video game people suffer. Please name the least safe ride after me. I understand ride safety is a fairly high priority in real life but in this world we can, and should, take some liberties in that regard.
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Apr 9, 2020 12:55
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Gnoman posted:I've always found that putting bathrooms near your ride exits cut down heavily on the pathway mess. It may be illusion, but I'm pretty sure I've tracked Sick guests go in and come out not Sick. That and benches.
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Apr 9, 2020 14:12
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If you're taking ride requests, we need to do a massive hedge maze so complicated that guests actually start complaining about getting lost in there.  Roth posted:Our final ride is the observation deck, aptly named "See poo poo". It's entire purpose is to go up to the top, give guests a view of the park and then come back down. The only one I'm personally aware of in real life is one at Magic Mountain. Gnoman posted:I've always found that putting bathrooms near your ride exits cut down heavily on the pathway mess. It may be illusion, but I'm pretty sure I've tracked Sick guests go in and come out not Sick.
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Apr 9, 2020 14:27
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I plan to do a big effort post going ober each ride in depth later tkday, including ride history. The Merry-Go-Round by the way, has a weird origin story. Also I did the second scenario last night. I didn't finish because it'd basically the same as the first scenario but you have three years so I'm just waiting for potentially interesting rides to come up to put into the park. Edit - Finally, I've also been reading up on stuff in the game that isn"t so obvious as well as watching advicr videos to improve gameplay.
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Apr 9, 2020 14:41
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MagusofStars posted:If you're taking ride requests, we need to do a massive hedge maze so complicated that guests actually start complaining about getting lost in there. My home park, Kings Dominion, also has an observation tower. It’s just in the form of a miniature Eiffel Tower. It probably can’t see much of the park nowadays, but it’s there.
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Apr 9, 2020 16:03
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MagusofStars posted:Wait, are they really rare? Both of the theme parks near where I grew up (Cedar Point and Geauga Lake, in northern Ohio) had observation towers. Up until right now, I assumed that most parks had them. Cedar Point's a bit unique among large amusement parks in that they retain a lot of attractions that aren't as big a draw. The iconic white Ferris Wheel and midway full of carnival games would have been torn out of most parks to make room for more exciting rides.
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Apr 9, 2020 16:10
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Interesting to see this from a professional who works in theme parks. I'm from central Florida so I've grown up in theme park central, but it's really interesting to hear about this stuff from someone who really knows what they're talking about.
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Apr 9, 2020 16:29
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I worked at a theme park as well. And I also got some interesting stories to tell. Let me start with this one because it's appropriate for the thread title. At the park, toilets were always free to use. In fact, after paying for a park ticket, (almost) all attractions were free too. Of course, food and drinks cost money but the park was ok with people bringing their own picnic and sitting down on a lawn or on a bench somewhere and eating it there. Anyway, every toilet building was always staffed by one of these cleaning ladies, who would keep the toilets clean throughout the day. These ladies got a relatively low wage, and when I say low, I mean: above European minimum income so enough for a living. But as a little (or a lot) extra on top of their living wage they had this tip jar sitting at the entrance and they'd sit next to it while they weren't cleaning, and most people would drop in some small change. Apparently, at some point, some of these cleaning ladies started all but DEMANDING tips from the guests and got very angry at those walking in without tipping. So the park management was like "this is not how we want to treat our guests" and explicitly disallowed tipping in the toilet buildings.
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Apr 9, 2020 16:48
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At some point please make a park full of rides that would be rip-offs in the real world, but that the park guests are happy with. Things like a one-tile hedge maze, an observation tower with the absolute minimum height, etc
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Apr 9, 2020 17:01
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biosterous posted:At some point please make a park full of rides that would be rip-offs in the real world, but that the park guests are happy with. Things like a one-tile hedge maze, an observation tower with the absolute minimum height, etc How can you mention this and not bring up the corkscr-eh? Two station platforms a single corkscrew piece and set to powered launch at minimum speed. Ironically also the best money maker in the game last I checked.
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Apr 9, 2020 17:12
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biosterous posted:At some point please make a park full of rides that would be rip-offs in the real world, but that the park guests are happy with. Things like a one-tile hedge maze, an observation tower with the absolute minimum height, etc I found out recently that this is how you speedrun.
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Apr 9, 2020 19:10
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I have cousins that have worked at a major park for years, before it was bought out by a more national chain. One worked in the theater department and I would be fascinated by how they built the haunted house for that year, and the shows they had designed, while another worked in the sound design, and lastly, one that was in charge of a major block of the park. This is where it takes a turn though, as that last cousin was just leaving his park, finishing his shift and there was a tragedy that happened on a roller-coaster in his department. A person who wanted "More Thrills" by trying to circumvent the safety restraints fell from the coaster and was killed. Immediately he had to turn around and come back, and he was forever changed by that experience. While only the theater one still works there, they all have good stories of good times, but the latter doesn't regret his decision to leave in the least. Talking to him has colored my vision of the theme park industry and the stuff that the people who work in it have to deal with. While I could never do what I know a lot of the employees have had to do, and deal with, I salute you for all of the crazy that comes through those gates every day. Well, except now a days, with the whole quarantine.
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Apr 9, 2020 20:46
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here are some custom ride designs that ive built up two are wooden roller coasters, one is a looping roller coaster, one is a wooden mouse coaster, and one is a maze
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Apr 9, 2020 22:30
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I played a lot of RCT3 long ago, and it was always a blast to just build the most awesome and sprawling park you could. I might have to bust it out again - I think I've got it on Steam. I'd like to request plenty of stories from real parks - it's cool to hear behind-the-scenes stuff from somewhere that most people probably haven't worked. Edit: Or not, because it's been delisted from Steam?  Apparently Atari didn't pay Frontier royalties or something... Epsilon Moonshade fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Apr 9, 2020 |
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Apr 9, 2020 23:08
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biosterous posted:At some point please make a park full of rides that would be rip-offs in the real world, but that the park guests are happy with. Things like a one-tile hedge maze, an observation tower with the absolute minimum height, etc Roth posted:I found out recently that this is how you speedrun. Ooh, this would be neat if you ever get a chance to show it off briefly. I've always been fascinated by speedrun strategies, even if it seems like it would be rather mundane sometimes. I'm really going to have to check out that mechanics channel sometime.
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Apr 9, 2020 23:57
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Drowning Rabbit posted:I have cousins that have worked at a major park for years, before it was bought out by a more national chain. One worked in the theater department and I would be fascinated by how they built the haunted house for that year, and the shows they had designed, while another worked in the sound design, and lastly, one that was in charge of a major block of the park. I'm surprised at how many people die at amusement parks. I worked at an amusement park for a summer, and on Independence Day I was talking with my supervisor and he just casually mentioned someone dying of heat stroke. I asked him about it and he mentioned that a couple of people die on Independence Day every year, and it kinda hosed with me. I don't know of anyone who died on coasters while I was there, but I know there were some high profile instances before I started of people disengaging safety equipment and falling out of the ride.
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Apr 10, 2020 00:04
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I don't believe my park has ever had a fatality. I do know a kid who climbed up a tree near the front, fell off, and cracked his skull open. That was unpleasant. So, now for the in-depth rides post. To start with, since it hasn't come up in the Scenario posts yet, rides are split off into several categories: Transport, Gentle, Roller Coasters, Thrill Rides, and Water Rides. Transport rides are for getting your guests around the park in theory, however, guests actually do not see them differently from other rides. They won't actually seek these out to get to another part of the park. They're nice to have for simulation/aesthetic, though an alternative idea is to build a roller coaster with multiple stations that stops around the park. That is a more expensive solution though. Gentle Rides are calm rides that basically anyone will get on. They have other advantages such as not taking up as much space as the more intense rides. Also, guests will often get on them after doing more intensive rides like roller coasters. Roller Coasters are the main draws of your parks, and tend to be the most expensive rides. Most coasters have at least one premade design, and you can build your own. Keep in mind that guests will actually not care about the length of a coaster. A coaster have the length of another coaster but with similar ratings is just as attractive, with the added advantage of being more efficient at making money. Thrill rides are basically more intense gentle rides. A sort of stop gap between gentle and roller coasters. They take up little space so you can plop a lot of them down in crowded areas without nearby roller coasters. Water rides are rides that get your guests wet. They're similar to thrill rides, however they all have custom design options. For some of them, it's as simple as building a station. In RCT1, to research water rides you have to have thrill rides selected. Later games would make water rides its own option. Water rides are also more popular in hotter climates. First up we have the Merry-Go-Round:  The Merry-Go-Round is a gentle ride that costs $460. It takes up a 3x3 space. The Merry-Go-Round also has only one type of music available, the "Fairground Organ Music". This track was originally recorded in 1976 by the C. John Mears Organisation. The record just so happened to be owned by Chris Sawyer's father, which is why it's in the game. The origin of the Merry-Go-Round dates all the way back to the 6th century in Byzantium. Obviously, not in the same form as now, they would tie baskets to a center pole and spun people around. The modern carousel evolved from jousting games in 12th century Europe and Asia. Knights would ride in a circle and throw glass balls between themselves on horseback. Dropping the ball and breaking it would cause the knight to smell of perfume, shaming them. This game was called "garosello" in Italian and "carosella" in Spanish which is where the word "carousel" comes from. The game was changed up in the 17th century, where riders now had to spear small rings that were hanging over their heads. No jousting was involved, but it was still a cavalry spectacle that commoners would start to participate. In the 18th century, carousels gained a lot of popularity in central Europe and England at various fairs. Unlike modern carousels, they didn't have platforms and animals, but implemented seats for riders that were hung from chains. They were powered by animals and/or people. By the 19th century, there were several improvements in the design now having platforms and fake animals for riding that were fixed to the platform. They also started to use steam power in 1861. A man named Frederick Savage started making his own versions of the carousels in 1870. He came up with a variant with velocipedes and a different with boats that would pitch and roll on cranks. He then invented a mechanism that moved the horses up and down simulating actual horseback rides. In the United States, carousels were hugely popular until the Great Depression. After the crash, many small carousels were destroyed. After recovering, carousel production used aluminum and synthetic materials and steam machines were replaced with electric motors. Today, classic carousels are rare with less than 150 of the 4,000 built surviving today. Many of them are preserved by museums and organizations. Moving on we have the Swinging Ship  It costs $387 and takes up 1x5 tiles of space. It's a thrill ride and consists of a ship that swings back and forth. It has a low nausea rating, but it does ten to make guests vomit a lot. From what I can tell and research, the ride's appearance seems to be based on the Chance Rides Sea Dragon  Unlike the Merry-Go-Round, the swinging ship has a much less interesting history. The ride is commonly attributed to be an invention of Charles Albert Marshall between 1893 and 1897. His ride was originally called "The Ocean Wave" and was used in the Marshall Bros Circus that run by Charles and his family and friends. Next is the Steel Mini Roller Coaster  This is a roller coaster that is a combination of the Junior Roller Coaster and the Mini Roller Coaster. It would be split into those two ride types starting in RCT2. It's a small and cheap coaster that is good for small spaces and parks low on cash. The price is starting at $1,320. Historically, steel roller coasters have been running since the 1920s, with the oldest running steel roller coaster being Montaña Suiza which has been running in Spain at the Monte Igueldo Amusement Park. Here's a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcBMeRcHpWI The first steel ride with a modern tubular track would be the Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland, being introduced in 1959. I will save more in-depth information on steel roller coasters when we get to a regular one. The Steel Mini Roller Coaster in RCT seems to be inspired by the "junior" coaster that is aimed primarily for kids. They tend to be small, not have any inversions, and are very tame. They'll also often be based on popular entertainment for kids. From what I can tell, the earliest junior coaster opened in 1976 as Mine Train at the Valleyfair amusement park in Shakopee, Mineesota. It was renamed to Mild Thing with the opening of a new hypercoaster called Wild Thing and ceased operation after 2010. It was not until the 1990s that junior coasters started taking off, with the Kiddee Koaster at Six Flags Fiesta Texas in 1992, followed by Gadget's Go Coaster in Disneyland in 1993. Next we have the Ferris Wheel  Ferris Wheels are gentle rides that cost $450 and take up 1x4 tiles of space. Just like in real life, these things load like poo poo which can drive up queue times. You can set the number of rotations in the operations tab, however, keep in mind that because of how the Ferris wheel is loaded and unloaded, it will be that number of rotations time 16, so make sure to set it to one. Also, if done correctly, placing the Ferris Wheel where guests have a good view will raise the excitement rating. Like the Merry-Go-Round, the Ferris Wheel is one of the earliest theme park rides invented. They may have their origins in 17th century Bulgaria with "pleasure wheels" where passengers rode in chairs suspended from large wooden rings turned by strong men. in 1615, Pietro Della Valle was a Roman traveller who sent letters from Constantinople, Persia, and india. He attended a Ramadan festival in Constantinople and described riding on the Great Wheel: "I was delighted to find myself swept upwards and downwards at such speed. But the wheel turned round so rapidly that a Greek who was sitting near me couldn't bear it any longer, and shouted out "soni! soni!" (enough! enough!)" The idea for the wheel spread across Europe in the 17th century until it was introduced to America in 1848. In 1892, William Somers installed three fifty-foot wooden wheels and was granted a patent for "Roundabout". The following year, Somers filed a lawsuit against Ferris, but the case was dismissed. The original Ferris Wheel referred was introduced at the World's Columbian Expositon in 1893. It was dismantled the following year. Since then, the Ferris wheel has continued to be a mainstay at many amusement parks, but they never solved the fact that it is a terrible loader. Next is the Scrambled Eggs  This is a thrill ride that costs $360 and takes up 3x3 tiles of space. It has the lowest stats of any thrill ride. It is modeled after the Scrambler which shows up at several fairgrounds in the USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=293amihqfZo These were first invented by Richard Harris in 1938 and installed at the Lakewood Fairgrounds. he was granted a patent for the design, which was then acquired by the Eli Bridge Company. It was then road tested in 1953, and made its first major showing at the 1955 Florida State Fair where at 25 cents a ride it grossed $1,700 in a single day. Next is the Hunated House  This is a gentle ride that costs $340 and takes up 3x3 tiles of space. Being an indoor ride, they'll see a large uptick in popularity during rainy days. The most famous one by far is the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, and for good reason as it still stands as an impressive feat of audo-animatronics. Unfortunately, it gets replaced by a much worse version every Christmas season. However, the first recorded example of a haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House in 1915 in Liphook, England. In America, haunted houses began to emerge during the Great Depression around the same time as trick-or-treating. The haunted Mansion opened in 1969 and was a smash hit at the park, setting records soon after it opened. Following this, haunted houses spread across the US via charity fundraisers conducted by the united States Junior Chamber. They encouraged members to construct haunted houses in abandoned buildings for charity fundraising. many of these haunted houses still exist in towns like Lombard, Foxborough, Raleigh, and Columbia. Charity haunts came to an end when the Haunted Castle at Six Flags Great Adventure caught fire in 1984 and eight teenagers were killed. Building codes and inspections were tightened up considerably. Many of the major theme parks now also do Halloween events in October as well, such as Knott's Scary Farm or Brick or Treat at Legoland. Next is the Wooden Roller Coaster  Wooden Roller Coasters are one of the most basic types of roller coaster, where the main feature to create a good one is to have lots of drops and hills. They are large coasters, and start at $2,800. Due to the limits of wood, wooden roller coasters do not tend to have inversions, however there is one exception: Son of Beast at Kings Island had a loop from 2000 to 2006 but it has since been removed. https://youtu.be/9AU1TdhP6e0 Wooden Roller Coasters pre-date steel roller coasters and new wooden roller coasters are rarer than steel ones. As opposed to steel, wooden ones rely on having a rougher feel to the ride that gives a sense of unreliability. However, wooden roller coasters are designed to sway with the force produced by the coaster, as if the structure is too rigid it will break with the strain of the passing train. Today, wooden coasters also incorporate steel into the design as well. Next is the steel roller coaster  These coasters are constructed with steel, start at $3,350, and can be small to large. They also allow for inversions. As mentioned earlier, steel roller coasters have been operated since the 1920s, with modern designs beginning with the Matterhorn in 1959. Being more flexible and smoother than wood allows steel coasters to do things that are considerably more difficult with wood like loops and corckscrews. Inversions in roller coasters were first built in 1848 as part of the centrifugal railway of Paris. Early inversions in coasters would continue until 1903 when the novelty wore off due to the discomfort they caused. The concept was not revisited until the 1970s with the first corckscrew being created in 1968. The ride called Corckscrew was installed at Knott's Berry Farm. Following this, Revolution was introduced in 1976 at Magic Mountain becoming the first complete circuit looping roller coaster. Since then, a roller coaster arms race has been taking place to create more and more coasters with inversions, height, and speed. Finally, we have the Observation Tower  These are gentle rides that start at $592 and take up 3x3 tiles of space. They are indoors, so they are popular during rainy days. Scenery and height will also drive up the excitement rating. The observation tower in the game seem to be based off Gyro Towers that were built by Intamin and Von Roll Holding. There's not a lot of information available about the history of these towers, however, one of the most famous gyro towers is the kissing Tower at Hershey Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5PY4bCAJjs This is the part where I confess that my education background is in History. If I continue to do LPs past this game, I would probably pick other games I can do similar posts on the history of. Maybe Red Dead Redemption 2 someday? Roth fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Apr 10, 2020 |
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Apr 10, 2020 03:08
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I admit, I did not come into this LP expecting the history of rides but I am absolutely not complaining. Very nice info, Roth, thank you!
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Apr 10, 2020 04:07
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I never knew I needed this much info about theme park attractions until just now. 
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Apr 10, 2020 04:28
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