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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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On to the second scenario The second scenario of the game is Dynamite Dunes. The objective this time is to have at least 650 guests in the park with a park rating of at least 600 by the end of October, Year 3. It's essentially the same as the last scenario just across a longer time, and in a desert environment with mountains.  We also have a lot more space in this scenario and it comes with a pre built roller coaster called Dynamite Blaster. You can sell it if you want to for some extra cash, but I'm going to keep it.  Our first gentle ride is going to be a slide. Legitimately probably the least exciting thing to see being advertise as a ride at a theme park.  Here's also a closer look at Dynamite Blaster. Parts of the track go underground which is a thing you can do in this game. It will raise the excitement rating.  Another gentle ride is the car ride. Think Autopia. Unlike most gentle rides, this one allows you to build a custom track.  You may notice that the Merry-Go-Round is on a raised platform. If you build on raised terrain like this the ride will be placed like this necessitating building paths that go up.  In the middle of constructing our first log flume ride our track is on a collision course with the mountain. Thankfully, as a rich entrepreneur we are more than capable of digging holes.  However we ended up going a different direction anyway, but surely guests can still enjoy standing over a pit while waiting for a log ride. Log rides are a popular attraction in any amusement park. They do very well in in hotter climates like this one.  I forgot to screenshot it in the first scenario, but here's the information kiosk. They sell maps and umbrellas. Personally, if a theme park told me the map had to be purchased I'd just say "No thank you" but guests in this game aren't particularly wise with their cash.  Go-Karts are a very consistent popular ride to have in a park. If you increase the number of laps the excitement rating goes up, but I'm keeping it at 3 to keep the queue line relatively short. Much like in real life, if guests wait in line for rides for too long they'll start getting frustrated. Unlike in real life, RCT does not have any fast pass options for guests.  Another attempt at a custom roller coaster, this time a wooden coaster. This one ended up being a failure, but here's also a look at the operation menu. Many roller coasters will have customization options for how to run the ride, like how many guests it should wait for before launching, and various modes of launch. This allows you to build roller coasters like the shuttle loop coaster from the last update.  Soon after testing, it started raining. Rain is somewhat unfortunate because it means guests won't want to get on rides that are outside. Rides like the Haunted House that are indoors will be more popular. There is a big way to make sure you don't lose too much profit though.  Sell umbrellas for the max price, because when it is raining, guests will not care about the price. $20 is the max you can charge for an umbrella.  Unlike the game, nobody wants Ride to Hell: Retribution. Let's scrap it and get a new coaster.  So here's our new coaster: Price Xixor vs The West. We can't afford the rights to even noncanon Star Wars characters, so we have to go with a mis-spelling. This is an inverted swinging coaster, meaning that the train is under the track, and will sway back and forth. Lots of turns will make this more exciting for guests.  The last scenario was short enough that this wasn't a problem, but with three years we do have to take into account that as rides get older, we'll have to cut prices on them since they're not as appealing to guests anymore. This happens with every ride regardless of how good it is.  I do not know how this guy got here. If guests get off track from the path like this they will get lost, and eventually vanish. This will massively cut down on your park value, so if you ever catch click on the tweezers and move him to the correct area. We are a generous capitalist god, and maybe saving this guy's life counts as a charity write off for tax breaks.  I noticed that cult classic Log Flume ride "Ride a Log" was breaking down a lot, and I realized I forgot a very useful tip. Instead of going with the 30 minute default inspection time, move it down to every 10 minutes to keep rides running as much as possible. I forget to do this basically every time.  We have finally built a competent Mini Steel Coaster that people will actually want to ride. I knew I'd eventually get the hang of it again!  Bumper Cars! Finally you can experience the thrill of a Twisted Metal game in a g-rated environment. It's a gentle ride and guests will go on them during the rain.  As I said earlier, guests will eventually stop wanting to pay so much for old rides. The slide is too expensive for guests at a measly fifty cents, so clearly it's time to replace it with something new. Something exciting, bold, and fresh!  It's a Slide 2! With a new paint job! Since it's a new ride, guests will be happy to pay for it again. Suckers!  Generally with entertainers and security I consider them to not be the most useful staff around. Vandalism is caused by unhappiness so if you simply keep the park running well, then security guards are near useless. Similarly entertainers aren't so valuable when they also just raise unhappy guests' moods. Still, I like to keep one placed near the entrance just to make sure guests are leaving on a happy note. You can also place them in long queue lines to help with that too.  I made a second attempt at constructing a wooden roller co- Wait? Stand Up Steel Coaster researched?  So here I am building a Stand Up Steel Coaster. A special piece available to many roller coasters is a photo station that guests can then purchase.  Our stand up coaster is now complete. Replacing the car ride that was really not turning a profit anymore we have T-Pose to Victory. Standing Roller Coasters tend to get high intensity ratings no matter what, but we managed to make this one work. I neglected to mention it before, but excitement and intensity go hand in hand until you have an intensity rating above 10. At which point the excitement rating takes a penalty. Also, if you construct rides to go over or under other rides or themselves, that will also help the excitement rating.  As mentioned before, you can charge for on-ride photos. Many theme parks do this now, though plenty also offer some sort of all-in-one package deal that gets put to your phone. When this came out, it was generally paid per ride for a print out with a novelty frame.  Another thrill ride that was researched is the Top Spin. It's probably the thrill ride that causes the most nausea in the game, so it's a good idea to have a handyman nearby for all the vomit.  Also researched was a different kind of ride vehicle for the mini steel coaster. Instead of ladybugs, we now have rocket pods. The second train wasn't able to make it all the way around the track due to colliding with the first one and bumping back, so we had to scale back to 1.  Next coaster to get researched was a corckscrew coaster. Built this one like the looping shuttle coaster from the last scenario. These kinds of rides are a good way to save space.  Here's the fool view of the ride.  As I said last update, no matter what victory does not activate until the end of the time limit. This is an easy scenario so you'll likely meet the conditions by the first year, leaving you with two years to just mess around. Here's the screen to list all of your rides at the same time. You can sort by status, popularity, and profits.  If you scroll to profit per hour, you can quickly find which rides are not making back their costs, allowing you to rectify the problem.  I also could have sworn I screencapped it earlier, but we also got a Monorail build for the park. Transport rides move guests from one spot to the other, however guests do not seek them to out be transporter. They treat them like any other ride in the game. The main use is that you can get them out of areas where it's easier for them to get confused and move them back to the front. We also hit 1,000 guests!  And that's the second scenario finished. Again, it's an easy scenario, just time consuming because of the time limit. If you play Open RCT2 however, there is a speed up function.
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Apr 11, 2020 05:26
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History update time: First up we have the Spiral Slide  The Spiral Slide is a gentle ride that costs $330 and takes up 2x2 tiles of space, meaning you can fit this in just about any space. You can switch it to be unlimited rides per admission, though be warned. Sometimes a guest will never get off the slide. The spiral slide in the game is based on the Helter skelter slides in the UK  The name was first recorded in 1905 from an older adverb meaning "in confused, disorderly haste". It also influenced the Beatles song.  The Car Ride is a gentle ride that starts at $540 and is variable in size. It has a height restriction of 26 feet and it is essentially a slow roller coaster. It uses a very simple track making it easy to practice custom designs with. It's unclear if the car ride in the game relies on the guest to accelerate like in Autopia, or if it is self propelled. Autopia itself is one of the original 1955 rides that opened with the Disneyland park, and one of the few remaining. It represented a coming future of America becoming dominated by multilane limited-access highways that were yet to be signed into legislation under Eisenhower with the Interstate Highway Act. If you ever go to Mega 64 Game Days, there's a tradition for the group to get on this and do the No Hands Grand Prix, where you simply hit the gas and don't use your hands to steer. I'm assuming that Autopia was the main inspiration for the car ride, as the other major car ride at Disney was Test Track which opened in 1999.  The Log Flume is a water ride that starts at $1,320 and is variable in size. Log flumes can be very slow as the only way to build up speed is with going downhill. So it is important to design them carefully so they do not go on to long. Historically, log flumes are a variant of chute rides and old mill rides that were popular in the United States in the 1900s. The modern day log flume was first constructed by Arrow Development and was the El Aserradero at Six Flags Over Texas in 1963. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqwTyK9evrA Arrow effectively had a monopoly on log flume rides in the 60s and 60s until a French company named Reverchon Industries entered the business in 1976. The famous Splash Mountain at Disneyland was not actually added to the park until 1989. Splash Mountain is also infamously based on Song of the South, making it weird that one of the most popular Disneyland rides is based on a film Disney tries to hide the existence of as much as possible. The attracition was conceived of in 1983 by Tony Baxter who wanted to attract guests to the Bear Country area of the park which only had Country Bear Jamboree and use the audio-animatronics from America Sings. Dick Nunis came up with the idea for it to be a log flume and then baxter thought to use Song of the South for the theme based around combining the elements of a log flume, Bear Country, and the reused America Sings characters.  These characters aren't from Song of the South but they did fit in with Song of the South's aesthetics of anthropomorphic characters based in Southern fashions.  The ride itself is stripped of all the controversial elements of Song of the South, such as Uncle Remus and the literal tar baby scene, leaving only the elements that wouldn't be call into question. In a way, it foreshadows Disney's approach to the live action remakes of pretending the problematic aspects of the originals don't exist while instead shifting to things people never cared about in the first place as what needs to be fixed.  The Go Karts are a thrill ride that start at $920 and are variable in size. The Go Karts in RCT are set up like an actual race that one of the guests can win. You can drive up the excitement rating with more laps, and by having the track go over or under itself and other rides. Go Karts were created in 1956 by Art Ingels in Los Angeles. The first organized race took place in 1957 with several dozen karts that were built at home. The homemade go karts were the inspiration for Go Kart Manufacturing, Co., Inc in 1958. You can find many theme parks with go kart tracks today, as well as just go kart centers off on their own. Or you could just play Mario Kart.  The Suspended Swinging Coaster is a roller coaster that starts at $3,550 and is variable in size. The cars swing around on the bottom which can make them nauseating for guests. The coaster is based on the suspended coaster design by Arrow in the 1980s. However, suspended coasters have existed since the early 1900s with the earliest known one being Bisby's Spiral Airship. Recreation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNCSNfPse_E The modern design by Arrow was The Bat at kings Island which opened in 1981. It had many problems like high stress on the support springs and stress on the wheels due to the brakes being mounted at the bottom of the swinging cars. It has since been refined with many parks using the coaster. Here's Ninja at Magic Mountain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6CirgUBKFc  The bumper cars are a gentle ride that costs $440 and takes up 4x4 tiles of space. As said before it's very popular during rain because it's in doors. However, the game ride can only run at full capacity so if it's not popular guests can potentially be stuck on the ride. However, the ride is generally popular that it's rarely an issue. Bumper car history is somewhat debated with some believing they were invented by Victor Levand while others say it was Max and Harold Stoehrer. The Stoehrer brothers were at least the first to patent in 1920. They were also originally made of tin that had to be nailed back together between rides and could be dented easily. Sometimes parts would come off during the ride.  The Stand-up roller coaster is a roller coaster that starts at $3,750 and is variable in size. The ride works by having the guests stand up instead of sitting down. Because of this, the ride will generally always have a high intensity rating and needs to be designed carefully to avoid high G forces. The stand-up coaster in the game is based on a design by the japanese company TOGO which is now defunct. The rides were infamous for being rough and smoother stand-ups from Bolliger & Mabillard drove them away. Many stand-up coasters have ceased operation, and the latest new one was built in 1999 at Six Flags Over Georgia in 1999 known as the Georgia Scorcher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bwu0C2Qbxg  The Top Spin is a thrill ride that costs $580 and takes up 3x3 tiles of space. It's one of the most nauseating thrill rides in the game. The ride is based off the Top Spin that was developed by HUSS Park Attractions which is the generic name. They are used by many theme parks and fairs throughout the world as a popular ride. It was originally debuted in 1990.  The corkscrew roller coaster is a roller coaster that starts at $3,900 and is variable in size. The corkscrew coaster has access to a lot of special elements making it a coaster that can have very complex track designs. Much of the ride history is shared with the looping coaster, though Arrow Dynamics is credited with the creation of most real world corkscrew coasters.
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Apr 13, 2020 05:49
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All I know is that if somebody goes in one of the water park pools then that pool has to be drained completely for sanitatiom. I've also had two kids pee in membership processing.
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Apr 13, 2020 23:16
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Hi everyone. Gonna try to get the next scenario out today or tomorrow. Progress on it is slow because it's another 3 year long scenario and almost exactly the same as the last one.
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Apr 16, 2020 12:27
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I'm embarrassingly having technical issues with RCT, so I'm going to get Open RCT2 like I probably should have done from the start.
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Apr 18, 2020 04:52
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Got everything sorted out, on with the update The new scenario is Leafy Lake. The objective this time is to have at least 500 guests in the park with a park rating of at least 600 by the end of October, Year 3. It's basically the same as last time, but with a different map.  The map this time at least provides a somewhat interesting gimmick in that a large amount of our space is taken up by water. You can build over water like you can with normal land for a larger cost.  It essentially works like building on a slope. Keep in mind that the depth of the water can constrain you, so if you're wondering why your roller coaster is hitting the height limit faster than it would on land that would be why.  Starting from now on, we're going to try to make 12 x 12 path grids. This is useful as it lets us keep the park highly organized, always provides a loop around, and when building custom tracks, let's us keep the design from getting too out of hand.  With all this water around, we're able to construct our row boats. This is a somewhat unique ride in that all you technically need is the station platform and guests can boat wherever they please. I would not recommend this as just like the rowboats at my parks, guests will spend forever on them. Build a short path for them so they can get on and then get out.  Continuing on, we have another 12 x 12 path that we can construct in.  We have our first hedge maze. I went with one of the pre-builds because I was really struggling with figuring out how to make a custom one. The mazes tend to be fairly popular attractions with the downside that guests can spend a while in them and queue times can be long as a result. Also there are ducks in our lake. Click on them to make them quack!  And now we have made the switch to Open RCT2! It allows for a modern resolution, so now we have a much better view of everything all at once. It's also using RCT2 as the source instead of RCT1 so things might be a little bit different.  As mentioned before, track length doesn't actually benefit you more than having a short coaster like this. So long as your coaster hits the minimum requirements, a short coaster will actually be more advantageous to you. Remember, the goal of the game is essentially to milk money as fast as possible so you can build the park up more to attract more guests. There is effectively a guest limit (can be overridden with advertising) that increases as you construct more rides. So you don't actually want guests to stick around forever. They need to spend their money and then get out. This is also why it's a good idea to have the entrance right next to the exit path since it'll make guests consider lining up for the ride again, draining them of more money.  Leafy Lakes also has this spot of land up here so we're not just limited to that lake area.  Once again attempting a decent wooden coaster. This is what happens when you try to build underground. To go underground, the ground level must be at least 2 levels above your coaster. This will drive up the excitement rating of your coaster quite a bit.  The finished wooden coaster is an actual success this time. We're improving at designing these things efficiently.  I also remembered to grab a screencap of the monorail this time. This one takes guests around the entire park and has three stations it stops at.  And I do mean all the way around the park. As said before, guests don't actually treat these as a means to get to other areas of the park, they're just another ride to them. So unless you're building for aesthetics, they're not too hand for that purpose in particular.  Something I haven't touched on before is that in each scenario there's a variance of guest cast of $30. In this scenario in particular guests can have between $60-$90 before the run out. Therefore, the max you should set the park fee to is $60. Guests won't think twice about spending all their cash just to go in. Keep in mind, that the limit should only be set once you have enough attractions. I typically go in increments based on how many rides I have set up. We've also hit the goal requirements, so let's take advantage of the new feature Open RCT2 has: Turbo speed!  And then have it bite us in the rear end, but I spent a good 20 minutes trying to figure out why my park rating suddenly tanked so bad. Turns out, I forgot to connect this exit path, so I had 150+ guests just stuck here. Oops.   Thankfully, we bounced back in time. If this happens, just pause the game so you can look for the issue without rushing yourself.  A feature I don't tend to use much myself is that we can purchase land to increase the size of our park. It can be useful if you just need a little extra space to put a ride down.  And in the last stretch, we built a Steeplechase roller coaster. I've never been on one of these, and they seem kind of weird.  I apparently didn't actually screenshot the victory screen, but here's this new kind of screenshot that Open RCT2 allows. A giant screenshot of the entire map.
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Apr 19, 2020 02:36
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I looked it up and it seems to have been an addition to Loopy Landscapes.
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Apr 19, 2020 08:57
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Carbon dioxide posted:So if I understand you right, if you charge for the park entry AND for all the rides, and guests spend all their money on the park entry, so they can't do much else than leave again, this won't hurt the park rating at all? It depends on how many rides you have. If you charge for 60 and only have 4 rides they'll complain admission was too much but if you have a ton of rides you can bump the price up to the minimum and they don't complain. I've had old people who have memberships and all they do is walk around the park and look at the scenery, so I guess it tracks.
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Apr 19, 2020 09:20
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 13:49 |
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Asehujiko posted:Why are you digging those 3x3 pits for tunnels? Terraforming is still hella expensive in RCT 1 & 2 and you only need a single tile to get a ride to go underground. Legitimately so I can get it as clearly as possible.
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Apr 19, 2020 17:32
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