Fail.
Last night, after watching Pirates 3 with the masses (Jen&Sean, my Mom), I fired up Rollercoaster Tycoon (Found the disc in my desk reorganizing and figured, what the hey?). Now, I've always enjoyed simulation games. Before there was ROllercoaster Tycoon, there was ThemePark. My Dad brought home a copy from England when we were still wee. It ran on the ol' 486 that I've still got in the corner collecting dust. Granted, when it installed it fucked up the entire rest of the computer...but somehow my dad fixed it and my sisters and I spent endless hours constructing crazy rollercoasters and satisfying the make believe people who I always imagined had british accents (this was confirmed by the later debut of ThemeHospital, in which you actually heard the little people speak). One thing I was never any good at, and this reflects true IRL too, was managing the money. Building my epic rollercoaster, while still having enough left over at the end of the month to pay the Handyman. In Rollercoaster Tycoon, there isn't actually a requirement to operate in the black. When the scenario ends, they put your name up on the board with your park value whatever it may be.
I played the tutorial level. -$7000 something. Whatevs.
I start the next scenario. It is several hours later and I'm ON FIRE. I'm making money. I have $10000 and I paid off my loan already? Wha? Unprecedented! $50 000? What's going on? I guess I can afford to replace that darn rollercoaster #2 (yeah, original naming, I know) that keeps breaking down all the time. Apparently when I shut it down to effect my repairs, the people (still) waiting for the Mechanic to fix it after quite some time weren't too happy. And left the park. I was sufficiently distracted not to notice that it was almost October, Year 3, the time of reckoning. I needed a park rating of 600, and 650 people in the park at that time. My park rating was 750-800. My park attendance, at that point, had been maintaining around 800. Easy peasy. Only, apparently people got quite cheesed at the rollercoaster closure as I FAILED. EPICALLY. AFTER SOMETHING LIKE 4 HOURS OF PLAYING. Possibily longer. Did I have a previous save state I could revert to and redo the last couple months of play? Nope.
There were 649 people in the park.
Fuck.
ETA: Another 4 hours later and I have beat my previous almost-record out of the water. Park Value: $165 344, Visitors in park: 1674, Park rating: 999. Yay me!
I played the tutorial level. -$7000 something. Whatevs.
I start the next scenario. It is several hours later and I'm ON FIRE. I'm making money. I have $10000 and I paid off my loan already? Wha? Unprecedented! $50 000? What's going on? I guess I can afford to replace that darn rollercoaster #2 (yeah, original naming, I know) that keeps breaking down all the time. Apparently when I shut it down to effect my repairs, the people (still) waiting for the Mechanic to fix it after quite some time weren't too happy. And left the park. I was sufficiently distracted not to notice that it was almost October, Year 3, the time of reckoning. I needed a park rating of 600, and 650 people in the park at that time. My park rating was 750-800. My park attendance, at that point, had been maintaining around 800. Easy peasy. Only, apparently people got quite cheesed at the rollercoaster closure as I FAILED. EPICALLY. AFTER SOMETHING LIKE 4 HOURS OF PLAYING. Possibily longer. Did I have a previous save state I could revert to and redo the last couple months of play? Nope.
There were 649 people in the park.
Fuck.
ETA: Another 4 hours later and I have beat my previous almost-record out of the water. Park Value: $165 344, Visitors in park: 1674, Park rating: 999. Yay me!