RollerCoaster Tycoon (the original)
The original RollerCoaster Tycoon was released as a PC/Windows game in early 1999. It is older than one of my children. Despite RCT’s modern reputation, it was a well-regarded but not uniquely-celebrated title. The game did particularly well in Britain and Europe; most likely due to the original release version, written by Scottish programmer Chris Sawyer, being largely based on British and European theme parks. Much is made of the fact that Sawyer wrote the game entirely in assembly code. We’ve discussed this before; this means the games “code” was written in the actual instructions that could be fed directly to the hardware; rather than in a programming language that had to run through *another* program run by the operating system which translated the game into the instructions the *operating system* would use to communicate with the hardware. This was certainly less common in 1999 than it once was…the advantage of programming in this manner is the performance gained by skipping the middle man. You can find plenty of demonstrations on YouTube that show how significant this increase can be. This practice would, obviously, have been of tremendous use in the earlier, more-restricted days of computer hardware; and has gradually evolved into a tool with specific applicability and use.
RollerCoaster Tycoon had some interesting company in 1999: the hottest titles were all home console games; Pokemon Red/Green/Blue/Yellow/Gold/Silver, Final Fantasy VIII, Donkey Kong 64, and Super Smash Bros. Noted PC releases included Heroes of Might and Magic III and several clones, plus an original Baldur’s Gate expansion and a spiritual sister-game Planescape: Torment. These were accompanied by *many* PC-only role-playing games, noted first-person battle arena games Quake III: Arena and Unreal Tournament, and many well-known sims such as Age of Empires II, SimCity 3000, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, Pharaoh, and even Sim Theme Park. Of particular interest is the publication of the 2nd and 3rd MMORPGs: Everquest and Asheron’s Call, one of which you can still play.
1999 loomed large for more video game genres than MMORPGS, though. The sequel to the wildly popular real-time strategy game Command & Conquer was released. Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun was one of the most successful video games in history, even to this day. One could say this marked the dominance of RTS as the preeminent PC game genre for about a decade, before giving way to MMORPGs and MOBAs. This also dovetailed with the decline of the adventure game genre almost perfectly. Sierra Online, the king of adventure games, released Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned in November. This was the last title published by Sierra before the fall of the adventure game market. Earlier in the year, in February, Sierra had notoriously engaged in a “cost-cutting measure” that involved simultaneously and suddenly closing multiple studios, including their famous, former Oakhurst, California headquarters. This was the first of many *major* reorganizations of Sierra over the next several years, which culminated in a financial scandal in Sierra’s then-parent company that, we eventually found out, had been quietly bubbling under the surface for years. Sierra founder Ken Williams had sold Sierra to CUC International for an insanely exaggerated value, the kind of price you can’t say “no” to, in 1996. Only a few years ago Ken revealed he had learned at least some circumstantial knowledge of the financial problems before leaving the company in 1997. His wife, Roberta, had suspected problems with CUC from the beginning.
So how in the world does RollerCoaster Tycoon emerge from all *that* with a glowing and still growing reputation, a massive and active fan-base, and a free front end/overlay mod called OpenRCT that fixes some bugs and adds in functionality from the sequel game, RollerCoaster Tycoon II? Instinctive playability, a difficulty curve that navigates the line between “hand-holding-do-it-for-you” and “do-it-again-stupid,” and an almost-entirely player-generated challenge level. Easy, right?
Let’s start at the beginning.
The official release of RCT doesn’t have a “free play” mode; you are presented with choices to Start a New Game, Load a Saved Game, Show the Tutorial, and Exit. Starting a New Game will allow you to select any of the first few scenarios, which will have to be “beat” or “solved,” whichever language you prefer, to unlock the scenarios further down the list. If you have the expansions, which you will if you have the most commonly-played version of the game, RollerCoaster Tycoon Deluxe, you will see several *additional* tabs that show the park scenarios added with those expansions, for 85 total scenarios. I have *never* played all 85.
It is “implied” by the format that you should play the scenarios in order. The first available is pictured above: Forest Frontiers. The game describes this scenario as “Deep in the forest, build a thriving theme park in a large cleared area.” The actual win conditions are to have 250 guests in your park at the end of one year of operation (March 1 - October 31) AND a park rating of 600+ (measured from 1 - 1000). You start with nothing but a short segment of path and large area uncluttered by debris such as trees and other unnecessary decorations. A good sampling of “Gentle” rides, “Thrill” Rides, “Roller coasters,” and “Shops” are already available; in fact, everything you need to beat the scenario is provided…you really don’t even have to do research. You don’t know it yet, but acquiring 250 guests is a cakewalk. *Keeping* them is the bigger challenge along with the park rating; these are things you will actually learn about as a new player. Outcomes are determined by guest “thoughts.” You can even see what guests are thinking in the game, but don’t get too hung up on it. Your information notifications will happily tell you when guests are thinking something you need to know, and that’s ALWAYS negative thoughts.
Of importance: guests don’t like
- Not being able to find something to eat or drink
- Not finding rides that fit their own comfort level
- Not being able to find any way to get closer to the exit
- Being stuck in the same area
- Overcrowding
- Litter/vomit and broken amenities (benches, trash cans, and lighting)
- Waiting for too long
- Indirectly, too-high prices
If you build the rides and shops you have available (don’t worry about transport rides) you will meet the minimum requirements of (1) and (2). Guests in RCT 1 are *bad* at path finding. Avoid adjoined parallel paths and going underground as much as possible. Stacked pathing is *better,* but not great either. But the big no-no’s are winding underground paths and what I call “sectional” mapping. Forest Frontiers doesn’t have a natural example of when that occurs, and is small enough to avoid. I’ll show you what I mean in the next scenario. Regardless, creating the simplest, straightest, most minimal pathing you can solves (3) and (4), and to an extent, (5). For number (6): you defeat litter and vomit with park employees; specifically the Handyman. Have them sweep footpaths and empty the trash. Water flowers only if you are using placed flowerbeds to try to get aesthetic awards. There is no need to mow the grass. Trimmed grass has a minor affect on guest happiness, but it is *so* negligible you can max out your park rating and receive appearance awards without ever starting a lawnmower. Handymen require defined routes to patrol to maximize their effectiveness. Security officers prevent broken amenities. They also require defined patrol routes, but since they have a six-square area-of-affect in all directions, the routes do NOT have to cover every square you want “protected.” This also means their aggregate routes do not have to connect.
“Waiting Too Long” can happen for a number of reasons: your queue line is too long, the ride is too slow, or the ride is breaking a lot along with possibly slow repairs. Some rides are just slow; only a handful have “speed” adjustments. Shorter queue lines mean fewer guests thinking bad thoughts, but queue lines are *also* “guest storage,” the lines keep people in your park longer. Which is a good thing for the most part. You can hire “Entertainer” employees and station them in a queue line. When a guest is exposed to an entertainer, the countdown to thinking “I’ve been waiting for XXXXXX for ages!” resets. Avoid negative thoughts! Timely repairs, of course, are the function of your “Mechanic” employees. You only need to have *enough;* my number is to never have more than 1/4 of my mechanics “fixing” a ride at the same time, leaving 3/4 engaged in “inspecting” rides. Mechanics don’t generally require “routes,” but they are very handy, even necessary, in certain situations. And that will solve (7).
Having said all that, Forest Frontiers can be finished without prescribing routes or hiring more than the minimum number of employees. The scenario is only a year, so you don’t have time to be affected by gross amounts of gross litter and vomit, or breakdowns. If you kept the park small, waits won’t be long. Simple pathing in a small park means people don’t get lost or confused. As for cost? Charge a park entrance fee, make all your rides free, charge for concessions. Guests pay less for older rides. Not that that’s a factor in this scenario, but guests will NEVER think a free ride is too expensive. This is my standard strategy. There *are* scenarios that are made more difficult doing this. In fact, there are some scenarios where you *must* charge for rides. But free rides, when you can do it, eliminates a lot of problems.
The second scenario, Dynamite Dunes, introduces two new challenges: the park starts with a massive, literally-built-in-to-the-park Mine Train Roller coaster. it’s the big, black coaster in the far corner. Also, there is a giant mountain between the entrance and the coaster. This means you start with A LOT of path that needs to be maintained and patrolled from the beginning, with no rides to tempt guests on the way to the back of the park. Also half the real estate that is most-available to build on is uneven. Flattening terrain is *very* expensive, so you don’t want to start out *removing a mountain.* Fastest way to ruin the scenario. Building on slopes is *more* expensive, but taken one fixed-area ride at a time, this is manageable. I *have* built on and around the mountain before. This time I just avoided it entirely. The goal of this scenario is to have 650 guests at the end of *three* years, and have a park rating of 600+. The most important lesson you will learn in Dynamite Dunes is that complex, built-in roller coasters are prone to breaking down more often, and *also* are more likely to have a fatal crash. You don’t want fatal crashes. They do to your park the same thing they do to parks in real life. The coaster in Dynamite Dunes is, thankfully, not the worst. That comes in later scenarios. Actually, now that I think about it, it comes two scenarios later. Set the roller coaster’s “inspection time” to “ten minutes,” and then add a route for one mechanic that literally only covers the pathing necessary to travel from the ride’s entrance station (not just the queue) to the exit station. This guarantees frequent maintenance and fast mechanic response when the ride breaks down.
The second important lesson of Dynamite Dunes I avoided in this play-through. If you build down from the discussed roller coaster along the far side of the mountain (which, as I said, I completely avoided), you will create a huge “U-shaped” path. Guests will travel from the entrance, along the side of the mountain to its far end, then cross the far foot of the mountain to the coaster, then travel back down the far side visiting whatever rides and stalls you have built there. *If you do not* subsequently join the other leg of the “U” back along the front fence to the entrance path (forming an “O” shape) guests will start complaining that they can’t find their way back to the entrance. This is the “sectional” mapping problem I was talking about. Even though you have a complete path, guests instinctively know the straight line direction back to the entrance. They will only backtrack so far before they will be driven to stop walking “away” from the entrance in the process of walking “to” the entrance. Ergo, they will get *stuck* behind the mountain. Simply giving them a path that takes them *toward* the entrance solves the problem. You will run into this with lakes and ponds more often, going forward.
In fact, the third scenario, Leafy Lake, is primarily about pathing issues. You begin with a large park surrounding a sizeable lake. There is a continuous path already in place around the lake, but no rides at all. In fact, you don’t really have many usable rides or stalls available to build…the second challenge of the scenario. You need to research rides and stalls to build. You can specify which category to focus research on. Here’s a hint: food and drink stalls are the only thing that will cause your rating to drop and people to stop coming to your park if you don’t have them. Manage the excessive amount of paths, and the employees necessary to maintain them, by deleting a section not too far down from the entrance going in both directions around the lake. HOWEVER, now is *also* a good time to learn that paths and non-utilitarian decorations are *sold* when you destroy them, as are rides and stalls (useful info for later). Scenarios that start off with stuff you don’t need are actually just loaded with free money. You also need to know that trees, bushes, and flowers cost money to *place* and *also* to destroy. This is why a tree-filled scenario is the bane of your existence. A minor challenge in the scenario is the limited land space available around the lake, but you can see this is easily overcome. In fact, building rides over water boosts the excitement rating of a ride without any negative effects, making the ride more desirable to more people. To be sure, most of the water installations will be the last things you do in the scenario, due to the extra money they will cost. You will have to use your available space efficiently to get a money-making park started. Your path-planning and employee route-managing will also require more careful thought to handle the crowded paths and queues. Your goal is practically identical to the previous scenario, so your only challenge is learning to manage your park better.
Diamond Heights is a re-imagined version of Leafy Lake. You once again start with an existing park situated around a lake. But *this* time, the park is well-equipped with existing rides and stalls. However, there are problems with several of the existing rides. The twin roller coasters in the middle of the park are maintenance nightmares and fatal crashes waiting to happen. Set them both to ten-minute inspection times and assign a mechanic EACH. This will reduce the odds of a crash to…maybe 50%. Save frequently, because if the coaster crashes in the last month of the scenario, you will not have enough to time to recover your park rating (there are caveats to that, but for a new player, just assume this is true.) The other coasters are also prone to frequent breakdowns, but I’ve only experienced a crash in one of these other coasters once. The log ride near the entrance is exciting, and therefore high-demand…but it is also incredibly slow and will generate unhappy guests waiting for their turn. Likewise, the Steam Train transportation ride that has multiple stops around the park cannot meet guest demand. Both of these rides can be made tolerable with assigned entertainers. You start with *no food stalls* or bathrooms, so those need to be installed ASAP, which; along with maybe one or two thrill rides, will use up your starting capital. These introduce a much-revisited challenge in the game: you have impending crises you must address, without killing your revenue. As with previous scenarios, I’m still using large park fees and free rides. If you screw up the fix/expansion balance you can run out of money. As long as you get one or two new rides going and meet the minimum guest needs, the improving reputation of your park should drive new visitors and bring in money. Building costs face the challenges of the *two* previous scenarios: an abundance of slopes that are expensive to flatten or build on, and lots of available water that is regardless not arranged in a way that incorporates into the obvious existing pathing, make new-ride construction awkward.
These four scenarios, played in order, have hopefully evolved your game-play enough that you’re ready for a new type of challenge. The fifth scenario, Evergreen Gardens, gives you all the room you could ask for. There is a massive existing park that will earn you the “Most Beautiful Park” award by default. There is already a park entrance fee and at least one guest in the park.
*However…*
There is WAY too much path to maintain, so you need to cut if off and get any existing guests moved back to the entrance. You don’t have much money and a limited and eclectic mix of available rides. There is a lot of path to sell for money; a LOT, but it is all surrounded by trees that you have to carefully click around to sell the path. Remember, removing trees *costs* money. The entrance area is not suited for building, increasing the challenge and cost of your first several rides. You will be building on slopes or modifying terrain. This is the scenario that I usually begin facing my greatest weakness in this game: I am *terrible* at designing custom roller coasters. Interesting terrain can make for fantastic roller coasters; that’s why they give you so much in RollerCoaster Tycoon. I’m just not very good at it. I prefer to place predesigned coasters, most of which require a perfectly-flat or nearly-flat plateau. So early on I focus on the rides I *can* build custom versions of without wasting time, and once I have a ton of money built up I just start leveling hills to build new coasters.
Evergreen Gardens ups the guest count requirement to 1000, but gives you four years. Guest count is, more-or-less, a function of ride availability. The more rides you have have in the park, the more room there is for guests. You just have to get them up and running in time, because guests have to “become aware” there is space available for more customers. You can use the “artificial” inflation of advertising, and that’s generally considered a pro-tip: serious players keep the advertising going all the time to keep guest count maximized. I ended up with 8 coasters, 3 water rides, and 2 “go karts” rides, which are all high-excitement guest drivers. All rides and stalls are largely unaffected by duplicates, which is useful for thrill rides and gentle rides. Shops do as well, as long as there is demand for their product-type; but the “Best Food” award *also* requires some unique food stalls. At least, that’s what *some* sources say. I’m more inclined to believe this list is probably more accurate:
- Have at least seven Food Stalls.
- Have at least four different types of Food Stalls.
- Have one food stall for every 128 guests.
- Have less than 13 hungry guests.
- Don’t have the Worst Food Award.
Evergreen Gardens is the first scenario, in my opinion, that new players in the modern era search online for how to beat it. The solution doesn’t require new knowledge, but it is possible the player may have to look at the game differently in order to implement the winning steps in the right order. This is an apt description for many of the upcoming scenarios. The game pushes various conditions to more extreme limits, like further limiting space (a feature of the next two scenarios, accomplished in two different ways), giving you poorly-placed or hard-to-manage built-in rides, and starting with increasingly-problematic pathing. My own experience in learning the game doesn’t match up 1:1 with the original predefined “tiers” in the game. I expect that’s mostly because after years of occasionally playing around with RollerCoaster Tycoon, I have developed my own shortcuts and best practices that lead me to play the game differently…or least differently from how I tend to read the game “should” be played to win.
That’s it for this week, everyone! Thanks for reading!
https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=57871