Roller Coaster Tycoon: Deterioration of a game series and the light at the end of the tunnel
Two decades ago, nearly all the school kids my age were addicted to at least one video game. That could be Mario, Zelda, Spyro, or Mortal Combat, but for me, it was Roller Coaster Tycoon. When I was in third grade, my parents bought me a copy of Roller Coaster Tycoon and this was the only game that would keep drawing me in over the years. Even today, I occasionally go back to see what I created many years ago. I would even go so far to say that this game I grew up playing has shaped who I am today. However, the subsequent sequel releases never reached the same high quality as the original despite advances in technology.
The first Roller Coaster Tycoon is a theme park simulation series, created by Chris Sawyer in 1999. The game used an isometric view, similar to the first simulation games. The premise of the game was simple; all you had to do was build and maintain your park. There are many rides to choose from when building a park. There are carousels, bumper cars, log flumes, swinging ships, drop towers, and of course, roller coasters!
The roller coasters are built on a tile-based construction system. This means that pieces of a ride can be placed on a tile in the game. The tile itself is not restrictive to the ground and pieces can be built above the ground as long as the piece that is in elevation is attached to a ride or there is no existing path in the way. Rides are built piece by piece in this tile system. These pieces can change direction, and can be banked. The elevation, and how steep the slopes can be are also adjustable. There are also different types of track pieces, like a station piece to drop and load passengers or a chain lift to bring a train up the top of a hill. There are also special track pieces like the vertical loop, corkscrew, and barrel roll, on-ride photo sections, and splash downs. There can also be roller coaster stations next to each other, creating a “dueling” roller coaster, similar to the Twisted Colossus ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain.
Not only can the player custom build their own designs, there are also many types of roller coasters in game. There are flexible steel roller coasters, massive wooden roller coasters, compact wild mice cars, and kiddie roller coasters with lady bug themed trains.
As rides are added, guests will start coming into the park. These guests have needs, so adding concession stands and bathrooms in convenient places will keep guests happy and they will stay in the park longer. Building an information kiosk will allow guests to buy a map, preventing them from getting lost in the park, so they don’t miss any rides or if they just want to leave.
There also needs to be hired staff to keep the park running. This includes janitors to keep the park in clean condition, mechanics to maintain and repair broken rides, security to decrease the amount of vandalism in the park, and entertainers to keep your guests happy.
Roller Coaster Tycoon was released with 21 scenarios, with two DLCs that added a few rides and scenery pieces, but also added an additional 60 scenarios. The majority of scenarios were time limited to get a certain number of guests in the park, in addition to keeping them happy in a certain number of in-game years. Each challenge had it’s own different design challenges. For example, parks would have to be built in the desert or the woods, or improvement needed to be done upon an already successful park with old rides, or you could have unlimited money and with very picky guests.
When a scenario is finally complete, guests will stop whatever they are doing and start cheering and clapping. They will also throw balloons in the air if you happened to sell some at the park. When you go to the scenario menu, the financial value of your park will show up below the name of the scenario along with your name. It’s almost like a “high score” system.
Along with that DLC, the first Roller Coaster Tycoon game was a success. It was a very fun game, the mechanics make the game easy to jump back into and play. It has a strong replay value because of that. Plus, the sprite-based graphics has allowed the game to age remarkably well. Even after nearly 20 years, the game’s only noticeable flaws are it’s slightly dated mechanics. However, that was well made up for by the next game in the series.
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 released three years after the first game, except for some minor graphic updates. Everything in the sequel game was nearly identical to the first game. The game expanded by adding a huge number of flat rides, like a 2-floor observation tower, and rotating drop tower. Many roller coasters were also added to this new title, like the Hyper Coaster, and vertical launch roller coaster. Additional ride pieces were also included in the new game such as adding banking, sloped turns, vertical drops, smooth drops, and adding hills on roller coasters.
Additional paths, scenery, and foliage items were added as well. But the biggest addition that separated this game from the first was the ability to build buildings. With different themed walls, ceilings, and doors, players can create detailed buildings and structures for their rides and parks.
This sequel also added a brand new set of scenarios. They were much more challenging with different completion requirements like earning a certain amount on food and souvenir sales, having a limit on how tall rides can be, or have ten roller coasters open inside your park. The variety and challenges is a great addition to the game. The game also came with one-to-one layouts of parks from Six Flags, like Magic Mountain and Over Texas. The downside with this sequel that I personally had was the lack of progression due to all the levels being unlocked at the start of the game.
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 also included a blue print system where you can design and save roller coasters and scenery that was built. There was also a scenario creator which let you build maps to challenge yourself or share it online to challenge others. Due to the custom scenario maker, the first game’s scenarios were carried over to the second one, almost making the first Roller Coaster Tycoon redundant to the second game, but with more building options as well as better user-interface and graphics.
Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 was a massive success. It kept being updated with minor updates and bug fixes until 2014. Afterwards, an open-sourced project called OpenRCT2 took over to fix bugs, make the game compatible with Mac and Linux operating systems, and creating a semi-online multiplayer system so two players can play together. Even today, Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 is one of the most popular amusement park simulation games with a decent sized cult following. This is what makes the next game in the series seem to have very big shoes to fill, but it did fairly well.
Almost obviously named, Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 was another great favorite of mine. Released in 2004, it abandoned its sprite styled graphics for 3D graphics. The game used the same tile-based construction system and a similar scenario mode. Though this game did have a slightly more advanced system to save ride designs and structures.
Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 had two additional DLC packs. The first one was aptly named Soaked! and it added water park attractions like pools and water slides. The second DLC was called Wild! which added Zoo animals into the game, as well as being able to build roller coasters and rides to go over animal exhibits. Each DLC also had their own scenario tree and challenges which were unique to expanding a water park, or adding certain animals to your theme park zoo.
Although Roller Coaster Tycoon was graphically advanced for it’s time, the game did have it’s issues. There were many bugs and had some rare crashes that have not been resolved to this day. The game also does not perform very well as it has a low frame rate, especially if a lot of objects or people are on the screen. But the fantastic pace of the game play and the amazing DLC makes this game worthwhile to try!
Even though Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 was a successful game with the 9th best selling of 2004, there were no games or announcements for anymore Roller Coaster Tycoon games for years. The lack of games for the series might have been due to the gradual decline and later bankruptcy of Atari, which at the time owned the rights to the series. Although, due to the increasing demand for a new Roller Coaster Tycoon, fans finally did get Atari to release a teaser for a new game in 2012.
However, it was not what fans of the series expected. The game was announced as a mobile game called Roller Coaster Tycoon 3D. This game was made with the rising popularity of mobile games using Farmville-like grinding and micro-transactions. The game had very negative reviews, but that didn’t stop Atari from making more Roller Coaster Tycoon clones for mobile.
Two years later they created Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, a similar free-to-play style mobile game. This game also received negative reviews and bad sales. However, with the release of this mobile game, Atari promised a full fledged PC game of Roller Coaster Tycoon.
The fourth PC game, Roller Coaster Tycoon World, was announced with a simple 15 second trailer, which did increase hype for the game. However, when the game play trailer was released, it was a major graphical disappointment. There was an attempt to improve PR with a very early alpha release, but there were much better competitors releasing similar type games.
Although the game abandoned the grid system for fluid pathing and roller coaster tracks, the game seemed rushed out into release before it was ready. With many game-breaking bugs, crashes and performance issues that still haven’t been fixed, even today, Roller Coaster Tycoon World was a huge, and an almost expected, disappointment.
In the beginning I said there is a light at the end of the tunnel, well that light was indie developers! With the disappointing release of Atari’s Roller Coaster Tycoon franchise, two game developers began development on their own roller coaster building game and later released it with Atari sadly trailing right behind them.
The first game is called Planet Coaster. It was developed and published by Frontier Developments who were the original creators for Roller Coaster Tycoon 3. It was released a day after Roller Coaster Tycoon World. The biggest difference between Planet Coaster and Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 is that Planet Coaster abandons the grid system. Paths can curve and have smooth edges and roller coasters have a flexible track bending system allowing players to make what ever they desire.
Just like Roller Coaster Tycoon, the guests have a cartoon-like style to them. Though, they do look a little more refined in their designs and animation, meaning they don’t only react on the roller coaster. They also react to entertainers in your park and the scenery around the park as well. The addition of VIP only lines for guests who paid more is a nice touch to the game as well.
The best and most overwhelming part of Planet Coaster is its building system. You can make almost anything your imagination can make up. Unlike the other games listed so far, Planet Coaster allows you to clip the scenery through each other which allows for some very unique and over detailed designs to come out by advanced players. However, with so many scenery items offered, even without mods, it can be overwhelming. It can feel like creating a highly detailed “Disney” project, which would take hours of frustration. But despite that small fallback, the controls are very intuitive and creating simple buildings is not too hard. Plus, with the Steam Workshop, unique player-created designs can easily be downloaded and added to your park.
The second game that is great is called Parkitect. It was crowdfunded on Humble Bundle and the game was officially released near the end of 2018. It is a modern re-creation of the first two Roller Coaster Tycoon games. The game uses the grid system to build roads and roller coasters. However, the track system for roller coasters is a lot more flexible than in Roller Coaster Tycoon. Tracks can be banked anywhere on the track and is not limited to straight lines. Roller coasters can also start inclining while turning and even allow the player to make inclined loops if desired.
There is also the addition of staff locations and an additional staff member. The new staff member is called the hauler. This member restocks shops and stalls when an item has run out. There are also training rooms and rest areas for staff members as well as trash chutes since janitors now need to dispose of trash in their hands. There are also supply depots to supply locations closer to where they are needed.
Those staff buildings come with a cost, scenery levels can become negative in Parkitect. These buildings can make guests unhappy, so they need to be covered up by walls, trees, scenery or buildings. Guests are also more picky in this game. They have their own tastes in food, bad habits, and even favorite events. A group of vandals can also come to your park or a large group of fans for a specific ride. Overall, this game is a great tribute to the original Roller Coaster Tycoon series and is a very fun game to get immersed in.
Although the original Roller Coaster Tycoon trade mark is now full of low quality free-to-play clones, we now have great modern alternatives to the original series. However, that doesn’t mean the original games are gone because the modding community is still going strong. Even then, Roller Coaster Tycoon is a fantastic retro game for the casual designer in you.
Links
https://web.archive.org/web/20051104094022/http://www.theesa.com/files/2005EssentialFacts.pdf
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/11/24/chris-sawyer-roller-coaster-tycoon-interview/
