Rollercoaster Tycoon

[Lorfarius]

Just bought Rollercoaster Tycoon Deluxe off GOG for £3.99. Haven't ever played it before. Was surprised and pleased to find that it was a Chris Sawyer game, as TTD is one of my favourite ever games.

Enjoying it so far, but having a real problem with building queue lanes. They keep joining up to paths I don't want them to join up to. The only way I seem to be able to do them properly is to delete the path they're near, build the queue and then remake the path. Is there any other way of doing it?

I would say go and buy the sequel, they fixed a lot and its a much better game. Plus they had things like Alton Towers expansion pack.

[Bojangle]

Alton Towers (and Blackpool Pleasure Beach) are part of the first game + expansions. Worth remembering they're out of date now, and player made versions are infinitely better.

RCT 2 has the Six Flags parks, which are pretty cool though.

[routeburn]

I loved these games (and actually all the Chris Sawyer games), and I think my son would probably really enjoy a Roller Coaster Tycoon game now. He loves building stuff and "pushing the button to see what happens".

RCT 2 is $10 and RCT 3 is $20 on GOG. Has anyone played both and can compare?

[Paulando]

Go for RCT2

[deerokus]

3 is a good game in and of itself, but it loses some of the immediacy and fun in the transition to (slightly fiddly) 3D, as well as almost all of the charm. Definitely inferior to 2, which remains the pinnacle of the entire (seemingly now largely dead) Tycoon genre.

[Paulando]

It is fiddly, the UI is a bit of a mess too, and other than the 'coaster cam' the 3D adds nothing except making it look ugly. The coaster models in the first two games are beautiful.

[routeburn]

great, thanks, I'll get him #2 and see if there are any bundles with expansions.

[Wiper]

Yep, you've already come to the sensible conclusion: RCT 2 is the best. By your comments you must already have it, so have you considered introducing Transport Tycoon Deluxe to your son? I remember playing that when I was a little 'un, and despite not really knowing what I was doing getting a lot out of it - the fact you're dealing with already built cities to play around in, rather than building a theme park from scratch, might make it a more immediately enjoyable if RCT proves a little too daunting for him.

It's also super easy to play on modern systems, handily.

[T Pot]

So I thought this could be a dud.. I'm still cautious.. but the 3rd theam they have working on it seems to be making a better effort so far. 1st new team in park shot today:

[T Pot]

For comparison sake:

Left image - Screen shot from team 1. Right image: Screen shot from team 2 trailer.

Edit - Sorry for the shitty reactionary picture, first one I found on elgoog.

[Paulando]

That new shot looks lovely. I'm really banking on Parkitect now though, just hoping they get the management stuff right.

[T Pot]

I'm really interested in seeing some in game from planet coaster too.

[Bojangle]

New screenshot from RCT World and... it's actually looking decent!



Parkitect is looking lovely, too!

[Rob Rymond]

Is there an ETA on Parkitect? I prefer the isometric view, though it looks very similar to the old RCT games!

[deerokus]

Sounds like they want it to be in Early Access next month.

[T Pot]

Yeah. August for a Windows Early Access

[Madjock]

Also keen for Parkitect here, have backed it though can't recall if I get early access, may have to be patient.

[T Pot]

Parkitect is now available via Humble for anywone who wants early access: http://www.themeparkitect.com/

It still feels early, but it's brilliant. There has even been a mod scene open up with things like 1st person cams and more.

[T Pot]

Also, RCT update. World has started to look promising! A huge suprising turn around after the dev hell it has had over the past 18 months.

There's an beta starting tonight for anyone who pre-ordered through steam. I've decided to take the plunge and go for it.

[Wiper]

Well, the future's looking positive for theme park designers. Keep us posted on the RCTW beta, eh!

[revlob]

I'd totally given up on RCTW, and assumed it would never be good after the number of devs its been through. Very interested to hear if Nvizzio has managed to rescue it.

Parkitect looks lovely, too.

[T Pot]

Here's some footage of gameplay from PAX. It seems to have come a long a fair way from that too, so it will be interesting to see the beta tonight:

[Wiper]

Here's some footage of gameplay from PAX. It seems to have come a long a fair way from that too, so it will be interesting to see the beta tonight:

God, Scottish accents get more indecipherable every time I listen to them...

[T Pot]

Yeah.. I watched it on mute. I only wanted to see the footage.

[FishyFish]

What's he say at 1:13?

[Paulando]

The coaster creation on RCTW looks superb!

[Raane]

I may be biased ( and leafy green because i'm working on it) but Planet Coaster is going to be amazing

[Wiper]

I'd completely forgotten that Frontier have a theme park game on the go too! Exciting times. Now I just need someone to make a dedicated rollercoaster designing game in the spirit of Coaster Works and all of my amusement park game desires will be fulfilled

[T Pot]

I may be biased ( and leafy green because i'm working on it) but Planet Coaster is going to be amazing

All I want to know, is it on the same engine as Zoo Tycoon, and is it likely to be on Xbox too? I'll buy it either way, (Really cannot wait for this one), but I need to know!

[T Pot]

The coaster creation on RCTW looks superb!

It's not. It's wank as it is. It's really fiddily and I can't imagine it being quick and fun to use as is. It has potential, but considering the game is due to be released in just over 4 weeks, there is no way this will be ready. I think they will end up "releasing it" and slowly patching it to what they want. Someone has posted on the RCT forums, and I have to agree after playing it this evening:

To give a little background I want to say I work in game development, so most of this is based on my experience doing that job. That doesn't mean I'm right, I just say it to emphasize I didn't just think this stuff up.

I was convinced I'd pre-order RCTW today. But after seeing the Twitch stream I won't. Here's why:

• Peeps are not finished at all, still. Yes I know they say they were deactivated on purpose, which is true, but this is because of them not being presentable. This shows expecially in the weird behaviour of the ghosts when they try to ride the first coaster in the stream. And if they were presentable they'd be in the beta. There is no viable marketing to reason to not show them other than "They don't work." This is a major problem, since we saw what the broken agent system did to Sim City 2013 ...

• Coaster Builder seems unfinished. A lot of you already said it: It looks like the spline based system makes everything look weird, bended and kind of not natural, and not compact. I don't see myself being able to build a twisted, compact coaster with loops and screws with this. Or at least not without smashing my head on the keyboard every 5 minutes. This editor really needs preset track parts that you can add and modify once you placed them. And there seem to be some major problems regarding the splines, leading to a red cursor most of the time. The player in the stream was not able to build something other than the most basic coasters I've ever seen in a game, and the player WORKS in that company every day and you can be sure that she trained for the stream.

• Since my job in development is QA I see bugs everywhere. I could have written a list of bug reports while watching the stream easily. And those bugs were not of C severity (the lowest), more like A and B, where A stands for crashes and blockers and B stands for major problems. Yes bugs are normal for a beta, even for a release. But there was some stuff that is not fixable in a months time from all that I know about bugs.

• There seems to be very little content in the release version. THREE maps? Really? We haven't seen any scenarios yet, no settings like desert or snow, no quests, no story, no such thing as tasks, achievements or ANY simulation elements like working restaurants, shops, services like janitors, complex theming elements, or ANYthing. No graphs, no money options, no research, no peep thoughts, no stats.. So many "not there yet"s, and then they tell you there are no transport rides, no water rides, no dark rides, no tunnels.. I could list more stuff that is not in there for a few paragraphs.

• The "seamless workshop integration" was never shown to us. We have no clue how this will work. Even if.

In conclusion:

The game does not look finished enough for only one month to go. Too many slowdowns, crashes and bugs. Very few features, and the most important feature, the coaster builder, so far did not produce ONE SINGLE impressive coaster that they could show us. Other major features like the WHOLE SIMULATION were not even touched upon. This game is not ready. It has LOTS of potential, yes. But this is totally not ready at all for a release in a month. And if it comes out then it will be .. unpleasant I'm afraid. Or in other words: RCTW on Dec. 10th = Sim City 2013 all over.

The timeline for this release was completely nuts from the beginning. We saw where RCTW was at the beginning of this year *cough*. They only had a few months to "save" that. And what they did with it is AWESOME! But it is FAR from finished. By pre-ordering an unfinished game like this we say "That is enough for me to spend 50€ on." You are saying you will spend full price for half a game. And by saying this you produce more half finished releases. It is time to show Atari that we want this game, but we want it to be completed before we spend our money on it.