Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Remembering Roller Coaster Tycoon

 

These Sims type games hold an appeal to me, especially the ones from the early 2000's that contained a pixelated isometric view, is almost as watching a diorama that came to life. I remember knowing about Roller Coaster Tycoon by mere accident while perusing at a GameStop that was located in a shopping mall I can't remember in Miami-Dade.

I got mesmerized by the concept as I have a love for Sim and strategy games as Sim City and anything in between; I love to discover the different ways or patterns that can create a successful enviroment within the game parameters.

I love roller coasters and this game came during a point in my life where I started to enjoy roller coasters and travelled often to Florida. Roller coasters became some form of a hype fixation that spawned several years of my life; even as an adult I used to enjoy going to Busch Gardens Tampa Bay to ride as much as I could the different roller coasters. Albeit, during that point in my life when I was younger and my time with the coasters was limited Roller Coaster Tycoon became some form of an escape to fill the desire of riding roller coaster which in Colombia was not possible.

Scorpion - Busch Gardens Tampa Bay


The first coaster with an inversion I ever rode was the defunct Scorpion at Busch Gardens Florida and I felt free, it was the closest thing I ever experienced to flying and I wanted to do more and find aspects of my new fixation that could be turn in a hobby and that's on 2001 when I found Roller Coaster Tycoon I saw another side of gaming that I never thought it was possible "to be able to explore the dynamics of theme parks and their attractions". 

We have to think that the level of design of the game isn't too complex as is a product of the era but Chris Sawyer did a wonderful job by capturing the essence of a theme park in such a minimalist way.  The game is composed within different scenarios that share a similar set of objectives that can vary between achieving a certain rating status within the park, to achieve a number of estimated guests inside the park or even raise the park value. Each scenario itself differs vastly from each other, some of the locations are inside a small contained park and others are just as big as real theme parks.

To raise the value of each world the player needs to decorate each scenario with greenery, decorations such as fountains, entertainers who are part of the staff and also security, technicians and custodians that can keep the park clean and safe. I found the game has stand the test of time and still as entertaining as it was 20 years ago when it first got released to the market, the replay value is really good and memorable.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.