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Planet Coaster/Roller Coaster Tycoon

Started by Noodle Lizard, July 30, 2021, 07:27:08 PM

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Noodle Lizard

Anyone play these? I've been a bit obsessed with theme parks my whole life (despite being terrified of almost all rides up until recently), so these are right up my street. I did a bit of RCT a few years ago, but only just recently got Planet Coaster. It's great, super versatile and your imagination (and patience) really is the limit. It does have a bunch of very annoying design choices/bugs (the pathing tool is almost unbearable sometimes), but overall it comes out very much in credit.

I'm not that good at it, but it's amazing seeing what other people can do on YouTube. As well as astonishingly faithful recreations of existing rides/parks, the imagination and skill evident in some of the original creations is seriously impressive. You have realistic ones which could feasibly be used as a blueprint for a real ride/park, and then ones which are probably impossible but no less brilliant for it.

The community aspect of it is brilliant as well, especially for people like me who don't have the time/skill/patience to make particularly intricate buildings or scenery etc., since you have access to thousands and thousands of elements other people have created and uploaded.

I dunno. I like it. A lot of Brits seem to be into it, if YouTube's anything to go by. It's good.

Jerzy Bondov

Planet Coaster is basically the game I've wanted my whole life. It's really good but my computer can't handle my visions so it runs really badly once my parks get complicated. The terraforming tool is just magic, it's so much more expressive than the grid-based RCT games. I had a brilliant mine ride that went in and out of a cliff, with a massive Cornwall-style engine house on the top. It's the absolute nuts. I had a lot of fun with Parkitect too, which is more like the first two RCT games and has more of a management focus. Haven't played either for a while now sadly.

Steven88

I loved Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 and still play it now and again, i've got Planet Coaster as well but i've never really got into it for some reason.

falafel

If it had a VR mode it would be enough to persuade me to play it more and to buy an Oculus. But it doesnt, so I occasionally just dabble and have a bit of fun. It's the game I dreamed about since Theme Park came out and I adore rollercoasters, but in sandbox mode it is almost too unconstrained. There's something about that that I struggle with - the same with things like Minecraft. Go anywhere, build anything? Oh OK, think I'll just dig a really deep hole and then alt-f4. Especially when you see all the other amazing things people do build. Don't have the time to invest in becoming a master creator here, I want to feel empowered, and all that freedom is actually a bit disempowering. For a useless cunt like me.

These are all problems with me, not the game. Maybe I should see a counsellor.

Noodle Lizard

Quote from: Jerzy Bondov on July 30, 2021, 07:56:54 PMThe terraforming tool is just magic, it's so much more expressive than the grid-based RCT games.

Yes, the terrain tool is amazing. I tend to use that more often than the traditional building tools for my stations etc. since it's far less cumbersome. No idea how they managed to make that so intuitive whilst making their pathing system is one of the most frustrating things I've used in any piece of software. The fact that there's no scaling for any piece of scenery or other elements is also a bit annoying, not sure what their reasoning is.

I'm about a quarter way into my first "serious" park - something that's actually functional and vaguely convincing (as opposed to my initial attempts which mostly involved launch coasters shooting out of a big cock mountain, with forces that would almost certainly kill every rider).

Utter Shit

I LOVED the old isometric RCT games, my only complaint was that there was a limit to what you could do because parks could only hold so many different rides/stalls, and in any case there were a limited number of different rides.

I was never much into challenges, terrains etc - I just liked the sandbox mode of having an enormous, completely flat location and then trying to build the best park possible with a high approval rating and huge numbers of guests. Didn't even really care about being profitable - everything I made would be pumped back into the park, so as long as I was breaking even I was happy.

Would this Parkitect scratch that itch? A simply laid-out game (the simplicity of the isometric design was ideal for me, can't be arsed with complex lyouts) with basic graphics and a load of management options would be great.

Noodle Lizard

I can't speak for Parkitect, but Planet Coaster fits the bill. As much freedom as there is to create really intricate and complex layouts, there's a huge amount of pre-fabricated stuff in there too (coasters, flat rides, buildings, shops, stalls etc.) which you can just put on a grid, as well as pre-made parks for you to customize or manage. It basically is a next-gen RCT - sharing developers with the later games. Every now and then Steam seems to run a very good deal on it, as well as the DLC bundles. I think I got everything (including 10 or 11 DLCs) for less than $50.

I just do Sandbox myself, but all the management features are there and pretty extensive too, whilst giving you the option to disable certain features you can't be bothered with.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

I think there's a scenario in RCT called 'Pokey Park' and I thought that was quite useful to help me get out of the 'make the park as big and flat as possible' zone that I definitely identify from Utter Shit's comment. You are forced to think about every square and maximising revenue. Designing the coasters is really fun as you are trying to hit the excitement factor while not being able to physically stretch the limits. Perhaps Pokey Park takes it too far but you start thinking differently after that one and taking what you've learnt to the next level.

I think there's another one which starts off as gardens and it's important you keep it that way while also turning it into a full theme park. That game is really quite clever at times in how it works.

However there are some scenarios where everything is already so landscaped it feels almost like vandalism to fuck with.

The Go-Kart races are oddly addictive to watch as well.

Despite the efforts to transition to 3D, I don't think a theme park/rollercoaster game has come anywhere near as playable since the good old isometric heyday. Add a free roaming 360 camera, full zoom in and out feature and on-ride cameras and keep the textures and latest innovations up to date and I'd be happy still ploughing away on the grid.

bomb_dog

Got OpenRCT2 running last night and it's a godsend for the first two games. Zooming capability, speed-up time, reversing the right-click mouse drag, merging both games and ability to order all the levels by difficulty, allowing three screens. It's also introduced online multiplayer which was always something we wanted to have, both being able to build in the same park at the same time. Now we have we don't have time to play it.

Ms bomb_dog remembered all the things we needed to do and buttons to press and we hadn't played it properly for probably 18 years.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Utter Shit on August 03, 2021, 02:21:48 PM
Would this Parkitect scratch that itch? A simply laid-out game (the simplicity of the isometric design was ideal for me, can't be arsed with complex lyouts) with basic graphics and a load of management options would be great.

Absolutely - it has a sandbox, money no option mode and is basically RCT recreated for the modern day. Some good mods available for it too.

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on August 04, 2021, 08:10:31 PM
The Go-Kart races are oddly addictive to watch as well.

This is another thing that carries over brilliantly from RCT to Parkitect.

Hammer

I got a version of Planet Coaster off a mate and can't work out how to get all the user made stuff because the game won't connect to the internet. I'd go out and buy a proper copy but I'd lose all my progress on the missions so I might just carry on as I am.

There's so much cool stuff on the internet though. Itd be nice if I could download some of it.