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Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

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Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#41

Post by ttoinou »

bombcar wrote: post #39
ttoinou wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made Master of Orion II : Battle at Antares which is a 4X turn by turn space game I still play in 2025, as much as fun as Heroes III

MoO2 and Heroes 3; there's a combo that sends me right back. I think there's a serious argument somewhere in there that perfection of a game is much easier in the "2D" realm and even now we've not really gotten close in 3D space - as proof I'd offer Factorio.

There’s so many wrong things about 3D games, I’m surprise I didn’t read an article about that yet

Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#42

Post by diggan »

SnowProblem wrote: post #12
jonathanlydall wrote: post #9

The author wishes there was more of a storyline to the game. Which is absolutely fine as it’s their preference. But it made me think of how Minecraft has almost no story (well, something was added later but it’s optional to follow it) and perhaps that contributed to its major success. Decent sandbox games don’t need stories if the mechanics are satisfying enough and games like Sawyer’s Tycoons and Minecraft are evide…

Yeah, the author wants a story saying there wasn't enough continuity between scenarios or motivation to continue, but that was a non-issue for me personally. It's been many, many years, but my memory is that while RCT didn't have a completely open sandbox like TT to boot, each scenario was effectively its own sandbox with restrictions that made them interesting. New rides became available you progressed, and each par…

> It's been many, many years, but my memory is that while RCT didn't have a completely open sandbox like TT to boot, each scenario was effectively its own sandbox with restrictions that made them interesting

Also a very long time ago I played it, but I seem to remember that you could continue any scenario for as long time as you wanted after completing it, you didn't need to exit the scenario once completed. Maybe I misremember? If not, that'd basically mean every scenario is also a sandbox once the goals were completed.

Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#43

Post by diggan »

LeftHandPath wrote: post #23
reactordev wrote: post #5

MicroProse games in the 90s were next level. So many milsim games where you got to experience a crude 90s graphics recreation of being a service member shooting bogies. I never could complete a mission of F-117A Steal Fighter on Mac System 9. However, RCT was a “Minecraft” of its day without the support of the community. It was huge. Everyone was playing it. I wish modding was a thing back then. We would have gone cr…

I really miss some of the companies from that era... Red Storm Entertainment, Tom Clancy's vision, comes to mind. The early Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six games had a dedication to immersion that their modern counterparts totally lack. Ghost Recon (2001) runs perfectly through proton on my linux desktop. I still fire it up from time to time.

At our local lans in the early 2000s, Rainbow Six Rogue Spear was probably the most popular game we played, and still there doesn't seem to be any tactical shooters like that available today, that focuses on realism over cosmetics and arcade-mechanics.

Also makes me think of the countless hours of fun Westwood Studios provided me with in my youth, real shame they didn't get to survive longer :/

Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#44

Post by diggan »

ravenstine wrote: post #4

Man, I can still remember the magic I felt when first discovering that game on my cousin's laptop in 1999. Such a simple game yet allowed enough creativity for an 10 year old boy to be imaginative. There does come a point where there isn't much else to do with the game once you get good enough at it, so I started having fun doing "experiments". One of the things I did in RCT was build "prisons" where I leveraged thin…

> There was puke everywhere after a while. What a disturbing mind I had.

I think you were not the only one exploring those sides of those sort of games! I don't remember if it was SimCity 2000 or 3000 that I played the most, but I remember some of these tycoon/management/simulation games let our destructive sides really come out by letting us unleash volcanoes, tornadoes, earthquakes and similar, all at the same time :)

Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#45

Post by reactordev »

ttoinou wrote: post #41
bombcar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MoO2 and Heroes 3; there's a combo that sends me right back. I think there's a serious argument somewhere in there that perfection of a game is much easier in the "2D" realm and even now we've not really gotten close in 3D space - as proof I'd offer Factorio.

There’s so many wrong things about 3D games, I’m surprise I didn’t read an article about that yet

3D is harder than 2D for a multitude of reasons.

Because of this, heavy heavy code reuse is common and likely the folks who wrote it are gone, leaving only behind an ABI and a doc. This is why so many games have very similar design components to them. It worked for the business before (or a similar one), someone said sales go up, they pull in the ABI, now everything’s an open world, scavenger, PVP, base building, inventory management, shooter, looter, micro transaction scooter, rpg (with aimbot if you use a controller)

Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#46

Post by ttoinou »

reactordev wrote: post #45
ttoinou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s so many wrong things about 3D games, I’m surprise I didn’t read an article about that yet

3D is harder than 2D for a multitude of reasons. Because of this, heavy heavy code reuse is common and likely the folks who wrote it are gone, leaving only behind an ABI and a doc. This is why so many games have very similar design components to them. It worked for the business before (or a similar one), someone said sales go up, they pull in the ABI, now everything’s an open world, scavenger, PVP, base building, inv…

ahah that's a fun description, is there a game that is all those things at once though :) ? I asked ChatGPT and it told me Rust video game (and a few others if we remove one criteria such as base building or open-world)

To me, some gameplay was lost going from 2D to 3D, and there's a huge opportunity for some game makers to make something beautifully cartoonish pixel perfect 3D / 2.5D with the perfect gameplay of 2D

Re: Rollercoaster Tycoon (Or, MicroProse's Last Hurrah)

#47

Post by Doxin »

ARob109 wrote: post #34
ravenstine wrote: post #4

Man, I can still remember the magic I felt when first discovering that game on my cousin's laptop in 1999. Such a simple game yet allowed enough creativity for an 10 year old boy to be imaginative. There does come a point where there isn't much else to do with the game once you get good enough at it, so I started having fun doing "experiments". One of the things I did in RCT was build "prisons" where I leveraged thin…

I always used the Do Not Enter marquee signs such that once guests entered the park they could never leave. Great for helping meet the total park population scenarios.

If you got enough people into a 2-long segment of footpath with "do not enter" signs containing them you can place a third "do not enter sign" in the middle, and cause all the people to explode from the path and onto the grass.
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