Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

#51

Post by YesBox »

_vqpz wrote: post #37
deanc wrote: post #8

This game _is_ my childhood. Spent countless hours one summer doing every scenario, learning all the little easter eggs (Michael Schumacher on the Go karts anyone?). The spirit of this game lives on now in OpenRCT2 [1] - which brings the game into the modern age and is backwards compatible with all the scenarios from the original. It even features multiplayer park building. [1] https://openrct2.io/

Also Car Park Capital [1], an upcoming indie tycoon game in the style of RCT1/2 where you contribute to urban sprawl. It's being published by Microprose and runs on a custom engine [2] that makes it look incredibly similar to the original games. [1] https://hilkojj.nl/ [2] https://hilkojj.nl/projects

I was also inspired by RCT and played it a ton growing up. So 4 years ago I started working on a City Builder in that style w/ a custom engine[1]

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/

Re: Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

#52

Post by _vqpz »

YesBox wrote: post #51
_vqpz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Car Park Capital [1], an upcoming indie tycoon game in the style of RCT1/2 where you contribute to urban sprawl. It's being published by Microprose and runs on a custom engine [2] that makes it look incredibly similar to the original games. [1] https://hilkojj.nl/ [2] https://hilkojj.nl/projects

I was also inspired by RCT and played it a ton growing up. So 4 years ago I started working on a City Builder in that style w/ a custom engine[1] [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/

Haha nice, I saw your game come up a few times when I was googling to remember the name of the one I suggested, I'll be putting yours on my wishlist as well!

Re: Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

#53

Post by IncreasePosts »

zehaeva wrote: post #48
amitp wrote: post #45

Nice interview! I didn't realize there was inspiration from Theme Park [1], a game from Demis Hassabis (DeepMind). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_Park_(video_game)

I am blown away that one of the programmers on Theme Park is now one the leading researchers in modern AI. Wonders will never cease.

I think Demis was just so embarrassed by the AI in Black and White he constructed his life around fixing it. I'm expecting a patch drop from him as his last contribution to humanity.

Re: Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

#55

Post by estimator7292 »

Starlevel004 wrote: post #33
matheusmoreira wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would implementing a compatible game engine be unlawful? The code he wrote is copyrighted but the concepts and functional elements embodied by his code shouldn't be protected.

OpenRCT2 was a direct derivative of RCT2 at first, to the point it would just directly call into the game executable everywhere. See e.g: https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/commit/643db7ae017e04d1...

That isn't derivative. That's a plugin. At that point if OpenRCT2 is calling into the original, intact binary, there can be no infringement. You're just running the executable as provided and your computer just so happens to have another program running in the same memory space.

Re: Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

#56

Post by YesBox »

_vqpz wrote: post #52
YesBox wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also inspired by RCT and played it a ton growing up. So 4 years ago I started working on a City Builder in that style w/ a custom engine[1] [1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/

Haha nice, I saw your game come up a few times when I was googling to remember the name of the one I suggested, I'll be putting yours on my wishlist as well!

Thanks for the WL :)

Re: Interview with RollerCoaster Tycoon's Creator, Chris Sawyer (2024)

#58

Post by olelele »

scandox wrote: post #6
HippoBaro wrote: post #3

> It actually took a lot longer to re-write the game in C++ than it took me to write the original machine code version 20 years earlier. Is the most interesting quote IMO. I often feel like productivity has gone down significantly in recent years, despite tooling and computers being more numerous/sophisticated/fast.

> it took several years and a small team of programmers to re-write the entire game in C++. It actually took a lot longer to re-write the game in C++ than it took me to write the original machine code version 20 years earlier. Expanding the quote because the word "team" is probably relevant to why it took longer to rewrite. At a certain scale there just is a huge advantage in everything being inside one head...

The Adams bros / Dwarf Fortress anyone?
Post reply on HN