Thrillville

I thought you guys might be interested in giving me some thoughts about one of the games my company is representing that's coming out soon - I work in marketing, and we're working on an upcoming title called Thrillville. It's a new Theme Park game from the creators of Roller Coaster Tycoon, and you can create and manage your park, as well as play mini games within your own creation. For myself, I think it's pretty awesome. I thought it might be something you all were interested in, because of the subject matter, and RTC connection!

This is the trailer for Thrillville: http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?fs=1&id=2842

What do you guys think of this type of game? Have you heard of it before? I'm interested in any and all feedback you all would be willing to tell me, and any thoughts you have, I'm looking for opinions. If you have questions, I can answer those also. And I'd really the thoughts and input!

i'm real excited for this game!... it's already in my GameQ over at Gamefly.com!

Awesome - that's great to hear. I'm pretty excited about it myself, I think it should be pretty fun. What do you like about it, if I may ask? That it's on a console finally?

the whole thing just seems interesting to me.. and the fact every other coaster/theme park game that has been on a console has pretty much been garbage.. just the screen shots give me a hope!

Callie are there any plans for future RCT3 expansions? or development of an RCT4 that you've heard of?

I'm stuck playing RCT2 right now seeing as my copy of RCT3 no longer works....courtesy of some corrupted downloaded scenery files.

I watched the game trailers/featurette and it looks like the game will be 1/3 RCT3, 1/3 Sims, and 1/3 silly minigames. Honestly, it doesn't look appealing to me, especially since it's being developed by Frontier, the company that has tarnished the reputation by making the RCT series worse according to most enthusiasts of the series. It could by some miraculous means turn out to be good, but it seems the game/series (this would probably be RCT 4 if Sawyer hadn't presumably pulled the name after RCT 3) is headed down a path of less realism and more involved system with the peeps in the park. Most enthusiasts of the series would say that they would like to see more realism (some of the coasters in the featurette looked like they would kill all the riders if built in real life) and more emphasis placed on building the park, not interacting with the peeps/minigames.

Sorry for the rant, just my two cents.

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bobthecoasterguy said:
Honestly, it doesn't look appealing to me, especially since it's being developed by Frontier, the company that has tarnished the reputation by making the RCT series worse according to most enthusiasts of the series.

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Agreed. Quite honestly, after how terrible RCT3 is, it will take some stellar reviews of this game to convince me to buy it. I'll stick with my great old Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (without those awful expansion packs) :)

*** Edited 10/21/2006 7:57:12 PM UTC by Peabody***

It's the RCT3 engine. It sucked on high-end computers. Do you think it's going to be better on a console?

I'm still wondering if RCT4 is being developed (like bobthecoasterguy). If it is, do you all think it will be better (not freeze up) than RCT3?

bob took the words out of my mouth (or my fingers...)

RTC, or any other coaster game, should be more about the rides. I was excited to get RTC3 until I put it into my computer. I was excited to have the p.o.v. ability and the fireworks but they neglected to add new elements to the coasters (from what I remember) like overbanked turns and immelmans. There should have been more flexiblity to designing the coasters than wasting code to improving the scenery and peeps.

Now, if someone could improve on the old Disney "Rollercoaster" game (don't say Ultimate Ride) where you could have control over bank/hill angles, and insert elements off a menu as needed and adjust their sizes for proper proportions instead of relying on a grid.

I have to check out No Limits sometime.

As for Thrillville...it looks more like Sim Park. Go back to the drawing board.

I am not sure about additional RCT3 expansions or about an RCT4, but I'll keep my eyes peeled and let you guys know if I come across anything.

I'm looking forward to the final product for Thrillville - what I've seen so far has a lot of potential. The mini-games, for me as a player, add some balance to playing it - I like the ability to do something other than manage the growth of the park, because well, if I had a theme park that I was managing, I'd go and play around in it! I'm also hopeful that the fact that it's on a console will bring in new fans to a great game series that haven't ever really gamed on a computer before.

But I'm definitely grateful and interested in all this feedback! I'm excited to read more of y'all's thoughts if any. What about Thrillville is appealing, what would you handle differently? That kind of thing. :)

The sheer fact that 3 sucked so much, and this game is not being released under the RCT name, is a pretty good indication that if there is a 4th game, it sure as hell won't be written by Frontier.

I agree with WildThing. I want something that has the easy-to-use-interface like the Disney Coaster game (wasn't there also something similar on the Dreamcast?) with the physics engine from No Limits.

The peeps and the mini-games are cute for about 5 minutes. But if the coaster part sucks, who cares about the rest? (See SimPark/SimCoaster)

I don't have a lot of interest in Frontier trying to milk me for another $40 by renaming RCT3 and selling it on a dying console. Why wasn't this developed for the 360, PS3, etc?

i'm definatly pumped for this game. from jeff's podcasrs and posts, i can't tell if you didn't like RTC3 at all, or just it's performance? i thought the game itself was totally killer and just about everything i've wanted from a game like that, but the thing ran so damn slow i cannot even bother to play it anymore. so i'm hoping thrillville, being on console, will deliver the type of game rtc3 was, but actually be able to run the thing!

The game play and peep AI sucked. They abandoned all of the smart rules from the first two games. They made several patches to try to improve and it still sucked. So if it sucked as a game, and sucked in terms of performance, what value did it have? I felt ripped off.

Ditto. Everything that made the first two fun to play was destroyed in the name of making it pretty and trying to incorporate as many items as possible from the silly wishlists that people constantly made.

It should have been impossible to mess up RCT3. I've said it a million times, but all they had to do was take RCT2 and put it into a 3D playing enviroment.

The performance sucked, but that's not what stopped me from playing...I found it entirely playable (to a point) on the performance side - it's just that it wasn't fun to play in the first place. Take away crap like the night/day, fireworks editors, choreography of animal shows, coastercam, lazers, fog effects and all that purely aesthetic stuff and you should have a game that plays well at the core - balanced, fun and sensical. RCT3 didn't.

yeah, i'll give you that, the "peeps" were completly retarded and many times i couldn't get them to even follow simple paths to rides and other areas of the park. i guess we'll have to agree to dissagree, as i totally loved the game, just the lag is what keeps me from playing it. but dudes, i love the podcast so thanks for doing it every week!

As for it not being on the 360 - it's most likely a combination of production costs, and the fact that it makes sense to have it on a more accessible console than the 360 since it's a game that everyone can play and enjoy, you know?

And, I do really appreciate you guys taking the time to share opinions with me! :)

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Lord Gonchar said:

....all they had to do was take RCT2 and put it into a 3D playing enviroment.

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Amen....if they just copied every single thing, made no new additions, and no changes, but just in 3d, I would have rushed out and bought it in a second. (Provided it didnt take a supercomputer to bring the performance up to crappy like RCT3 does)

I think (and hope! :) ) the RCT franchise could be good again, but I have no faith in Frontier to do it. *** Edited 10/25/2006 10:54:32 PM UTC by Peabody***

when RCT3 was incredibly slow on even some of the fastest computers, what will the new game be like on a console? even the new game consoles like the 360 have processors that are nowhere near as fast as even an average computer - this has disaster written all over it.