Parkitect early build available

So here's a garden style park concept. Tranquil and serene with tame rides - A little train ride, carousel, ferris wheel and snuggle-up flume.

I really love your compact park designs. It reminds me a lot of when the RCT2 forums were really active here and you were cranking out all of those compact coasters.

Thanks!

I like that design style in general, but I'm noticing that (initially, at least) Parkitect seems to lend itself to bigger design with coasters. Not sure why exactly, but I find myself struggling to keep those tight little designs. Things just seem to spread further naturally.

Definitely have to get back into practice if I expect to build a fully functioning coaster with theme and paths in a 6x9 plot of land like back in the day:

Which reminds me - you could save scenery with the ride in RCT2. I'm assuming that's not going to be an option with Parkitect. That was a nice feature.

Just another random thought. You know what'd be cool?

Sizeable Ferris Wheels.

Just the same simple +/- button to size up and down the ferris wheel.

Ferris Wheels come in all kinds of sizes - from portable kiddie models to the newest mega wheels. Sometimes the default looks great in the game and sometimes it looks ridiculously small depending on where you place it and what it is near.

I felt the same way about the Ferris Wheel in RCT - you had to be careful about placement or it could seem out of scale.

That's a damn good idea. Every few clicks would add another couple cars, and you could choose between traditional bench-style or the bucket-style on the bigger models. Even go with enclosed cabins if you want to make it big enough.

I'd love an old-school carny double ferris wheel, too. Not even in the game, I mean in my back yard.

On the most basic level, I'd implement it something like this:

The standard wheel has a 5x1 footprint and is 5 squares tall.

Click the + button and it goes to 6x2/6 tall. Another click makes 7x2/7 tall. As you keep clicking it follows that pattern:

8x2/8
9X2/9
10x2/10 - At this point you've doubled all the dimensions. And the pattern just repeats from there:

11x3/11
12x3/12
13x3/13
14x3/14
15x3/15 - Triple dimensions

16x4/16
17x4/17
18x4/18
19x4/19
20x4/20 - Quadruple dimensions

21x5/21

And so on to whatever point it gets ridiculous.

Right now the game seems to measure every square in height as 2.98 meters. So roughly 10 feet. Makes sense.

The fixed-size wheel then is 50 feet tall. That's a small Ferris Wheel.

And if a sizeable wheel is too difficult to implement, then perhaps multiple wheels to choose from in the ride list. Even something as simple a Small Ferris Wheel, Medium Ferris Wheel, Large Ferris Wheel, Huge Ferris Wheel.

But yeah, the wheel in these games has always been weird to work with.

I never thought about that but that's an amazing idea Gonch!!

I think you'll be able to do stuff like that in Theme Park Studio with it's ride creation feature. I haven't heard a lot about that game recently, so I looked it up and it's still being worked on. It looks awesome!

Playing Theme Park Studio looks like too much of a commitment. I don't want to play structural engineer. Seems like there's a lot of that in the game. Plus, wasn't the kickstarter for that game over two years ago? (and Alvey yapping mindless endorsement -and somehow still self-promoting - at me in the promo video doesn't help)

The original RCT games were the standard for simple, fun, low commitment time wasting. Everything since (including RCT3) is an overthought, try-to-include-everything-including-the-kitchen-sink-and-make-it-highly-detailed-and-customizable cluster**** of boring commitment with a learning curve.

Right now Parkitect is the only game in the pipeline that even remotely seems like something I want to spend time with.

I got the early release of theme park studio on steam. It's thus far unplayable.

I'm over here like... RCT3 is A-OK with me!

Seriously, I have no problem with RCT3 for Mac.

Tekwardo said:

I got the early release of theme park studio on steam. It's thus far unplayable.

No wonder it's going to take so long for Disney to finish all of that Star Wars stuff.

After I got a Mac that ran RCT3 decently, I loved it. But I don't play scenarios on it, just build coasters and parks.

I was a big fan of RCT3, and I gather I'm in the minority here, but I thought it was the best, and best looking version. I always played sandbox and I built some really sweet parks and coasters. The flat ride collection, dare I say arsenal, was good. I worked hard with the theming and terrain, too. I liked it.

The ferris wheels have always been strange. They load and unload everyone at once, and the standard Eli-type wheels run backwards. The giant wheel was nice, but for a lot of parks was indeed out of scale. It seldom got enough business to fill up.

The dark rides sucked and a custom ride in a building wasn't popular with the peeps. Another thing on my wish list was a realistic, better scaled merry go round.

Another ride I could never master was the Skyride. It was easy to make a nice long version, and poles could be added in appropriate places by changing the height, up or down, by one. But the number of cars was station driven, or, the more cars you needed the longer your stations had to be. Which was ok, but the cars would back up with riders stranded in them if no one was riding at the distant end. The turnpike could be that way too, I had to be sure to set the interval so a car was leaving every so often even if it was empty.

Anyway, this new game, which Gonch has been so kind to share (who else is he going to show, right?), seems like a step backward. I realize it's the trial period of a new game, but so far I don't see much I couldn't get from my RCT. Except an Air Race.

One thing I would like to add to a wish list is to be able to make the ride bases smaller than the rides reach when running. So, rides like the Barnstormer, Huss Giant Jump and Ferris Wheels could fit into a smaller space but then fly or hang over the midway or trees. It would be like the previously mentioned fix for the trees, where a large tree can be installed but with a smaller base. (Do I have that right?)

The reason I liked RCT3 is this.

Yes, it's incredibly cheesy, but it was one of the first rct3 videos I ever came across, and you have to admit people have created some amazingly detailed ride/attraction videos.

I like the way Gonch described the feeling one gets when playing RCT2; that is, it's like setting up and watching a model. It doesn't try to be too hyper-realistic, but has just enough realism in the right places and offers seemingly endless possibilities, at least in terms of what technologies were around in the coaster universe when it was released.

RCT2 is one of the only games I ever break out these days when I stumble upon the rare opportunity to break one out.

Getting my twisty groove back. :)

EDIT - With still enough room to thread a drop tower through it.

Very nice, and I just noticed how much I like the supports in this game so far.

Also a nice touch that you can see underwater.

I like that too. I remember how on RCT3 the water is perfectly reflective. The rides and the trees around it, and even the clouds overhead reflect in the ponds. (provided the water is below ground level. Each pond or fountain pool has to have the water on the same level as well then suddenly everything around it shows up.)
You can even take the camera below water level to look around as well. When I got good at water it made my parks look so much better.

I'm still a fan of RCT3, and have gotten back into Sandbox mode a few times recently. Despite all the shortcomings, the version has a lot to offer for those of us who aren't as much into challenges and the financial intricacies of park management.

As a easy to play sandbox game meant to put you in the park, it's a fine choice.