pyat | Roller Coaster Tyrant 3

Long time readers will recall my experimentations with Roller Coaster Tycoon 1/2, free games that I received in boxes of cereal.

Recently, I had the chance to acquire Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 for $3.99, and I did so. While it does not offer quite as much scope for trapping and torturing the patrons of your park, I found some amusing things to do to them and my employees.

The first park was Slan Land, an SF/fantasy themed playground that was fairly straightforward and dull, save for the fact that kiosks throughout the park distribute free First-Fandom propellor beanie hats. As with my experiment in prior versions of the game, I created a seperate island for patrons who complained about about any of the rides in the main park, as well as vandals and cheapskates and people in garish clothing.

Here we see the Island at midnight. Formerly rambunctious teens plod sullenly about an ashpalt track surrounding the sole entertainment on the Island of Lost Souls - a man in a bright yellow fursuit who marches back and forth on a sort of island-within-an-island, 24/7, under a harsh arc lamp. He is perhaps the most damned of all. Indeed, if you select this employee (his name is Scritchy Bear), you can read his thoughts, and they tend to be of the "I hate my job" variety.

The Island by day. The Island is not entirely without amenities. From left to right we have:

The Greasy Sack: A small bag of pretzels, sans toppings, is available for $7.00. No other menu items are available at this time.
Watery Joe: As the name indicated. An extra-extra-extra large coffee is available for a thin nickel. Smaller sizes are not available. Milk, cream, and sugar are not available.
Eternity Without Relief: I open the restrooms for one hour a month. Admission is just $5.00! Otherwise, they stay closed. Remember, always leave 'em wanting more!

In common with the previous game, I cannot build patently dangerous roller-coasters and force patrons to ride them. At a certain point, self-preservation kicks in. So, while I was able, by digging deep trenches and adding hills, to create an air-launched coaster with a 700 foot vertical drop that subjects riders to 20+ lateral and vertical Gs, no one will ride the confounded thing.

However, they happily troop onto my powered launch tower ride, Into the Arms of Jesus, which couples a 180 mph vertical launch speed with a 30-foot-tall tower. The carriage shoots hundreds of feet above the tower and, its ascent and descent now uncontrolled, it explodes in a fiery crash in some remote corner of the park...

... and park patrons don't even leave the queue for the ride. Unfortunately(?), they also don't die. The riders on the doom carriage re-appear at the base of the ride, slightly shaken and dissatisfied with their amusement park experience.

One extraordinary thing I discovered is that while roller coasters and rides require subtantial support in the way of girders and so on, there is no maximum height and weight for wooden staircases. There is a practical limit above 750 feet or so, because you move outside the easily visible game space, and about 820 feet you can't see anything. Still, this didn't keep me from happily constructing a couple of "Stairways to Heaven."

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This was my first experiment in compactly building the tallest staircase possible. It's just a shade above 480 feet in height. I also built a column of stone beside it, and placed an information desk on the column, sort of a "wise man of the mountain" who dispenses wisdom and free park maps to those pilgrims doughty enough to make the ascent.

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I got too lazy to build a properly compact descent, so the stairway just angles back down and doubles back once.

Now, in my second park, I discovered that if I placed a lamp or flower bed or decorative stone below the stairway support pillars, the pillars for that section of stairway disappeared. This allowed for some gravity-defying effects!

Since I can't build roller-coasters that thrill people to death, I decided to make some of the most boring and pointless rides possible, to determine how tedious a park could be before people left. In my second park I built another "Stairway to Heaven", about 550 feet tall, and representing about a mile of walking to ascend and descend. Going up and down this stairway is the only way to the rides. All the rides are boring, but the two I'm proudest of are The Screaming Jibblies roller-coaster, and Charon's Pier.

Jibblies was constructed on the assumption that, if the slow clanking ascent up a hill is the most exciting part of riding a coaster, a roller coaster ride that is entirely slow and clanking powered ascent would be the greatest thing ever. When you board the Jibblies, you are dragged around a small circular track at a blistering 5-mph! The patrons did not seem enthused by the look of it, and only 2 people have bothered to ride it in the two years its been open.

Charon's Pier requires more elaboration.

The game has a number of water-based rides, including one that lets you row your own boat on a defined track. Ideally, this track is in some picturesque lake. I figured a more efficient use of space would be to place the ride in a rectangular cement trough, representing a circuit of about a mile. Patrons board the single rowboat, and ride around the circuit... 30 times. And it's free. Talk about value!

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You see what the rider is thinking, there? She's thinking "I want to get off of Charon's Pier!" Pfft. No gratitude, these people. It's only 15 hours of rowing! C'mon!

And so we leave the park, sun setting on the gravity-defying Stairway to Heaven, and the surprising queue for Charon's Pier. I am sure we will return, someday, perhaps when Roller Coaster Tycoon 4 hits the discount bin.