By Patrick Holland
14
An Ode to
RollerCoaster Tycoon
By Patrick Holland
14
Good games have the potential to keep you occupied for a few weeks , great games can keep your attention for a few months , but the very best games can stay with you for years and change the course of your life . This sort of game is a rare one .
I ’ ve dabbled in StarCraft and League of Legends , I went through a short Halo and Call of Duty period , and of course it ’ s hard to forget my brief addiction to Runescape . But beyond those , no game has really ever stuck , with the sole exception of one incredible series : RollerCoaster Tycoon .
Most people wouldn ’ t categorize RollerCoaster Tycoon as the sort of game that will drag you in and fundamentally change you as a person , but it really did for me . This series has been with me since I was seven or eight years old and I have yet to completely let it go . To this day , I still have a copy of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 on my laptop in all its isometric glory .
I distinctly remember my first real exposure to RollerCoaster Tycoon . I was at a beach in North Carolina with my family and family friends . We were all renting a massive house together for a week , so I was constantly with a few other kids my age . One of them had brought his parent ’ s laptop with him , and with it ,
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 . During the evenings when we weren ’ t building sand castles and playing in the rough ocean waves we all gathered around this clunker of a computer and took turns building roller coasters .
The point of RollerCoaster Tycoon , as the name would suggest , is to create theme parks that are viable from a business angle . To successfully play the game you have to manage cash flow , cater to the whims of your customers , and constantly innovate . Of course , as seven-year-olds , these were the last things we cared about . When we gathered around the computer , we ignored the business side of the game to do two things : create monstrous rides and ruin the lives of the tiny people walking around our theme parks . Anyone who has ever played RollerCoaster Tycoon knows that one of the most perverse pleasures in the world is setting up rides that happen to be incomplete . The result is usually a roller coaster that deliberately shoots its cars into crowds of park guests . It ’ s pretty messed up , but hey , we were seven !
We spent all our nights at the beach growing more and more obsessed with the game . By the end of our trip I had even taken to reading the manual for the game on the beach . We were completely addicted .