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“I remember rushing home from school just to play Rollercoaster Tycoon,” says Merlin Entertainments, the owner of UK-based theme parks including Olton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, and Legoland Windsor. John Burton, senior creative lead at Yahoo! He is designing the 72-meter (236-foot) Hyperia roller coaster planned for Thorpe Park. “Then I went to sleep dreaming of being the next Walt Disney.”

As an adult, Burton looks back on the game with the excitement of a teenager on a sugar high. “I learned so much about how roller coaster systems work with block zones and even little tricks at theme parks like adding side cues and strategically placed restrooms,” he said, continued, confirming my suspicions that a Jumanji-themed jungle world was his idea. The piece, which Chessington helped design, has what he calls “subliminal similarities” to his Jolly Jungle scenario from the classic PC game. “When I have to go to a theme park overseas for work, I still load the original game onto the plane and sketch out ideas. I never really stopped playing.”

Released 25 years ago today, RollerCoaster Tycoon (the best-selling PC game of 1999) was a viral success before online virality was established, with users sharing their favorite real-world designs and recreations. It has inspired countless geosite forum communities. vehicle. These communities still exist, and one designer recently created a nightmarish existential roller coaster that took him 12 years to cringe. complete.

The 1999 theme park strategy game RollerCoaster Tycoon sold 700,000 copies in its first year and helped keep publisher Atari afloat. Today is its 25th anniversary. RollerCoaster Tycoon not only provided millions of fans with an endless toolbox of fun to build the theme park of their dreams (more on that later), but the entire adjacent theme park industry. He has solved the mysteries of men and contributed to reducing the male-dominated industry.

“I remember for many years I was the only woman working on roller coaster projects,” says Legoland Resort Executive Creative Director and creator of the world’s first vertical drop roller coaster at Alton Towers, says industry heavyweight Candy Holland, who helped design Oblivion. “But when Roller Coaster Tycoon came out, there was a sudden surge in young women applying for jobs. I think I had a deeper understanding.”

One of those young women was Flora Louie, a senior project manager for Merlin’s “Magic Creation” team in California. She argues that unlike many games of the time (Resident Evil, GoldenEye 007), Roller Coaster Her Tycoon attracted male and female players because it traded the fantasy of death and destruction for fun creativity. . “Playing Rollercoaster Tycoon was radical,” she says.

“I remember changing the color so that all the rides were pink. We spent a lot of time creating maze-like lines, making the customers laugh and confuse them, and even telling our parents that all the designs were different.” As a project manager, I have to consider the push and pull of the budget; the impact of increased visitor numbers; safety; managing the flow of guests and delivering the magic; As I’m participating, I’m thinking about all these things and remembering how Roller Coaster Tycoon set me on this path.”

From tranquil lush lakes to more exhilarating Haunted Harbor and Diamond Heights, each of the game’s 21 scenarios is a theme park where you can find quick solutions to dilemmas and give pixelated attendees the time of their lives was intended to create. “The success of this game really kept Atari in business,” admits Atari CEO Wade Rosen. “The fact that you can build these very complex roller coasters and you can completely ignore all of them and launch them. [customers] It was really genius to jump into the lake and see how many fish you could gag. ”

Rosen claims that everyone who played it had a “different experience” and said that the canvas of creativity that existed in Rollercoaster Tycoon was essentially a prototype for what would become Minecraft. He was a ruthless player in capitalism, he says. “I really liked the business side of it…When it was raining, I would put a price on an umbrella right away. It’s like $20 now. And I brought a lot of cash. Sho.”