I'm testing if a topic like this would work outside Rollercoaster Tycoon- or Themeparkrelated communities. If you don't care, tell me. If you enjoy it, please tell me too. 
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Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 was released in 1999. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 was released in 2002. The engine dates from I believe 1994... You wouldn't expect such a game to still have a very strong and serious community going on. The power of RCT is the freedom you have. Anno 2009, you can make buildings almost brick by brick! I don't think there are many other games out there that allow so much detail. Ergo, to me it's not a game, it's an art. It requires skill and you really can add depth to whatever you're creating.
Another thing that's great about RCT is the different 'elements'. Architecture, creating rides and coasters, landscaping, concept are totally different things that require some sense of realism, eye for detail, technical skill and artistical vision. All those elements need to work together in order to have something cool. I dare to say that a good, large RCT park has as much detail as a painting by Rembrandt for example. It takes months or years to finish a park so that's a similarity too.
Enough talk, here's some of the stuff I made.
Dolphin Bay Resort
I've been on holiday to Turkey like five times... I made a mashup of my memories and saved them in this fictional hotel. My most detailed finished work yet, although the architecture is very clean. I wanted the details to stand out.
Here's a fully zoomed in screenshot (warning: these images are pretty large)
Wunderland Erlach
A small German low-budget park.
Zoomed-in screenshot
Dream World Indoor
This park was for a contest. The guy who was supposed to help me with this disappeared early and another guy didn't have the time. I barely made the deadline with only a few minutes left. I rushed some parts, but some areas are among my best. The park is mostly based on Toverland in the Netherlands.
Zoomed-in-screenshot
Calypso Quay
This was for the same contest as Dream World Indoor. I had to work with one of the greatest parkmakers in RCT's history, which was a great honour. We fucked up though, we didn't make the deadline even with a three day extenstion. However, this park was warmly received by the community, with people saying it's the greatest waterpark ever done. Very flattering.
Zoomed-in-screenshot
Aquatica
This park was quite a fail. This was for the same contest as the two parks above and again we didn't make the deadline. By far. There are three themed areas, Atlantis, Lost River (some south american stuff) and Port Royal (pirates). I did Port Royal and it's 95% finished. The concept was an inverted aquarium; not fish in a watertank but humans in an 'airtank' (not a tank of course). I didn't like this concept and since it's executed this poorly I even hate it. I'm very proud of the upper Port Royal section though, it may be the best themed area I've ever done. It was inspired by Power/Folk Metal band Alestorm BTW.
Zoomed-in-screenshot
I've finished other stuff too, but these are my most recent ones. The others are outdated.
I'm working on a lot of new projects, here are some screenshots:
Blykak/Ikaros+
Blykak/Ikaros+ is just the working title. This is by far the best and biggest park I've done so far, and I hope it will be my claim to fame in the community. The concept is six historic cities in a themepark setting, or the other way around. The cities are Knossos, York, Bologna, Antwerp, Lübeck and Copenhagen. I didn't pick the obvious cities because I hate cliches... In each city's area there are many references and recreations of real buildings. Some stuff refers to other cities too, but I try to focus on one city per area. 60-65% done.
Theater in York. Inspired by The Globe (London ), obviously.
A coaster in York, themed to the Viking Raids that used to terrorise England.
It all started with this, back in the summer of '08. I made a small park based on the myth of Ikaros, the guy who flew away from Knossos (Crete) and fell into the sea. The blue coaster is called Ikaros and features a drop into a lake, symbolizing Ikaros' tragic death. The park wasn't good enough to be officially released in the community so I expanded the map to make room for five more areas, although I didn't know that yet at that time. This screenshot is mostly old stuff, with a few new buildings. Outdated but okay.
Church in Bologna. There's a ride inside.
Botanical garden in Bologna, a big reference to the botanical garden in Padua.
More York stuff, a Jousting show. Not particularly York...
A building in Copenhagen. It's a semi recreation of the Nyhavn, the coloured street/canal that's featured on every postcard from Copenhagen. Google it!
One of my favourite buildings. It's so simple yet so elegant. Hope I don't sound arrogant here.
I've much more done in this park but I haven't taken screenshots yet. I can make some more if you like.
Japan
Japanese themparks are either extremely well themed or ugly as hell. 50% of the coasters in Japan are white or pink I think. Asians suck at English. They don't know anything about beauty too. It's all featured in this urban park, surrounded by ugly citystuff such as skycrapers and other typical asian shit. It's only 15% finished I think, it will take at least another year to finish it. My main focuses are 'Japanese' (what a surprise), density and humour. Thanks to http://www.engrish.com.
Budapest Fair
Another urban park, set in Budapest downtown. The concept is a historic lunapark that tries to come along with other modern parks in Europe. Result: Very old and very modern stuff mixed in an ugly but believeable way. The park is actually pretty bad but I'm very fond of the urban architecture I did.
Outdated screen but still pretty I think.
Boring corner in park. Outdated screen.
Entrance to park.
Misc. screens
The Welsh Land, an old park that combined a Zoo with a standard amusement park. Based on Flamingoland in the UK.
This screen is almost three years old I think. McDonalds, of course. This is located in a park that probably won't be ever finished which is a shame because the concept was interesting. I made a mashup of Cedar Point, Six Flags Magic Mountain (both in the US) and Drayton Manor (UK). I made two of these mashups before:
- Knott's Derry Vliet (click for an overview), a mashup of Knott's Berry Farm (US) and Drievliet (Netherlands), both relatively small parks with low-budget theming and a heavy focus on rides. Could've been awesome, but failed miserably. Too minimal, too ugly. I'm never doing generic parks again...
- Eftel Towers (click for a parkmap) which is a mashup op Alton Towers (UK) and De Efteling (Netherlands), my two favourite themeparks.
I was bored. (I was planning to make this Ziltoid-themed, haha!
)
This was for a summer-themed contest. I thought: summer=colour so I made this small park, shaped like a flower. It was just an excuse to play with colours and therefore almost anything that could fail failed. I like the density though. It was a good practice but the result is pretty worthless.
I've got downloadlinks but I doubt anyone of you has Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 installed and wants to view these parks ingame... It's much better ingame actually.
For awesome parks by others, go to http://www.nedesigns.com and look for the 'Spotlight' page. Those are the masterpieces, the best parks ever. I really hope Blykak/Ikaros may be among them too...
- - -
Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 was released in 1999. Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 was released in 2002. The engine dates from I believe 1994... You wouldn't expect such a game to still have a very strong and serious community going on. The power of RCT is the freedom you have. Anno 2009, you can make buildings almost brick by brick! I don't think there are many other games out there that allow so much detail. Ergo, to me it's not a game, it's an art. It requires skill and you really can add depth to whatever you're creating.
Another thing that's great about RCT is the different 'elements'. Architecture, creating rides and coasters, landscaping, concept are totally different things that require some sense of realism, eye for detail, technical skill and artistical vision. All those elements need to work together in order to have something cool. I dare to say that a good, large RCT park has as much detail as a painting by Rembrandt for example. It takes months or years to finish a park so that's a similarity too.
Enough talk, here's some of the stuff I made.
Dolphin Bay Resort
I've been on holiday to Turkey like five times... I made a mashup of my memories and saved them in this fictional hotel. My most detailed finished work yet, although the architecture is very clean. I wanted the details to stand out.
Here's a fully zoomed in screenshot (warning: these images are pretty large)
Wunderland Erlach
A small German low-budget park.
Zoomed-in screenshot
Dream World Indoor
This park was for a contest. The guy who was supposed to help me with this disappeared early and another guy didn't have the time. I barely made the deadline with only a few minutes left. I rushed some parts, but some areas are among my best. The park is mostly based on Toverland in the Netherlands.
Zoomed-in-screenshot
Calypso Quay
This was for the same contest as Dream World Indoor. I had to work with one of the greatest parkmakers in RCT's history, which was a great honour. We fucked up though, we didn't make the deadline even with a three day extenstion. However, this park was warmly received by the community, with people saying it's the greatest waterpark ever done. Very flattering.
Zoomed-in-screenshot
Aquatica
This park was quite a fail. This was for the same contest as the two parks above and again we didn't make the deadline. By far. There are three themed areas, Atlantis, Lost River (some south american stuff) and Port Royal (pirates). I did Port Royal and it's 95% finished.
The concept was an inverted aquarium; not fish in a watertank but humans in an 'airtank' (not a tank of course). I didn't like this concept and since it's executed this poorly I even hate it. I'm very proud of the upper Port Royal section though, it may be the best themed area I've ever done. It was inspired by Power/Folk Metal band Alestorm BTW. Zoomed-in-screenshot
I've finished other stuff too, but these are my most recent ones. The others are outdated.
I'm working on a lot of new projects, here are some screenshots:
Blykak/Ikaros+
Blykak/Ikaros+ is just the working title. This is by far the best and biggest park I've done so far, and I hope it will be my claim to fame in the community. The concept is six historic cities in a themepark setting, or the other way around. The cities are Knossos, York, Bologna, Antwerp, Lübeck and Copenhagen. I didn't pick the obvious cities because I hate cliches... In each city's area there are many references and recreations of real buildings. Some stuff refers to other cities too, but I try to focus on one city per area. 60-65% done.
Theater in York. Inspired by The Globe (London
), obviously.A coaster in York, themed to the Viking Raids that used to terrorise England.
It all started with this, back in the summer of '08. I made a small park based on the myth of Ikaros, the guy who flew away from Knossos (Crete) and fell into the sea. The blue coaster is called Ikaros and features a drop into a lake, symbolizing Ikaros' tragic death. The park wasn't good enough to be officially released in the community so I expanded the map to make room for five more areas, although I didn't know that yet at that time.
This screenshot is mostly old stuff, with a few new buildings. Outdated but okay. Church in Bologna. There's a ride inside.
Botanical garden in Bologna, a big reference to the botanical garden in Padua.
More York stuff, a Jousting show. Not particularly York...
A building in Copenhagen. It's a semi recreation of the Nyhavn, the coloured street/canal that's featured on every postcard from Copenhagen. Google it!
One of my favourite buildings. It's so simple yet so elegant. Hope I don't sound arrogant here.
I've much more done in this park but I haven't taken screenshots yet. I can make some more if you like.
Japan
Japanese themparks are either extremely well themed or ugly as hell. 50% of the coasters in Japan are white or pink I think. Asians suck at English. They don't know anything about beauty too. It's all featured in this urban park, surrounded by ugly citystuff such as skycrapers and other typical asian shit. It's only 15% finished I think, it will take at least another year to finish it. My main focuses are 'Japanese' (what a surprise), density and humour. Thanks to http://www.engrish.com.
Budapest Fair
Another urban park, set in Budapest downtown. The concept is a historic lunapark that tries to come along with other modern parks in Europe. Result: Very old and very modern stuff mixed in an ugly but believeable way. The park is actually pretty bad but I'm very fond of the urban architecture I did.
Outdated screen but still pretty I think.
Boring corner in park. Outdated screen.
Entrance to park.
Misc. screens
The Welsh Land, an old park that combined a Zoo with a standard amusement park. Based on Flamingoland in the UK.
This screen is almost three years old I think. McDonalds, of course.
This is located in a park that probably won't be ever finished which is a shame because the concept was interesting. I made a mashup of Cedar Point, Six Flags Magic Mountain (both in the US) and Drayton Manor (UK). I made two of these mashups before:- Knott's Derry Vliet (click for an overview), a mashup of Knott's Berry Farm (US) and Drievliet (Netherlands), both relatively small parks with low-budget theming and a heavy focus on rides. Could've been awesome, but failed miserably. Too minimal, too ugly. I'm never doing generic parks again...
- Eftel Towers (click for a parkmap) which is a mashup op Alton Towers (UK) and De Efteling (Netherlands), my two favourite themeparks.
I was bored. (I was planning to make this Ziltoid-themed, haha!
)This was for a summer-themed contest. I thought: summer=colour so I made this small park, shaped like a flower. It was just an excuse to play with colours and therefore almost anything that could fail failed. I like the density though. It was a good practice but the result is pretty worthless.
I've got downloadlinks but I doubt anyone of you has Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 installed and wants to view these parks ingame... It's much better ingame actually.
For awesome parks by others, go to http://www.nedesigns.com and look for the 'Spotlight' page. Those are the masterpieces, the best parks ever. I really hope Blykak/Ikaros may be among them too...
