Games PC ROLLERCOASTER TYCOON User Manual

KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Though it’s possible to control the game using only the mouse, there are a number of keyboard

shortcuts that can speed things up.

The number keys toggle some of the most often
used View Options on and off:

0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Height Marks on Paths

1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Underground View

2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Underwater View

3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transparent Rides

4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transparent Scenery

5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Invisible Supports

6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Invisible People

7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gridlines

8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Height Marks on Land

9 . . . . . . . . . Height Marks on Ride Tracks

Other keys offer alternatives to many of the

Toolbar buttons:

Pause . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . p

Zoom Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . U

Zoom In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Y

Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . r

Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . t

Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Scenery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Footpaths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

New Ride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Finances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F

Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D

Rides Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R

Park Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P

Guest Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G

Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S

Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M

A few of the keyboard shortcuts provide a quicker
way to perform common, useful functions:

B . . . . . . . . . . . Close the Topmost

Open Window

s + B . . Close All Open Windows

q . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cancel Construction

Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rotate Ride

Look Here

The keys listed above are the default keyboard shortcuts. If you don’t like the way they’re

set up, you can change the key used for each function. To do so:

♦ Choose Options from the Game Options menu. ♦ Select Customize Keys.
♦ Click on the shortcut you wish to change, then press the new key you want

to assign to that particular function.

Be careful! Once you have clicked on a shortcut, the next key you press is assigned to

that feature — it does not have its usual function. If you make a mistake,

just click on the shortcut again to assign a different key to it.

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Product #04-23121M

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TM

CD-ROM GAME

A WORD FROM JOHN WARDLEY

The world of theme parks is one of the most exciting businesses to be in. Now, you too
can be a roller coaster tycoon and make your fortune by designing, building, and oper­ating some of the biggest and most sensational theme parks in the world.

There’s much more to a theme park than roller coasters, height, speed — and making
people feel sick! You are about to become a real-estate developer, an engineer, an
accountant, a landscape architect, a manager of people, and an entertainer.

Your park must provide a fun day out for everybody, at a price they can afford. They
must be kept comfortable and happy, well fed and amused — but you have bills to
pay, advertising costs, wages and big problems ahead of you. You will need to use all
your skills to be successful.

Here are some tips. As a ride designer, think of yourself as an entertainer; you can
make your riders laugh or cry, you can amaze them, mystify them, scare them, amuse
them, or terrify them — it’s all under your control. Just think of the power you have!

But entertainers need to understand their audience. Who are you trying to entertain?
. . .families with young children? . . .teenagers who want the ultimate in white-knuckle
terror? . . .or everyone who comes to your theme park, including grannies and little kids?

Think of a ride on a roller coaster as a journey through an adventure. It must have
variation — not just its ups and downs, but also its surprises and shocks, its gentle
scenic sections to lull you into a false sense of security, and its wild mean parts to
scare the pants off you.

A ride should be impressive, yet fun to watch, and it should fit into the layout and
landscape of the park. Your guests must be able to see some of it from the walkways,
but keep some bits hidden so they come as a complete surprise during the ride. An
adventure journey must take your riders through an exciting, disorientating, and spec­tacular environment. Position trees, tunnels, and other obstructions so as to enhance

2

Reference

the thrills. Use water for effect, and create hills and valleys through which your ride
will race. All these elements are at your fingertips, so use them.

Remember, any fool can build a roller coaster with an impressive first drop, but can
you keep the fun and action going right through to the end of the ride? When I
designed Nemesis at Alton Towers, I wanted to ensure that there was speed and exhila­ration even right up to the last section of track before the station, so I dug a hole just
in front of the station brakes and dropped the ride down through a corkscrew below
ground level. It comes as quite a shock when you ride it. If the riders get off feeling
that the ride has dulled-out halfway through, they will be disappointed, but if they get
off on an emotional high, they’ll come back for more — and they’ll be more likely to
buy an on-ride photo of themselves. (Position the camera in the best place for good
expressions on riders’ faces to maximize sales.)

Locate your big spectaculars towards the back of the park, to draw the guests right
through the park past as many “spending opportunities” (food kiosks, etc.) as possible.

Once you’ve designed your coaster, you’ve got to operate it at maximum efficiency.
Should you wait till the train is full before you send it out of the station? Keeping
riders waiting is boring, and the more frequently the guests walking around the park
can see the ride running, the more attracted they’ll be to ride it, but a full train is the
most efficient way of running the machine. Even the best-designed roller coaster won’t
make money unless it is operated and maintained efficiently.

It has taken me 25 years of hard work to gain my experience in the theme park industry.
With RollerCoaster Tycoon, you can get there in 25 minutes!

A plot of land is out there waiting . . . rides are available for you to design and build
. . . and guests are ready to visit you and spend lots of money.

Good luck, and have fun.

John Wardley’s official job title is “Consultant Director, The Tussauds

Group, Ltd.” but he doesn’t mind being called simply a “Ride Designer”.
He has been involved with the design of many of the best European
roller coasters, including Nemesis and Oblivion at Alton Towers (England),

Megafobia at Oakwood (Wales), The Vampire at Chessington (England),
Dragon Khan at Port Aventura (Spain), and many others.

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HOW TO GET THERE . . . . . . . 5

Necessary Equipment . . . . . . 5

Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

ENTERING THE PARK . . . . . . 7

The Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

The Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . 14

THE RIDES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Transport Rides . . . . . . . . . 16

Mild Rides . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Roller Coasters . . . . . . . . . . 17

Thrill Rides. . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Water Rides . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

SHOPS AND STALLS. . . . . . . 20

Food And Drink . . . . . . . . . 21

Info And Souvenirs . . . . . . . 22

Bathrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

FOOTPATHS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Queuing Lines . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Raised Paths and Tunnels. . 25

PARK MAINTENANCE . . . . . 27

Safety and Repairs . . . . . . . 28

Cleanliness . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Lost Guests. . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

PARK MANAGEMENT. . . . . . 33

Keeping Your Guests Happy 33

Finances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Marketing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . 41

BUILDING A BETTER PARK. 43

Entertainers . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Landscaping . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

BUILDING A CUSTOM RIDE . 50

The Stations . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

The Line . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Characteristics of the Ride . 55

Saving Your Design . . . . . . . 56

REFERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

The Landscape . . . . . . . . . . 57

The Toolbar. . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

The Construction Window . . 74

Information Windows . . . . . 78

TECHNICAL SUPPORT . . . . . 84

LICENSE AGREEMENT. . . . . 85

CREDITS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

HOW TO GET HERE

No matter where you’re coming from, there’s only one way to get to
RollerCoaster Tycoon. First, let’s make sure you have what you need to enjoy
your visit. After that are complete directions for reaching the park safely.

Necessary Equipment

Before you can install RollerCoaster Tycoon and start playing, check this
list to make sure that your computer has everything you need:

®

♦ The processor has to be a 90 MHz Pentium
formance, we recommend at least a 200 MHz Pentium with MMX.

♦ Your operating system must be Windows

♦ You must have at least 16 MB (megabytes) of RAM. (If you’re running

Windows 95, it’s a safe bet you have 16 MB or more.) For best perform­ance, we recommend 32 MB or more.

♦ You must have a 4X speed (or faster) CD-ROM drive.

♦ Since the installation program will copy parts of RollerCoaster Tycoon

onto your hard disk, you must have a lot of empty storage space on your
hard drive. How much you need depends on how much of the game you
choose to install.

♦ Your computer must be capable of SVGA quality graphics, and your
video card must have at least 1 MB of onboard memory.

♦ There must be a working mouse (or a device that fulfills the same
function) attached to the computer.

♦ You must have DirectX
you can install version 5.0 as part of the installation process.

♦ To hear the game sounds and music, you must have a working
Windows 95-compatible sound card — and the requisite drivers installed.

If you think you have all of these, but still have a problem running the
game, please contact Technical Support for assistance.

®

version 5.0 (or higher). If you don’t have this,

or better. For best per-

®

95 (or newer).

4

How To Get Here

5

Installation

If you have all of the required equip­ment, then it’s time to install the game.
To do so, follow these instructions:

♦ Open the CD-ROM drive, place the
RollerCoaster Tycoon CD in it, and
close the drive.

♦ RollerCoaster Tycoon is a
Windows “AutoPlay” CD-ROM. That
means that just putting the disc in the
drive for the first time starts up the
installation program.

♦ As is usual in installation proce­dures, there are two decisions you
need to make before the process can begin. The first is to what directory
you want to install the game. You can accept the default, type in a directory
path, or use the Browse button to seek out a directory.

♦ The second decision is what sort of installation you want to do. Pick
one of the options presented:

Minimum installs all of the files required to play the game, but leaves
some of the larger files on the CD. This strikes a balance between the
needs of game speed (more files copied) versus conserving hard disk
space (less files copied).

Full installs the entire game, including all of the larger files. If you have
the hard disk space to spare, doing a Full installation can make the game
run faster.

♦ Click Install to continue. (If you change your mind at this point,
click Exit.)

♦ RollerCoaster Tycoon will now copy the files you selected to your hard
drive from the CD-ROM.

♦ After the game itself has been copied over, RollerCoaster Tycoon
installs Microsoft’s DirectX drivers (version 5.0). Note that the space these
take up was not included in the total noted when you selected what type
of installation to do.

If AutoPlay Doesn’t Work

If, for whatever reason, the

AutoPlay feature does not work
when you put the CD in the drive,
here’s how to start the installation

program yourself:

♦ Double-click your “My

Computer” desktop icon.

♦ In the window that opens,

double-click your CD-ROM drive

(it’s usually the D drive).

♦ In the list that appears, find a

file named setup.exe and

double-click it.

Once the installation is complete, the game is ready to go.

To start playing now:

♦ Leave the RollerCoaster Tycoon CD-ROM in the drive.

♦ Click the Play button.

To play later:

♦ Make sure that the RollerCoaster Tycoon CD-ROM is in its drive.

♦ Open the Windows Start menu, then open the Hasbro Interactive

menu, then open the RollerCoaster Tycoon sub-menu, and then click the
RollerCoaster Tycoon option – OR –

♦ When you put the CD in, you can wait for the AutoPlay screen to pop
up, then click the Play button.

Have fun!

ENTERING THE PARK

When RollerCoaster Tycoon begins (after the title sequence, that is),
you’re left looking at a screen with four big buttons:

Start New Game lets you begin a fresh game — a scenario of your
choosing.

Load Saved Game is what you use to continue a game that you
saved previously.

Show Tutorial runs the beginner’s tutorial.

Exit shuts down the game and returns you to Windows.

Those of you who think you can figure it out for yourself, go ahead and
click Start New Game. For the rest of us, here’s a walk through the tutorial.

6

Entering The ParkHow To Get Here

7

The Tutorial

The tutorial is a brief guide to how RollerCoaster Tycoon works. When
you click the Show Tutorial button, the game runs itself for a while. It
starts one of the game scenarios, then goes through the motions, step by
step, of setting up a few rides and performing a few other important park
management tasks. You can learn a lot by watching this.

As you watch the tutorial, you can follow
along in this text; it’s written in the form of
instructions and their results, as if you were
actually going to do the work yourself. If
something the game does in the tutorial is not
clear, the chances are good that it’s explained
here. Let’s begin.

Click Start New Game. The tutorial
skips the menu of scenarios (different
parks in different situations) and goes
directly into the first scenario.

The first window shows what you need to do
to succeed in this scenario. Always read this
carefully. In the tutorial, you have until October of Year 1 to attract 250
guests into the park and build the park’s rating (a measure of reputation)
to at least 600.

Click the window close button to close this window.

Note This!

You don’t have to just sit

and watch if you don’t

want to. While the tutori-

al is running, you can
click any mouse button or
press any key on the key-

board to take over con­trol. The only caveat is

that you can’t give con­trol back to the tutorial.
Once you take the reins,

it’s your park.

♦ Position the cursor between the existing path and the park border
fence, then click to build the Merry-Go-Round. The cost of construction is
deducted from your treasury, which is tracked in a box at the bottom left
of the screen. (It’s wise to remain aware of how much money you have
to spend.)

Now, you must build the Entrance and Exit for the ride. You use the
mouse pointer to choose positions for both. This is a very important step,
because every ride must have an Entrance and an Exit, and both must be
positioned so that you can build paths to and from the ride, or else your
customers will never get there. Every Entrance and every Exit takes up
one landscape square. (Note that the Entrance and Exit are free; they come
as a package with construction of the ride itself.)

♦ Position the Entrance square adjacent to the ride (leaving room for the
Exit) and click to build it.

♦ Construct the Exit in the same way as you did the Entrance.
You now have a completed, but closed, Merry-Go-Round with the required

Entrance and Exit, and the Merry-Go-Round 1 window is open. Next, you
must build a Queuing Line from the Entrance to the existing path (other­wise, no one will be able to wait in line to board the ride, and that cuts
down on business). You also need a path from the Exit to the main Forest
Frontiers path.

Click the Footpaths button. The Path Construction window opens.

Click the Queuing Line button (the blue one with people).

Click the New Ride button. The Ride Selection window opens.

Select the sleepy looking face tab (Gentle Rides) to see the
available gentle rides.

♦ Select the Merry-Go-Round by clicking on the picture.

♦ Click the Build This button at the bottom right. The Ride Selection

window closes and the Merry-Go-Round Construction window opens.
At this point, the mouse pointer (when held over the landscape) controls

where the ride will be built. The landscape area needed to construct the ride
is marked, and a yellow arrow indicates the orientation of the ride (which is
irrelevant for a Merry-Go-Round, but quite important for many rides).

8

♦ Move the mouse pointer to the landscape square in front of the
Entrance and click once. The first stage of the Queuing Line is built, and
the cost is deducted from your treasury. Move the pointer one square
further away, and click again to add another piece.

You now need to connect the Exit and the Queuing Line to the existing
path.

Click the Tarmac Footpath button (the grey one).

♦ Using the mouse pointer just as you did when building the Queuing
Line, build a path from the Exit to the main path. (Notice the money
leaving your account each time.)

Entering The ParkEntering The Park

9

♦ Now, extend the main path to reach the Queuing Line.
Now, you have a completed Merry-

Go-Round with paths and a waiting
area, but it is still closed (as you
can see by the sign flashing on the
Entrance).

♦ To open the ride, click the green
light on the right side of the
Merry-Go-Round 1 window. (If the
window isn’t open, click on the
Entrance or the ride itself to open
the window.)

Now you have an open ride, but the park is still closed.

♦ Hold the right mouse button down and move your cursor to “drag” the
landscape until the park entrance is in view. You see that the main park
entrance sign is still flashing a Closed message.

♦ Click on the entrance to open the Forest Frontiers window.
♦ Click the green light (just like the one that was in the ride window), and

the park is open for business.

♦ Close the Forest Frontiers window.
♦ Close the Merry-Go-Round 1 window.

You now have one ride working and the park open. It’s time to build
something a bit more ambitious.

Click the New Ride button again.

Select the Rollercoasters tab (the face flying downhill).

♦ Select the Steel Mini Roller Coaster picture, then click the Build This
button. The Select Track Design window opens.

At this point, you can choose to construct one of the pre-designed track
layouts, or you can choose to build a custom coaster. We’re being
ambitious, so let’s go with the latter.

♦ Select Build Custom Design, and the Roller Coaster Construction
window opens.

something in the wrong place, you can

remove it. You will not get all of the

construction cost back, but there is

construction; for removal, there is a

Remember

If you make a mistake and build

right-click on what you built to

usually a refund of some sort.

(Removing natural objects such as

trees does not count as undoing

separate cost, no refund.)

The Station Platform is pre-selected as the first item to be built. That’s
because on the completed ride, the Entrance and Exit must be adjacent to
the station platform. Positioning the station first is good planning.

♦ Move the mouse pointer over the landscape. The cursor is a white box
with a yellow arrow in it (like the Entrance cursor). The box marks where
the first piece of Station Platform will be built, and the arrow shows the
direction the cars will travel.

♦ Click once to build the first piece of Station Platform.
♦ Now, move the mouse pointer back to the construction window and

click on the Station Platform picture in the window three times to build
the remainder of the platform. The cursor moves forward each time and
continues flashing.

Next, we’re going to create the starting rise, the length of track in which a
motorized chain pulls the cars up an incline to set up the rest of the ride.

First, we determine the direction of the next piece of track. Near
the top of the construction window, select the center arrow (the
Straight button).

Second, we set the grade (rise or drop) of the next piece of track.
Below the direction buttons, find and click on the Mild Incline
button (just to the right of center).

Lastly, we add the pulling chain to this section of track. Click on
the Chain button (to the right of the incline buttons).

You probably noticed that as you made your selections, some of the
choices in the other areas changed from available to unavailable or vice
versa. What you can do at any point in the design of a roller coaster
depends on the structural and functional limits — and the safety regulations
— appropriate to the type of track you’re designing.

♦ Click on the picture of the track piece (as you did for the Station
Platform) to add it to the design.

If you understand how you built that straight, inclined, chained section of
track, then the rest of the design and construction process should be clear
to you. Curves, drops, and everything else are built using exactly the same
process — choose a direction, choose a grade, then build the section. As
we build this particular design, however, we run into a few of the limits on
what we can do. (This is not a complete list, but it covers the issues we
run into during the tutorial.)

10

Entering The ParkEntering The Park

11

♦ In order to switch from a rising track to a dropping track, you must
have at least one piece of straight track in the middle.

♦ There is a limit to how high above the land you can safely raise track
using supports.

♦ You cannot build track underground unless you prepare the land for it.
♦ Track can be run under or over existing track, provided there is enough

room (vertical clearance) for the cars to pass through. However, it is a vio­lation of the safety code to build intersections, so you cannot have the
track cross itself at the same level.

If you build yourself into a corner or decide to make a change,
you can use the Demolish button (the bulldozer) to remove the

previous section of track.

♦ The last piece of track must connect to the first piece (the Station
Platform) to create a closed loop. The height marks visible on every section
of track help you to line things up.

Now that the track itself is complete, you must position and build an
Entrance and an Exit for Roller Coaster 1. Only you can decide when the
design is done, so the Entrance button is not activated for you (as it was
when you built the Merry-Go-Round).

♦ Click on the Entrance button in the Roller Coaster Construction window.
♦ Position the Entrance square adjacent to the Station Platform (leaving

room for the Exit) and click to build it.
♦ The Exit button is selected for you when the Entrance is complete.

Position the Exit square adjacent to the Station Platform and click to build
it. (The Roller Coaster 1 window opens.)

The design and construction of your RollerCoaster are complete, but you
can’t be sure how well it will work unless you test it. Testing also helps you
determine how much to charge for it and how popular the ride should be.

♦ In the Roller Coaster 1 window, click the amber light between the red
(Close) and green (Open) lights. The ride begins its test run.

Select the tab with the pocket watch. This shows you the
Measurements and Test Data display.

At first, there is no information in this display. When the first test run is
complete, much of the missing data is filled in. We explain what all this

means later in the manual. For now, what’s important is that the ride runs
smoothly.

Select the View tab (the video camera).

♦ Click the red light to shut the roller coaster down (stop the test runs).

♦ Close the Roller Coaster 1 window.

When you know the coaster works, it’s time to create the associated
Queuing Line and other paths. When that's done you have a completed,
tested roller coaster with paths and a waiting area, but it’s still closed.

♦ Click on the Entrance to open the Roller Coaster 1 window.

♦ Click the green light to open the ride.

Now that the new ride is open and functional, you need to set an admis­sion price. This is perhaps the most important decision you make for each
ride. Not only does the price influence how much money you make, it also
affects the popularity of the ride and, therefore, the attitudes of your guests.

Return to the Roller Coaster 1 window, and click the Income and
Costs tab (the coin and ticket).

♦ Click the small up arrow several times to adjust the Admission Price
to $3.00.

Lastly, let’s make sure that the roller coaster is operating in the most
efficient manner. After all, you don’t want your guests waiting too long for
the ride to start.

Select the Operation Options tab (the gears).

♦ Click the down arrow to open the Wait For box.

♦ Choose Wait For Any Load. Leave the Minimum Wait and Maximum

Wai t times as they are.

This sets the ride to begin when one of two things happens — either the
ride has a load of passengers or the cars have been sitting at the Station
Platform for the Maximum Wait time. (Even if the ride has a full load, the
cars will not leave the station until the Minimum Wait time has elapsed.)

12

Entering The ParkEntering The Park

13

Go to the View tab and close the Roller Coaster 1 window.

Finally, we must consider the long term operation of the park and the
safety of the guests. Every ride is a mechanical device, and machines have
a tendency to become worn and break down. We need a Mechanic to per­form regular inspections of each ride and repair those that do stop working.

Close Window button in the upper right corner.)

When you have completed a scenario, your success and your score are
noted along with the name in the selection window. After you have suc­ceeded at a few of the early scenarios, you can move on to attempt more
advanced (and more difficult) scenarios.

Click the Staff button. The Staff window opens.

Select the Mechanics tab (the man in the blue work uniform).

♦ Click the Hire New Mechanic button.

Now you have a Mechanic in your employ, but you need to get him into
the park.

♦ Move the mouse pointer over the landscape and position the Mechanic
(hanging from the pincers) directly over one of the paths.

♦ Click to drop the Mechanic into the park.

Your new employee will wander the park, inspecting every ride on a set
schedule (a schedule you can control for each ride using an option on the
Operation Options display). When any ride breaks down, a radio call goes
out to the nearest Mechanic, and he hurries to fix the ride.

That’s the tutorial! Now that you’ve watched it through, get in there and
try a few things yourself. Once you’ve got some practice under your belt,
let’s move on to some more possibilities.

The Scenarios

As soon as you click the Start New Game button, you’re on your way —
but you’re not inside the park yet. RollerCoaster Tycoon includes quite a
number of park scenarios. What you see is the Scenario Selection window.

The name of each available scenario is listed in black letters. (Those you
cannot yet reach are grayed out.) Take a look at the list, and pass the
mouse pointer over each name, pausing long enough for the Tips box to
pop up. This gives you some information about the situation in the park.
When you know which scenario you want to enter, just click on the name.
(If you change your mind and want to go back to the four buttons, use the

THE RIDES

It goes without saying that the main attraction in any park is the rides
themselves. Scenery and gardens, shops and stalls, and everything else
are necessary to keep guests happy while they’re in the park, but the rides
are the reason they come. Variety is the keyword in building rides in your
park. After all, would you visit a park that had fifteen Merry-Go-Rounds
and nothing else? Probably not.

The entire procedure for constructing a new ride is covered in great detail
in the tutorial. Briefly, let’s review the necessary steps:

Click the New Ride button to open the Ride Selection window.

♦ Using the tabs, choose a type of ride.

♦ Select the specific ride by clicking the picture, then click the Build This

button.

♦ Determine the location and direction of the ride, then build it. (For
some rides, this is a very simple process; for others, like custom designed
roller coasters, it can take some time.)

♦ Place the Entrance and Exit for the ride.

♦ Create a queuing line to attach the Entrance to a path, and make sure

that the Exit is connected to a path.

♦ Test the ride, set an admission price, give it a name, and determine its
operating characteristics.

♦ Open the ride.

14

The RidesEntering The Park

15

The rides are organized into sev-

Removing Rides

After you’ve built an attraction, you
can choose to demolish it (using the

Construction button in the Ride

window). When you do so with a newly

built ride or shop, you normally get a

full refund of the cost of building.

However, once you’ve opened the ride
(or shop) and your guests have begun

patronizing it, you can no longer

recoup your entire investment. If you

demolish a “used” attraction, your

refund is considerably less.

watch the scenery go by. Often, the decisions whether to visit a ride is
driven by price considerations. Even the distance between rides can matter;
a guest who is tired from walking is less likely to want to do anything, but
if your rides are too close together, the park might seem crowded. There
are many things to think about when deciding what type of ride to build.

eral types, and each type includes
many different rides. (Some of
these are not available for con­struction until your research staff
have come up with a safe design.)
Each has its own benefits and
drawbacks, and each appeals to a
certain type of park guest — its
specific target audience. What
draws a person to a ride depends
on the proclivities of that person.
Some guests want an intense,
thrilling, gut-wrenching experience,
while others want to relax and

Transport Rides

Design Tips

♦ A transport ride is a great way

to ferry guests to and from a

newly opened area of the park to which

you want to draw interest.

As an added benefit, you can

charge them to get there!

♦ Don’t be too ambitious too soon.

A giant transport network connecting

the entire park will be expensive to

build. Build it in sections, and let the

completed sections run while you save

up funds to build the next one and,

eventually, connect them all.

♦ Transport rides with covered cars are

popular when it’s raining.

16

Transport rides carry guests along
a fixed track through scenic areas,
and they provide a low-thrill expe­rience suitable for even the most
squeamish guests. They also act
as an alternative to walking. Any
transport ride can have multiple
stations, and guests use the ride to
travel from one station to the
other — and from one area of the
park to another.

These are the
mildest of the
mild. (In fact, in
some people’s
eyes, they’re
not rides at all.)

When you build a transport ride, it’s always a custom design. (Please refer
to the Building a Custom Ride section for the details on constructing one
of these.) Make sure to read the specifications of the ride in the Ride
Selection window before you begin construction. For example, some
transport rides (like trains) run in only one direction and must travel a cir­cuit, while others (like a monorail) can move back and forth on a single
line of track.

Mild Rides

Design Tips

♦ Elevated rides allow your guests

to see other rides and areas of the

park, which can spark interest

in visiting them.

♦ Covered rides are more popular

when it’s raining.

♦ Rides that provide music often

add to the atmosphere of the park,

cheering nearby guests.

Most mild rides do not involve custom design, and they tend to take up
less space than the more intense attractions. They rarely make guests
sick, so you can build them near food service stalls without worry.

play second fiddle to the giant roller
coasters. That doesn’t mean you won’t
see a profit from these. Many guests
have little tolerance for intense rides,
and prefer something more calm.

Low-thrill attrac­tions are the bread
and butter of trav­eling carnivals, but
in a park like
yours, they often

Roller Coasters

It will come as no surprise to you that the roller coasters
are the primary attraction in most parks. Coasters come
in many types, starting with the old-style wooden tracks
and progressing through steel to the newer inverted,
hanging, standing, corkscrew, single rail, and many

other bizarre permutations. What all of them have in
common is that they strive to provide a hair-raising experience, but also
walk that fine line between exhilaration and discomfort (or terror). A ride
that is too intense gets no riders.

For every different type of roller coaster, there is at least one standard
design. You can also, of course, create a custom coaster. (Please refer to the

The RidesThe Rides

17

Building a Custom Ride section for the details on constructing one of these.)
Whichever you choose, be prepared to use quite a lot of space and spend a
significant amount of your funds constructing the track. Each roller coaster
is a big draw and will likely bring you profit in time, but you pay up front
for the opportunity to add it to your park. When using a standard design,
you can watch the information in the Construction window as you position
the ride; the price of construction is constantly updated to reflect the cost of
building the coaster exactly where the footprint marker stands. (If there is
no price listed, you cannot build the ride at the present location.)

Because roller coasters are such popular rides, you should be prepared for
crowds — especially when you first open a new track. Build a longer
queuing line than you would for a less thrilling ride; it will fill up faster
than you think.

Roller coasters are also complex pieces of machinery, and the more com­plex a ride is, the more often it will break down. Make sure that you have
Mechanics in your employ to inspect and repair your coasters. If a ride
begins to break down more often than you like, you can schedule inspec­tions more frequently. That usually prevents problems, but as a roller
coaster ages, it will deteriorate gradually until it is no longer safe to operate.

Design Tips

♦ Roller coasters are very expensive, but provide good profit over a long period.

Price them high when new, then gradually decrease the admission over time to

keep the ride reasonably popular and profitable.

♦ Coasters are high-intensity, sometimes nausea-inducing rides. It’s not wise to

build them too near the food stalls, and providing benches and bathrooms

near the Exit is always a good idea.

♦ Riding less intense rides near a coaster can often help guests get up the nerve

to ride the more extreme attraction. Consider surrounding a roller coaster

with less exciting rides.

♦ Scenery and theme items placed near the track can add to the excitement of

a ride, especially when you create the illusion of an impending collision.

Tracks that cross over or under other parts of your park — footpaths,

terrain, other rides, and such, are also more exciting.

♦ Dropped food is not the only threat to the tidiness of your park. Handymen

also deal with the after-effects of ride-induced nausea. Keep enough on staff,

or your park paths could become quite disgusting.

♦ Most roller coasters are not popular when it’s raining.

Design Tips

♦ Guests sometimes need to sit down

somewhere after an exciting ride.

Consider providing benches on the

path near the Exit from a thrill ride.

♦ Some of these rides have a

significant nausea factor. Take that

into consideration when placing

food stalls and bathrooms.

medium point — exhilarating enough for most guests without being
extreme enough to scare them.

Thrill rides generally do not involve custom design, and most of them take
up relatively little space in your park. On the down side, many thrill rides
seem to lose their novelty more quickly than other types.

Design Tips

♦ Most water rides have a theme.

You can increase your guests’ satis-

faction by providing scenery near the

ride that matches or compliments

that theme.

♦ Like transport rides, well-

designed mild water rides give guests

a good view of the park, which can

increase their interest in visiting

other rides.

♦ Be aware of a ride’s nausea factor,

specially for those with spinning
rafts and whirlpools. That way, you
know when to provide benches and

bathrooms near the Exit.

of them allow — and some require — custom design. In addition, you can
often specify the design of the water craft used in the ride. Make sure to
read the ride information in the Ride Selection window before you begin
construction.

Thrill Rides

In the excitement
department, this
is next step up
from mild rides.
Despite their

name, “thrill”
rides are generally far less intense
than even the tamest roller coasters.
Still, these attractions offer a good

Water Rides

The thrill of rid­ing on fast mov­ing water pre­dates even the
earliest amuse-

ment parks.
Confined and controlled, rushing
water can provide your guests with
a spine tingling, yet totally safe
experience. In hot weather, they also
get a welcome chance to cool off.

Water rides come in all types, from
the mildest paddle-boats to flume
rides that rival roller coasters in
intensity and excitement. Almost all

18

The RidesThe Rides

19

SHOPS AND STALLS

Even though your guests all came to the park for the rides and other
amusements, once they’re inside, they expect to be kept comfortable, too.
That means that you should supply drinks, a variety of food, bathrooms,
and other amenities. Of course, your guests expect to pay for most of these
things. That’s where shops and stalls come into the picture.

Building shops and stalls is even easier than building simple rides. Unlike
a ride, a little shop doesn’t need an Entrance or Exit, and a queuing line is
also unnecessary. The only absolute necessity is this: almost all shops
have a predetermined front side with a built in access window, and that
front side must be positioned next to a path in order for the guests to be
able to use it. The only exception is the Information Kiosk, which has
access windows on all sides.

Let’s briefly review the necessary steps for building a shop or a stall:

Click the New Ride button to open the Ride Selection window.

Select the last tab (the eating face).

♦ Select the specific type of shop by clicking the picture, then click the
Build This button.

The yellow arrow in the location pointer indicates the direction the shop
will face (the front). Use the Rotate button in the Construction window
(the curved red arrow) to spin the shop until it’s facing the right way.

♦ Determine the location of the shop, making sure that the front side is
connected to a path (or a place where you intend a path to be), then click
to build it.

♦ In the Shop window, set the price for each thing the shop sells (or the
admission price, in the case of a bathroom) and give the shop a name.

♦ Open the shop.
What types of shops and stalls you can build depends on the successes

your researchers have had. Each shop attracts guests according to the
person’s needs. For example, if a guest is hungry, he or she will keep an
eye out for a food stall. That’s a clue to the method of success with shops
and stalls — spread them around the park so that your guests do not need

to go far to fulfill a particular urge. The wants that these facilities serve
are the kind that can make a guest physically uncomfortable, and that can
seriously detract from their park experience.

Food and Drink

The majority of the shops and stalls you can add to your
park serve food — and because there is no other food
supply, the park makes quite a profit from hungry visi­tors. As with rides, the key to success in the park food
business is variety. Different guests have different tastes,
and you make the most people happy when you provide
for everyone.

The main drawback to providing food and drinks to your guests is the end
result — trash. Discarded drink cups, food wrappers, and the occasional
fumbled meal add up pretty quickly to a disgusting, messy park. Once you
begin serving food, you must provide trash bins for your guests to use and
hire a Handyman or three to help keep the park tidy. Here are a few tips
to keep in mind when building food service areas:

♦ Drink stands are more popular when placed near food stalls that sell
thirst-inducing products — salty things like popcorn, for example.

♦ Many guests prefer to sit when they eat. Provide a good supply of
benches conveniently located near any collection of food stalls.

♦ Guests tend to eat near where they purchased the food. Trash bins
positioned near food service stalls are a good idea.

♦ Very few guests come off of an intense ride looking for a meal. There
are better places for your food stalls than near the exit from a roller coaster
with a high nausea factor.

♦ The combination of food and thrilling rides is the primary cause of
guests feeling sick. If you have a problem with this in your park, consider
moving the food stalls farther from the more intense rides — much farther.

It doesn’t much matter whether you cluster all the food together in “food
courts” (with plenty of benches and trash bins) or spread the stalls liberally
throughout the park — as long as no hungry guest has a long walk to satisfy
his or her need for a meal.

20

Shops and StallsShops and Stalls

21

Info and Souvenirs

As you get more proficient in building rides, stalls, the
paths that connect them, and the scenery that decorates
those paths, even the most intelligently laid-out park
will become large and complex. That’s when your
guests start to want a map of the park. That’s when you

need to build an Information Kiosk. (Hopefully, your
researchers have developed one by the time you need it.) Supplying park
maps helps to greatly decrease the number of guests who get lost, too.

Another important function of the Information Kiosk is the sale of umbrel­las. Rain is a serious problem for most parks, and yours is probably no
exception. Though guests will not simply abandon the park when it starts
to rain (especially if they paid a significant price to get in), they will avoid
certain types of rides (roller coasters, for example) and be drawn to other
types (covered ones, specifically). If umbrellas are available for sale, your
guests become much less uncomfortable — and therefore less unhappy —
in the rain. You also reap a tidy profit selling an item that, while the
weather lasts, everyone wants.

Bathrooms

Even if your park does not yet include any food or drink

vendors, your guests will need toilet facilities and places

to wash their hands, change children’s diapers, and

that sort of thing. When your park does sell food and

drinks, these little buildings become even more vital to

preserving the happiness of your guests.

You build a Bathroom just like you would any other shop or stall. Here are
a few important considerations to keep in mind:

♦ Make sure that the building is facing the right way. The doorway must
be directly adjacent to a footpath for guests to be able to enter (and leave).

♦ It’s a good idea to locate the rest rooms close to food service areas. You
want them convenient, visible, and easy to find.

♦ Sometimes, guests will need a bathroom after a particularly intense
ride. Consider the ride’s nausea factor, too.

♦ Unless your park is quite centralized, spread these facilities out around
the grounds. The idea is to prevent a guest from having to walk too far to

22

relieve any condition that could cause dissatisfaction with your park.
Just like any other ride or service in the park, you can charge admission

for use of the rest room. As always, this is a trade off between making
enough income to cover the maintenance costs of the facility and keeping
your guests satisfied that your park is a good value for their money.

FOOTPATHS

A park filled with rides, shops, beautiful gardens, and other entertain­ments is utterly useless if the guests cannot reach any of the attractions.
To be successful, your park absolutely must have a system of footpaths to
guide visitors through the grounds. This is especially true of larger parks;
the more real estate there is to tour, the more vital it is that you provide
an efficient, well-designed layout of trails.

The footpaths in your park should be more than just a random assem­blage of trails that provide access to every attraction. An intelligent park
design incorporates a system that keeps your guests moving smoothly
from one ride to another (herds them along, if you will). You should design
your paths to do all this while, concurrently, leading your guests to remain
in the park and spending money for as long as possible. (A park, after all,
is first and foremost a business enterprise.)

Before we get into the step-by-step guide to laying down footpaths, here
are a few pointers toward building an effective park-wide path system. Be
forewarned that some of them are a bit manipulative:

♦ Keep the distance between attractions short, so that no guest has the
opportunity to become bored or overly tired while walking from one to
another. When a long walk is inevitable, provide benches along the way,
especially at the tops of hills.

♦ Provide transport rides from point to point (every point near a ride)
around the park. This will lighten the traffic load on your path system and
give tired guests an alternative to walking.

♦ Make sure that all of your attractions are visible from the footpaths. A
guest will not think to patronize a ride he or she does not know exists.

♦ To prevent crowding, provide alternate routes through the busiest areas.
There are two surfaces on which you can lay a normal path (one that con-

forms to the surface of the land): horizontal, flat ground, and simple hills,

FootpathsShops and Stalls

23

those with no irregularities in slope. To build ground-hugging footpaths:

Click the Footpath button (on the Toolbar). This opens the Path
Construction window, and the mouse pointer changes to include a
footpath icon.

♦ Next, select the type of paving you want to use. There are four options:

Tarmac is simple paving.
Stone is a fitted layer of cobblestone.
Dirt is a tamped dirt footpath.
Tiled is a patterned path built of decorative bricks in odd shapes

(“crazy brick”).

♦ Position the mouse pointer over the land square where you want to
begin paving.

♦ Left click to pave the square. To pave over long trails in one fell swoop,
you can hold down the mouse button and move the mouse along the path
you desire. Every square you pass over is paved.

♦ If you need to remove a section of path, right click on it. You get a partial
refund of the cost of paving.

Queuing Lines

Queuing Lines are special footpaths
that lead guests from the main
path to a ride Entrance. These lanes
are also the area where guests who
are patiently waiting their turn to
get on a ride do their waiting.
Without a queuing line, a ride draws
much less custom, because those
guests who cannot board when
they reach the Entrance simply
turn away. These paths include distinctive blue and white paving tiles, along
with convenient hand rails to make their purpose quite clear to your guests.

To build a Queuing Line, you follow exactly the same process as you do
when paving footpaths. (In effect, the Queue Line is simply a fifth type of
paving.) There are a few concerns you might want to keep in mind when
creating your queues. Some of these might seem obvious, but others are
not quite so self-evident.

Working the Line

If the wait for a particular ride is

excessively long and there isn’t much

you can do to relieve the situation,

your guests can become restless and

unhappy in line. You can hire an

Entertainer and assign that person to

“work the line”—patrol the queuing

area regularly. This tactic relieves some

of the tedium of standing in the queue,

and can mollify stranded guests.

24

♦ No matter how attractive you find the blue and white tiles, Queuing
Line should not be placed anywhere except as a passage to connect a ride
Entrance to a footpath. The distinctive appearance of queue paving alerts
your guests to its function, and you do not profit from confusing visitors.

♦ Be very careful how you place the sections of Queuing Line. The first one
that you place adjacent to an existing path becomes the entry spot for the
queue, and it’s easy to accidentally connect before you intend to. It’s often
best to create the queue first, before you run a footpath to meet it (and the
ride).

♦ Build the queue for an attraction longer or shorter depending on the
popularity, the load size, and the wait time you expect for the ride. For
example, a roller coaster will require a longer queue area than a slide,
because the more exciting ride is more popular, each train load carries far
more passengers than the slide’s maximum capacity, and the ride on the
coaster takes longer to complete.

♦ You do not need to build a queue for any shops or stalls, only for rides.

Raised Paths and Tunnels

Footpaths that follow the contours of the land are nice, but unless you
make major alterations to the land in your park, you’re going to need
raised paths — to cross over water, build docks and piers, travel along the
sides of hills, reach elevated ride Entrances and Exits, and many other
uses. You might also like to construct tunnels for your guests to walk
through. With a little imagination, you can make the footpaths through
your park almost as entertaining as one of the rides.

Building raised footpaths and subterranean passages is a bit more compli­cated than placing paths on flat land, but it’s less complex than designing
track for a custom ride. We’ll get to the step-by-step instructions in a
moment, but first, there are a few general rules you should understand.

♦ Paths that do not conform to
the land can rise (and fall) only on
a certain slope. This is a safety
regulation meant to assure the
maximum structural strength of
your guest-carrying platforms.
What it means to you is that you
should always plan ahead and
know how many sections — and

Crossing Paths

A raised footpath can cross over another

path, but only if the clearance (the

vertical distance) between the two

paths is enough that a guest can com-

fortably walk along both paths.

FootpathsFootpaths

25

therefore how much horizontal distance — it will take to reach as high (or
as low) as you want the path to go.

♦ When two paths meet, they must be at the same height to connect and
allow guests to walk between the two. The height marks are quite helpful
for this; you can make them visible using the Height Marks on Paths
option on the View Options menu (the eye button on the Toolbar).

♦ Horizontally, raised paths and tunnels can extend indefinitely, but the
same is not true of the vertical plane. There are limits to the height and
depth (distance from ground level) that the available support structures
can safely bear. Safety regulations prohibit any construction beyond what
is reasonable.

A footpath, like a track, can only lead underground through a vertical land
face that is at least two levels high. This rule applies to both the path sec­tion tunneling into the ground and the one emerging out of the ground.

Once you begin building underground, the landscape switches into the
Underground View. (If you need to get into this view later, use the
Underground View option on the View Options menu — the eye button
on the Toolbar.) Except for the sections where the footpath enters and
exits the subterranean world, you build underground paths in the same
way as you do bridges and piers.

To build sections of these special types of footpaths:

Click the Footpath button to
open the Path Construction
window.

♦ Select the type of paving you
want to use. All four types and
queuing line will work.

Click the Free Path button
(near the bottom of the win-

dow). When you return it to
the landscape area, the mouse cursor
appears as a land square highlight
with an arrow inside.

♦ Position the mouse pointer over the land square from which you
want to build — not the place you want the raised path built, but the
square you want that path to lead away from.

Crossing Paths II

A footpath in a tunnel can cross

under any path that is at or

above ground level.

A tunnel path can cross over or

under another underground path,

too, but only if the clearance

(the vertical distance) between the

two paths is enough that a guest

can comfortably walk along both

the upper and lower paths.

26

♦ Carefully move the mouse until the arrow in the highlight points in the
direction in which you intend to build, then click to approve the setting.
The next section of footpath to be built (the potential next section) begins
blinking.

Use the directional Arrows to choose which way the section
you intend to build will go. You cannot build diagonally; safety
regulations allow only right-angle turns.

Next, click one of the Slope buttons to set the incline of the
section. There are only three options: flat, uphill, and downhill.

♦ At this point, if you do not see a blinking next section of path (you see
only the pointer arrow), that means that you cannot build the section with
the settings you have selected — that slope, direction, and location.
Change something.

When you’re satisfied with the blinking (potential) next section of footpath,
click the Add This button to actually build it. Before you build, you might
want to check the cost of the section; it’s listed at the bottom of the Add
This button. In general, the more support a section needs (the higher a
bridge or the lower a tunnel), the more expensive it is to build.

♦ You can continue building from the section you’ve just built (without
selecting a new starting point), just like you do when building custom
tracks. When you’re done, click the Conform to Ground button to go back
to making normal, ground-hugging paths — or just close the Footpath
window.

If you’ve made a mistake or change your mind, you can remove

the section of bridge you just built — not the blinking section
(which isn’t built yet) by clicking the Demolish button. You can also use
the right mouse button to remove sections of any type of path, as well as
any objects in your way.

PARK MAINTENANCE

Building a park is undeniably the part of the job that allows you to flex
your creative muscles, but it’s the day-to-day operations necessary to keep
the park running smoothly that really challenge your foresight and compe­tence. You are responsible for the maintenance of quite a few complex
pieces of machinery that — if something goes terribly wrong — could

Park MaintenanceFootpaths

27