Steve

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• United States

Before I get into speaking of our map, unsurprisingly, I think I agree with a lot of Xtreme's feedback on these entries. I really enjoyed AJ's snow theme with the dark tree effect around the map edge. And McCarthy's underground piping and industrial vibes below the ground were great. Morgan and mamarillas' entry also was incredibly striking with the rockwork pierced by the half diagonal roadway. Overall a great round from everyone where each map brought something to the table.

I don't want to outwardly speak for Xtreme so if they wanna chime in and correct me or bring their own insight in, then do feel free! But I'll do my best: I think it's fair to say that this came to fruition in a very casual manner. Much like Glow Worm, it was basically a "hey you wanna do this?" followed by a "yeah let's take a crack" and then it's off to the races all within a Discord DM one morning. We shot some ideas around for how we wanted to tackle the theme, even at one point mentioning a more Soviet and brutalist Tomorrowland before getting into a more Space Coast set in the 1960's vibe (we figured this suited our overall style more anyway while exploring a little more of a small unique twist of the stark white structures of Anaheim's Tomorrowland and some concept at from Disney). I think it was something familiar but a little out of our comfort zone.

As for the prompt, we wanted to take the time travel theme of the contest and twist it into the theme of the map itself, having the "time machine" send us into an alternate timeline of Disney bringing their theme park chops to Florida before building Magic Kingdom in the 1970s as a bit of a "test" of their presence in that demographic (as opposed to a California demographic). We figured a partnership between NASA and Disney wasn't too far out of the realm of possibilities given they had made media for the government in previous World Wars, etc. In hindsight it might not have been executed in a manner that made it especially apparent, but alas.

As for the build itself, it was as seamless as always with Xtreme. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to not only have found a genuinely great human to befriend but also one that happens to coalesce so well in RCT. Xtreme makes it easy to bounce ideas and screens off of, as well as the frequent Spongebob meme. Anyway, Xtreme started the bench and we both ended up getting some scenery in to noodle with. While doing that, we both attempted to get an idea of how we wanted the coaster to be and also the overall macro. Personally, the macro was important to me here (as always) because I knew that this might not be a show-stopping theme or simply considered "more of the same" from Steve with tropical foliage and Desert Palette V. So we wanted to break the grid as hard as we could to really emphasize the shapes the architecture afforded us; we definitely understood that the roundness would help so people were right in that we wanted to exploit it. We also figured that maybe the real Kennedy Space Center's layout was somewhat iconic enough to kind of use as a heavy reference to the overall map layout, so we used that as a base with injecting some of Tomorrowland into it and making sure the sightlines lined up well. Xtreme hit the jackpot discovery of those rounded roofs, though, and was maybe the catalyst of that "hell yea" moment where we knew we had something worth doing and doing well. I think another big moment was the PeopleMover and using the CTR street vehicles which not only emphasized some big curves but also brought some needed atmosphere and kinetics. At the tail end of the build (basically the last week), we were struggling with the backstage areas a bit and were thinking the overall map needed a little more "grounding" or "sense of place," so we ended up reworking the outskirts to accommodate more foliage and the water retention ponds/waterways which felt like a hallmark of Central Florida and brought in some needed atmosphere along with it.

I'm genuinely overwhelmed with the response this has gotten though, and can't thank everyone enough for the kind words. I was lucky enough to basically have an empty slate work-wise during November to work on this map several hours a day, otherwise I don't think it could have happened or at least maybe not at the level that it did. Xtreme and I definitely had a strong give and take of the map being in different time zones, and every weekend Xtreme put in some serious hours, too (see the dot map below!). It was just a straight up great experience, and one that I'll look back on fondly. I can't wait to see what the next one holds to keep the XCU alive. Thanks again, y'all!

 DKSC_dot_map.png (1.07MB)
downloads: 45

Not bad for DKSO.

Not bad for DKSO.

All right, I (regrettably) don't post much these days, so big post incoming:

Before I say anything else, I have to give a huge shout out to the squad I assembled to help me out in testing the map to get it in ship-shape form: Brian, Josh, Justin, Leon, Matty, and especially Andrew. With Xtreme also building for the contest we were pitted against one another, and I often turned to Andrew to keep spirits high and keep me on track. I appreciate all you guys so much, and we are all lucky to have you around for being not only exceptional builders, but just outright exceptional humans.

Otherwise, I am overwhelmed by the response this has received. While building this, I ebbed and flowed from thinking "this is pretty good, it might be the best thing ever" to "this is dog water and I will get a 84.5." When looking at something for so long day after day, I tend to doubt myself. So to finally unleash it and to see what you all have to say here and on Discord... I'm so grateful. After about 22 years (!) of playing this game on New Element, to get to this point is just absolutely wild. You guys understandably give me a hard time for the laughs (I hope) and keep me humble, and I appreciate every one of you and what this community has done for all of us. Despite whatever ups and downs we have had together, I never want it to be lost on me and will hold it close.

I guess this map has a bit of a story behind it for only being a few months old, or at least I feel like it has some explaining to do: I was immediately smitten with Justin's layout and how it invoked early aughts-style beemers and thought it was ripe for a Busch Gardens-type map. I wanted to straddle that line of heavy theming with a level of realism. Kind of in the vein of Disney with a big coaster. I enjoy pulling things from real life, too, and there was buckets of concept art of a new Animal Kingdom area being planned out:

 WDW_Tropical-Americas_Aerial-scaled.jpg (147.65KB)
downloads: 121

I didn't copy things here entirely one-for-one, but I think the inspiration was pretty heavy. Took some of the broad stroke ideas and removed the Disney IP's and introduced my own macro.

And the macro was something I wanted to get right from the beginning. After years of working on parks like Lemuria and Glow Worm and H2H maps otherwise, theme park design and the sight lines for points of interest were what I really wanted to nail down. That meant I had to place this "area" in the larger "park" in the right way. The coaster lent itself to being in the back right corner of a larger overall park, so I designed it to have two "entrances" to the area and then complete a loop around. This also allowed for more context in the back of the park for employee services and such and cement that feeling that this area exists in the back right corner of a larger map. And with the coaster placed, I knew the station was going to be a set piece and should be a main sight line along a main primary pathway, with a secondary or tertiary pathway offshooting from there. This ultimately "forced" me to build the layout of the area into a triangular shape, allowing me to put the bigger dark ride facade as another set piece for guests to be drawn to. And then, from there, allowed me to place the carousel in a central location to give me the sight line from the other area's "entrance." With my own macro in place, different from the concept art above, I was able to include the rides there comfortably of my own accord and let the pieces fall from there. It sounds confusing but it works for me in my method of madness. Basically ever since I heard nin talk about sight lines years ago, and CP6 talking about primary/secondary/tertiary pathways in parks... I always try and emphasize those to hammer home that theme park design inspiration. Here's an old screen with some of the early macro planning:

 Screenshot 2025-06-17 at 11.22.01?AM.png (215.66KB)
downloads: 145

Outside of the build process itself, a lot of you have kind of touched on why I didn't submit in time. I basically built on this every day in the last three months, and the deadline approached more and more and I got more and more nervous. I jokingly asked for an extension and I legitimately didn't expect it to happen. When it did, and I realized I was still a way off from finishing... I felt awful. With the deadline arriving, I had to make a decision to rush it and submit or keep it, and do it how I wanted. The answer felt easy but somehow like I was letting myself down or the community down. I think I made the right decision in the end, because this allowed me to expand the map from 60x60 to 80x70 and spend hours in the minutiae of meticulous detailing, and redoing things, and adding things and perfecting things. It that last month after the deadline it felt grueling knowing that I had a vision and needed all these extra tiles to execute it, but I think it was for the benefit of the map. I will always and forever say that a parkmaker's greatest tool is patience. To have the patience to expand or refine or wait for a bug to be fixed, is a far greater skill than placing some trees or creating a layout. It's what's going to challenge you to become the best you can be, and I think that goes for probably most things in life (I'm a dad, I think I have some authority to make that call). Here's where the map was on deadline day, and I had a handful of facades to do still and some queue line stuff and the carousel, etc:

 Screenshot 2025-06-18 at 11.01.51?AM.png (1.4MB)
downloads: 138

Anyway, I guess that's all I could share for now. Again, I am beside myself with all the love and support you guys have given for me and this release. It means the world, and I hope to keep going and excited for whatever is next.

Not bad for DKSO.