Park / Dreamport

  • 25-February 11
Park_1836 Dreamport

127 Comments

  • Louis!%s's Photo
    United Kingdom Louis! Offline

    Why dont you look in the fucking database? It's what it's there for.

    posted 12 years ago
  • Toon%s's Photo
    Canada Toon Offline
    Late to the party, but here goes.

    This park was simply amazing work. The level of detail was above anything I would have imagined when I left the community. The creativity and thought put into the details is to me what makes this park outstanding and probably the best piece of RCT2 work I've seen. I am sure everytime I open it, I'll be making new discoveries. It certainly gives me a feeling of where the game has evolved to.

    However, for me there is something missing. It's almost as though the pieces, tho brilliant individually, don't add up to the type of cohesive whole I prefer. There is just something missing in the aesthetic flow of the park as a whole that I wish was there. To me, it's almost like there is too much there and because of that I find it harder to appreciate the individual bits of brilliance that could have been showcased better. Having cookies are great and finding some little feature that makes you smile at the creativity of the parkmaker is great, but I also like to see the parkmaker show off a little and direct my eyes to the features of the park.

    That is not a criticism, so much as just a personal taste. I like to see some space in a park to frame what is truly beautiful and brilliant, rather than it being crammed in. It's certainly a frame of mind I grew into as a parkmaker when I was still active, but something that, as I come back and look at new work, I find myself more and more longing to see in the current style I see being released.

    I hope that makes sense.
    posted 12 years ago
  • Phatage%s's Photo
    United States Phatage Offline
    It makes sense to me, and if anything sheds light on something I felt when first viewing this park but couldn't articulate. It is the lack of flow and continuity that still prevents this from being one of the 'all time great' parks and that all boils down to a lack of a clear, main path helping guide visitors to seeing the park. There aren't clear path layouts to this park; there are areas in a circle around a lake and each individual area is finely detailed and all that, but with exception to the beach area with the mega-lite and the larger parts of the woodie, it's all just sprawled over the map. It does take after great old LL parks that were similar in this, but there have been parks built since which are much more advanced in park layout.

    Taking a look at some overviews of other parks where I didn't share the same opinions as most other people, I think this is a common theme that sets good and great parks apart for me. The sprawling thing, as with all things really, is fine in moderation but it shouldn't be the majority of the park. This park layout thing is something that can't really be critiqued from seeing screenshots or sending the park out to testers at 95% completion, so it really does have to be dealt with in the planning stages.

    So I feel pretty much the same way that Toon does. Not exactly sure it's for the same exact reasons but it was fun to look at and had a nice, light (in tone, not immersion), and fun atmosphere. But it's hard for me to actually go into this park and explore because of it's lack of direction.
    posted 12 years ago
  • Toon%s's Photo
    Canada Toon Offline
    I think we're on the same page Phatage. After reading your post as well, I think it comes down to something fairly simple. I want the park to lead me through itself, and that is the responsibility of the parkmaker. When I think back at the wonder of looking at new parks, I think the ones that were most effective for me were the ones that I looked through as tho I was visiting them myself. Some parks just forced me to do that, it wasn't by choice, I just was captivated by them in a broader sense and one element led to the next so seamlessly that I just followed the paths and enjoyed the experience. With this park as with most of the others I've looked at in the last couple of days, I find myself jumping around the parks always finding something good to look at, but not really following the paths and immersing myself in the park. I feel more like a spectator to the chaos than a participant in the experience.

    This park was exceptional, don't get me wrong, but when I think about what it would have been if it had achieved that flow and revealed itself to me more fluently, I think of a park that would have been without parallel in RCT2. I hope that J K creates another park because he has the talent to create something that could far surpass even Dreamport.
    posted 12 years ago
  • posix%s's Photo
    Germany posix Offline

    I find myself jumping around the parks always finding something good to look at, but not really following the paths and immersing myself in the park. I feel more like a spectator to the chaos than a participant in the experience.

    While I thought Dreamport was strikingly good, it's relieving to see how fellow older members seem to have similar problems with today's parkmaking ideal, which reminds me of a funny quote by RRP when RCT2 was still little accepted at NE.

    Rct2 is like a race/contest to see how much crap you can pile into a screen and still have it look remotely good.

    I think this statement still holds true to this day to certain extent, and in fact in recent times this trend of detailism which I think grew out of Dump-Place screens by Sey, Robbie, K0NG and co. over the past two years is something I look at with a great deal of concern. I think it wastes people's ability to play as they can't but barely produce screens of ridiculously detailed shopping arcade facades. The few people who actually have this hardcore motivation to finish projects applying this "style", then produce works that, like Toon and Phatage, I can't really immerse myself in, as there is just this amassment of stylistic indicators without cohesion or an all-encompassing composition. There's no macro, just micro. The goal today is accuracy through intricacy. I wish it would excite me more.
    posted 12 years ago
  • highroll3r%s's Photo
    United Kingdom highroll3r Offline
    after viewing this again i agree with johns vote. while the ideas and theming was top notch, i think it lacked some depth in places. mainly the enterance area archy. dont get me wrong, its an amazing park but i just think johns vote is correct after all.

    fantasy v realistic. combine the both. the dive needed catwalks imo. ;)
    posted 12 years ago
  • Toon%s's Photo
    Canada Toon Offline
    I love this quote Posix.

    There's no macro, just micro.


    However, I'm not sure it's just us old codgers who have that problem with today's parkmaking. To illustrate I'm going to the matchup in H2H in 2009 between Parc Asterix and Spiderman. I think those two parks actually represent a distinct matchup of the very issue under discussion. Spiderman was packed with ideas and they were very well executed, but there was a lot crammed into the park. Asterix on the other hand, had some great ideas, but gave some space for them to stand out a little more. Asterix was more about the macro, Spiderman was more about the micro. The part that surprised me was the Asterix won quite handily. Perhaps the people looking at parks these days do know that there is something missing, but just don't know what exactly.
    posted 12 years ago
  • J K%s's Photo
    United Kingdom J K Offline
    Ah it's nice to see this brought up again. I completely agree with everyone with the point that it is overcrowded to so much detail that it doesn't allow a certain flow. The ideas are superior to everything I've ever done but the planning in the initial stages let the real feel of a park suffer. I'm still incredibly proud of the park but in all honesty I was scared I wouldn't finish it if I made the map bigger. I think if I ever decide to do a third solo it will be much bigger but with more room for landscape and small details that build the area as a whole not just concentrate on the 'micro' as Posix put it so well.

    I've been gaining a lot of inspiration from my travels and a lot of places have gotten me ready to begin the lengthly process that is another solo. I just need to find the inspiration now as I feel very, very rusty.

    Thanks for the comments guys, I'm sure my next solo will better Dreamport for sure.
    posted 12 years ago