Park / Disney's Glacier Cove Water Park
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01-July 20
- Views 9,440
- Downloads 659
- Fans 19
- Comments 47
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84.50%(required: 70%) Gold
geewhzz 100% yes Camcorder22 90% yes CedarPoint6 90% yes bigshootergill 85% no CoasterCreator9 85% yes G Force 85% no robbie92 85% no WhosLeon 85% yes csw 80% no RWE 80% no saxman1089 80% yes Scoop 80% yes 84.50% 58.33% -
19 fans Fans of this park
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I love csw.
I agree with G Force in that the content seemed a bit low and at first didn't think it was Spotlight worthy because of that. However, the further I looked the more content I found, so I think that argument may be invalid. Sure, much of that content is in the form of slides or hotel/backstage, but is that no different than many of the more recent spotlights that hone in on a particular theme? I'd argue that this park has more content that parks of similar sizes like Luna Park Adelaide and Seaquarium. You just have to explore further to find it.
Had the chance to look at this myself finally and agree with the comment by nin above. There's a lot going on in such a small plot and arguably as much as some of the recent spotlights. Regardless of the final score I really enjoyed this park more than most I've had the chance to look at so will be revisiting for some ideas, whether that's breaking the grid system or just the general arch going on.
Paticularly fond of the hidden Mickey's, a lovely touch that I think really pushes forward a strong case for this being more than what initially meets the eye. Well done once again SRF!
SRF, I'll echo what others have said: the power of this park was the way it held your attention, making you curious to explore and see. I could immerse myself easily, and actively wanted to. This made for a very unique and enjoyable atmosphere that's always been rare, and today even rarer. Thank you for this wonderful release.
Really loved this release SRF. Certainly was Spotlight in my eyes, because of the sense of care taken in its creation and the quality of the work executed as a result of that. It managed to be immediately referential to Blizzard Beach while still innovating and providing new ideas that would really be so amazing in real life.
Personally, I felt this park had more than enough content, but moreover, I don't think a 'lack of content' should be a limiting factor for a spotlight. A great painting is great no matter the size, so to say it doesn't have enough content seems to suggest that it needed more to be good. I think a moderate amount of perfectly executed content is perfect, and part of what makes this such a successful and relatable release.
Congrats on an incredible park and getting spotlight. I feel like this will become a standard for many NE parks moving forward.
Hi all, pulling over from the discord:
First, I want to say thank you for all of the kind words on Glacier Cove and for the NE Parkmaker title. Something like Cove has been on my mind for years, and having the skills to make it a reality was a rewarding process. I took some time to compose thoughts about all this. It was a real doozy to get together. I can honestly say I’m thrilled it’s complete, and now I can move on to other shenanigans.
For some context I’ll start with the process:
The first save file for the map is from 2018. From what I remember, I worked on it for 3 or so days and built the hotel, some of the perimeter roads, and a park entrance for what was then called Winter Summerland Water Park, directly riffing off of the mini golf course at the Walt Disney World resort. For whatever reason, I became busy/disinterested/etc. and left RCT to focus on some other life things. Every once in a while, especially once I got OpenRCT2 up and running, I opened the park and just looked at what I had, but no progress really happened until this year in early May according to my save files. During some other doodles I had worked on the curved path tracitecture and finally started seeing things fall into place. Inspiration hit and off I went. I deleted the old entrance area, and this started a 5-6 week marathon of building that ended with the park you see now in mid to late June. The readme was a final flourish, just to add the context of the surrounding area. With a test thanks to Liampie, and a round of touch ups, Cove was submitted, and here we are!
To answer some questions that I’ve seen pop up:
The end of Triple Diamond Drop and the area surrounding was actually one of the first areas that plopped into place on the map. It’s long tube finale was something that I struggled with, but due to the lazy river turn radius, proximity to the Paradise Pier Hotel and knowing the wave pool was going to need space, I had to do something. Looking at similar slides like the Ko'okiri Body Plunge at Volcano Bay, and Leap of Faith at the Atlantis Resorts, I noticed their long straight sections of tube after the main drop, as well as a splash pool at the end instead of the trough splashdown as seen on Summit Plummet at Blizzard Beach. I found myself entranced with the pipeline imagery and went with it.
Overall, the slides proved to be the most interesting part of this, which I guess makes sense for a waterpark. There was a lot of discovery with working waterslides which led to an entire map of ideas that has now gone unused. I’m sure it’ll pop up someday in other parks, as there are some interesting hacking things that just needed more space than the constraints of Cove had to offer.
The surrounding roads were also a challenge, as the landscaping around the Downtown Disney Parking area currently does leave something to be desired. Instead of reworking this, I attempted to lean into it instead of shy away from it, as new additions like Cars Land, Pandora: The World of Avatar, and Volcano Bay all take a very sparse approach to their surrounding areas beyond what’s in the park. However, this leads into the catch for a mountain park in Anaheim, the sightlines looking out over the surrounding area. I had thought of making the park inside of a caldera of sorts, but I felt that that ruled out the believability of a piece like this as I cannot even imagine the logistics for that amount of rock work. So I decided the central mountain with views of Southern California was just something my skiers, tubers, and snowboarders were going to have to deal with, a case only validated by the sightlines from many tall slides at Volcano Bay, Blizzard Beach, and Typhoon Lagoon.
The Paradise Pier Hotel… yeah. It’s something, but I felt it was important to include it and the additional parking structure on the map to better root what I was attempting to do here. Backstage areas were also a challenge, as I scoured over Google Maps to try and figure out what was going on backstage at the theme parks, so I’m thankful that the effort I put in paid off. Foliage has never been my strong suit, but who knows, maybe next round I’ll get it a little better.
In the end, I think there’s very little that I would change about this map. I’m sure if I scrapped it all and started over, there’s some things that I’d rediscover and decide to include, but I’m very proud of what’s here. I’m honored to be in the company of other high percentage gold parks like Six Flags World of Discovery, Geauga Ocean City, etc. etc. etc. I highly respect these parks and take great inspiration from looking back at them over and over again. I’m thrilled to join their ranks.
I think I’ll be heading back into hiatus again after this one. Doing these 5-6 week projects every few years is all you’re gonna be getting out of me.
Thank you again to everyone, and happy parkmaking!
Hope you'll stick around a bit! I thought this release was phenomenal.
I personally enjoyed this quite a lot, as I've got a lot of background with Disney and how they operate their water facilities/backstage. You've absolutely nailed it, and I really appreciate how much research you put into this. It shows!
Excellent work
Josh
Great write up sir! Really appreciate hearing a builder's thought process with making a park.
I agree with Josh, hope we see you around the community going forward and maybe in the next H2H.. you definitely have a knack for RCT.
Amazing release, pretty much the best waterpark here on NE so a bit of a shame this didn't win spot. Composition is great, with a big mountain with the tubes on, wave pool in front and a big lazy river around that all.
Love how you did the tubes and made them fit so will into the theme. I also thought the execution of the chairlift was great. Overall very lovely piece of work, if it were real I'd visit it.