H2H8 / H2H8 Round 3 Match 1 - Heaven's Gallery vs. Team Spacecrab

Heaven's brand has been a tad formulaic. Perhaps starting with Ruishi, then containing all of Atlas' parks, and all the Gallery parks so far, there's been a pretty simple pattern: pick a relatable, atmospheric setting and add roller coasters. 

Granted, other teams have done this too. It's arguably the reason behind the success of DS4 and Forgotten Mekong. It's just the way Heaven's brand continuously approaches this concept makes it feel like a kind of trademark.

 

I think "atmospheric setting with roller coasters" added is so broad that you can hardly call it a formula. I think the parks you mentioned are indeed also examples of this supposed 'formula', as well as Wit's End. You also conveniently leave out the parks that do not follow this formula. Feira do Flamengo, Calico Canyon, Asteroid Fields, ColorFlood and Atlantean Ark if you want to go that far back. There's definitely some recurring qualities in the Heaven's parks but it's more in the background than 'atmospheric settings with roller coasters'. The Heaven's brand perhaps is more about what kind of parks we DON'T build. That may be what sets us apart, not the atmospheric parks with roller coasters that you can find on any team.

Wit's End was not a very relatable setting, and it had more than just roller coasters added, which confused the concept. 

Asteroid Fields is exactly the formula I'm talking about, but taken in a riskier direction. It's a sci-fi space setting plus roller coasters. Feira and Calico still fit the general formula even though they're realistic parks, and the formulaic normal is more rooted in semi-realism, because they're set in places both a bit unlikely for a real park, and with a rich setting, although they do feel a bit different than the others. I specifically picked out Lijiang alone from HK, because I don't think the formula had really been established back then. Le Reve, Corsair, Colorflood, and Atlantean Ark were all very different, took huge risks, and made HK one of, if not the single, most memorable H2H team ever.

Formulaic is not bad. It's a very winning strategy and it obviously works quite well. The only issue I really have with it is that I've been missing a "wow" factor because of how safe it is.

@Six Frags: (Edited in because I missed your comment) It's not that the concept is the same as another, it's that it follows a similar pattern. Pick a interesting, familiar setting (time and place) and add theme park elements. You did that in a clearly unique way, made an astounding park with tons of atmosphere, and won the match and my vote, so don't take this the wrong way.

Do you guys mean Lijiang? I don't know if you could count Pac's non-H2H design as a Heaven's Franchise creation.

Do you guys mean Lijiang? I don't know if you could count Pac's non-H2H design as a Heaven's Franchise creation.

Whoops, gunna go edit that now. 

I think there is definitely some sort of formula, just like there is for other styles and approaches to building.

When it comes to building parks with multiple builders, is far easier to say "hey let's build this real life place" than it is to build an idea or concept that is only theoretical or doesn't actually exist in physical form in real life. It also avoids IPs or some ideas which might only appeal to certain people.

If you build pagodas everyone recognizes and can form some sort of connection with them, same thing with asteroids or Classical Rome. Everyone knows what those are and has probably seem them referenced a lot in everyday life for their entire life.

People are probably far less likely to connect with a park based around Shrooms, or a specific style of amusement park, or even a specific pop culture icon.

A few Heaven's parks have definitely stepped outside of that mold, and many many non Heaven's parks have entered it... But at this point it definitely seems to be the most successful H2H approach there is.

I get your point ITM, but I still don't see how that's a Heaven's formula. If I approach it with your assumption, then let's say for example Forgotten Mekong 'stole' the 'Heaven's formula', as it also used an

interesting, familiar setting (time and place) and add theme park elements

. As well as almost every other park, because it's a rollercoaster building game and we create things we saw in real life (because that's our frame of reference).

 

Also, it's not like Liam said, 'you have to build like this or it won't be a Heaven's park'. Well, he advised what concepts he didn't want to see actually, now that I think about it .. Hmm, you might be on to something now that I'm typing this! Haha

Yeah I wish Liam's teams would stop building beautiful, atmospheric parks with great rollercoasters in them, god I hate that. 

I get your point ITM, but I still don't see how that's a Heaven's formula. If I approach it with your assumption, then let's say for example Forgotten Mekong 'stole' the 'Heaven's formula', as it also used an . As well as almost every other park, because it's a rollercoaster building game and we create things we saw in real life (because that's our frame of reference).
 
Also, it's not like Liam said, 'you have to build like this or it won't be a Heaven's park'. Well, he advised what concepts he didn't want to see actually, now that I think about it .. Hmm, you might be on to something now that I'm typing this! Haha

Just because it's not explicitly stated as a Heavens strategy doesn't mean the majority of the parks don't fit that description.

All three parks so far this season have (though Flamingo less so) as did almost all the teams parks the last few seasons. Doesn't mean it's a bad thing... Just means that that's the prominent approach many of the members have happened to take. Just as many members outside of Heaven's team have happened to take because that's usually how people build, because it's just easier to do so that way.

I'm still astonished Forum wasn't built by Liam I was 100% certain. Well done to the builders of both parks, it really could've gone either way for me.

 

I owe Wilnkelheim a review:

I loved the park idea and that you took a big (and positive) risk in focusing a park around a cool trick. Many others would've said 'this is H2H it isn't enough, we need to add lots of extra content'. Of course there were plenty of storytelling details but I'm glad you didn't see the need to overload the map with rides or anything. Like any illusion it's also fun to work out how it was pulled off and this aspect should also be considered a feature.

It was a really close match though and I enjoyed exploring Forum Caeleste slightly more. Maybe my RCT tastes are more conservative than I would like to think. Great to see a risk here regardless.

*future detailed review here*

I would love to hear some thoughts from Tolsimir on this. Anyone know of his whereabouts?

He's probably enjoying spring in Winkelheim right now, helping Jakob plow the field.

It's coming, but I need to find time for it!

Who did the readme? Very impressive!

Who did the readme? Very impressive!

 

That would be our fearless King Crab. He's our resident readme expert. 

 

Tols is going to get down into the nitty-gritty on how this park was conceived and built, but I figured I'd document my experience working on this park.

I basically did a lot of the bitchwork on this park, including the thousands of black walls and tiles, and making sure that the park was cleaned up from all the copying. There were tons of supports to hide, and given the height of the four copied maps over the original, it wasn't easy to navigate around. you'll also notice that when viewed on the unintended angle of viewing, some of the seasons have what amounts to random land blocks everywhere. This was to make it match with the bottom level. When you view from a particular angle, you are seeing a combination of both the original bottom map and the upper map (which I think is the reason this park is so computationally intensive). I also rebuilt the coaster 4 times, as it ended up being easier than trying to save it as a .td6 and place it in the correct spot. 

I think my biggest contribution to this park however, was the peepability, which for my standards was pretty terrible. Navigating the tile inspector and trying to make the paths properly connected was an absolute nightmare, mostly because the land tiles were so far below the actual path height. I think this is why there were so few peeps in autumn; iirc most of the paths were above the original map, and that made it really difficult to click on the proper tiles and connect the paths.

This park is the reason why I reached out to Broxzier after the park was submitted for the ability to click on an object in the tile inspector and select the proper tile and object on the tile. This capability has now been merged into OpenRCT2, so you can use it, just ctrl-click on an object when the tile inspector is open.

Regardless of how painful some of the work was, I was happy to do it. I believe I was the first person to actually see the full effect of turning the view and having the season change with all the black walls in place, and it was magical. It was great working with Tols and Faas on this, and I'm really happy with the end result even if we didn't get the win. 

Props to the HG builders for putting out a great park!

I figured you guys just raised the land and just lowered it before the release. I guess it was way too high for that?

I had the same job building Asteriod Fields with Tolsimir, he’s not a fan of doing dirty work. Cool you got to work with that crew, great park you guys put together.

I actually did raise the land for the outer corners of each season, but the inner quarter of each was over the top of the original map, which coincidentally was where the most paths needed to be connected. I couldn’t raise the land there because it would mess up the original map (which is visible in all of the seasons), so it was the hard way or not at all. But really it was so much fun to build on it and try to figure out all these things.

Haven't reviewed either park except for loose comments here and there. There's a few things I have to say, I'll try to keep it short.

A Year in Winkelheim
This was a park that Tolsimir proposed in H2H7, and that was in development for a while. Never resulted in work getting done on a savegame, but we brainstormed for a while and all contributed ideas and it was part of the season schedule, until it wasn't (scheduling issues I think). Leading up to H2H8 I was talking to Tolsimir about how we should try to get that park going again. I was going to pick him second in the draft until ][ took him - brilliant move. I requested Tolsimir to keep the Heaven's Atlas secrets to himself... He's definitely the owner of the idea and it's his right to use it in this contest, I just think it would've been more sportsmanlike if it wasn't against my team. So when I discovered this as trav forwarded us the submissions on Monday, I was appalled. the draft trick was fair and funny, but this was taking it too far. I even saw some of my own conceptual contributions being used against me!

Luckily these feelings largely evaporated in a few days, even before the match went up and our park started to slowly win (which admittedly also helped to make me come to terms with it). I still think it would've been great if Spacecrab didn't put this park against us, but there's no hard feelings towards anyone. I'm glad to see this park and this great idea being realised, it was disappointing that we couldn't make it work three years ago. And guys, you did a great job! While I agree that the coaster was lacking, you knocked it out of the park with the little details. The kites (both of them!), the library books, the 4d coaster as a plough, the pile of snow... There are so many brilliant little ideas in this park. It's not just the overall concept that's highly creative, it's also the execution on a micro level, the object usage. Speaking of the overall concept, I think the long readme added a lot and the story of the timeloop was a great addition. Oh, I love the onion domes on the church. Plaza in front looks great too especially in the winter.

Are we supposed to solve the mystery of the stolen paintings btw? I deconstructed half the map and at some point found what could be a painting hidden somewhere in the village. Did I see that right?

Would've been happy to vote for this park in almost any matchup. Again, no hard feelings.

Forum Caeleste
LOVE the concept, wish I could've built on it. On the other hand you guys were totally fine without me. It's the most complete Sulakke park ever, and Six Frags going from rusty to better than he's ever been in no time. Lots of beautiful settings, lots of super cool little details. The central area with the steps and all the trees is my favourite in all it's simplicity. Glad you guys kept that open. I wish the corner with the water rides got a little more love, I think it's a brilliant mess. The ships were executed masterfully, but maybe they're hidden a bit too much. I like it this way, anyway. Great job guys. :) My favourite park from our team so far and one of my favourites from the contest overall. Also the best Alpha Legends park ever in RCT2 at least. ;)




This was a good match.

Winkleheim - the idea of changing seasons as you rotate is fantastic. Love the concept and appreciated the creativity of the narrative, and also the time and ingenuity it took to get it to work as well as you guys did. Kudos.

In terms of actual content, this is where the park falls short for me. So many little things that are really cool, sure, and they are there to push this 10-page long readme of a narrative and story that I didn’t care for. What was actually built? A really poor coaster layout repeated four times. Architecture was middle of the road, and I didn’t care for the atmosphere. While I appreciated the unique ideas and ingenuity of the concept, I was completely underwhelmed when exploring the park. The content didn’t back up the greatness of the idea for me. 65%

Forum Caeleste was really beautifully constructed with great atmosphere throughout, thought it did feel very one-note. The atmosphere was some of the best this season though. The concept wasn’t as interesting as I think I would’ve liked, but the execution was great. Coasters were realistic and achieved what you intended to, but as such, they weren’t that exciting to look at. I love the new textures at play here and the color palette is great. Some areas felt a little ambling in terms of composition and could’ve been tighter. The burning building was great, as were all the Roman details in the peeps. Overall it was “nice” and “enjoyable”, but didn’t jump out to me as anything new or innovative. 80%