RCT Discussion / Original 'Go-To' Parks

Bringing this over from the NE Discord:

 

What were your original 'go-to' parks when you first joined NE?  Like what did you always come back to when you were just starting out or what maps were you trying your hardest to copy?  

 

 

Rivers of Babylon was my gold standard as I was getting involved in NE.  Just the perfect park at the time.  And really it still holds up just about as well.  I can still look and be impressed.

https://www.nedesign...ers-of-babylon/

 

Xophe's Merry Christmas park spurred me to build my own Christmas park, but his Billerica Bay was what really impressed me.  Although the launched B&M was a pretty obvious rip from ROB, it was still the park I tried to base a lot of my work from.

https://www.nedesign.../billerica-bay/

https://www.nedesign...erry-christmas/

 

X250 and I were friends and ended up over here around the same time as I recall.  His Pagoda Paradise was one of the rct2.com Road Rally parks and I kind of idolized that level of detail at the time.

https://www.nedesign...agoda-paradise/

 

rwadams was another rct2.com guy, but his South Beach Amusement Park was huge and introduced me to art deco architecture in-game.  The rides never held up super well for me, but I always liked the atmosphere and the architecture.

https://www.nedesign...amusement-park/

 

Premier Amusement Park really got me going with the American style huge realistic parks.  The architecture is lacking these days, but some of the coasters are still looking really solid.

https://www.nedesign...sement-park-v2/

 

Another of the top level realistic parks of the time, Phatage's SFWOE was absolutely fantastic.  The hacks got me interested in what could be done beyond the vanilla game, like with the Intamin 1st gen drop tower or the Schwarzkopf using the lattice track.

https://www.nedesign...-of-excitement/

 

This last one I don't recall the builder, so please add in below if you know.  This was earlier than most as I recall but it was super charming, had pretty decent layouts, and some nice architecture.  It doesn't hold up super well, but I still get waves of nostalgia when I view it.

 Worlds Of Adventure.SV6 (1.96MB)
downloads: 155

 

 

I'm sure I have plenty of others, but I've gotta stop somewhere.  So what were your parks of choice as you were just starting out here at NE?

I was mostly taken by the big macro-focused designs when I first discovered NE because I had already sort of seen the megapark approach

Volcanic Advent, Coyote Runner. Slick logos and not just a sea of spaghetti track or ratings gaming but a very conscientious focus on making a single ride that had enough presence and storytelling to fill an entire map. That felt more like what I knew and liked about irl parks and turned the corner for me from RCT as a fun little hot dog stand simulator into a creative tool for making experiences.

cosign to Rivers of Babylon and South Beach, the later was probably one of the first parks I ever downloaded.

 

Others that come to mind that I was really inspired by and would look at a lot when I was first starting:

-Emergo's Acropolis Revisited & China Charms (Road Rally parks)

-Turtle's Isole Calabria

-Corkscrewed's Tierre Mortica

-Phatage's Busch Gardens Sydney

-JK's Cape Congo

Anything and everything Adam Malawista related..

Same with stuff from JKay and Phatage

I'll back Premier Amusement Park and Tierre Mortica, I spent a lot of time in those at various stages in my rct career. Especially Premier I somehow found before NE so was just overwhelmed by its scope and style, even if its aged not so well. I spent a fuckton of time trying to find the secret at the end of the adventure in tierre mortica, only to find a dead URL at the end of the quest . Wish I knew what that was! A few more of my own:

 

The Masterpiece by x250 was a huge one for me that really shaped how I viewed full scale parks for a long time. I remember thinking to myself that if I just spent 15 minutes per tile I could end up with an equally good park- its funny how much that assumption doesn't make sense to me now! I was obsessed with the semi-fantastical scale and diversity of themes here, even if at the time and unbeknownst to me it was perceived as maybe a bit of a rip-off of the usual NE style. 

 

Rocky Mountain Mystique by JKay hit me a bit later in my parkmaking career, when I had a bit of a better understanding of what park composition meant. the atmosphere always stunned me, as well as his boldness to do stuff like the ghost train on the mine train and the really tall and crazy buildings. The park is absolutely packed with details too, I always find something new whenever I view it.

 

disney's discovery island by natelox again a bit later in my career I found this, and really made the LL aesthetic click for me for some reason. The deep, brooding atmosphere still resonates with me in a way thats hard to describe and that I haven't seen done as well since.

 

disneysea by highball is this a surprise to anyone? lol. this park gets hated on a bit but I always loved the atmosphere and was quickly obsessed with the "disneysea layout" which lasts to today. I still check this park out sometimes when I need some inspiration for my many iterations of disneysea parks...

 

mont st michel written about it before, just such a good park. I used to be obsessed with the archy and how they did the windows and steep roofs

 

djinn by jk as well as his design ilmenite at the similar time. I really loved the serious, detail-oriented but highly atmospheric designs here. came at a pivotal time in my parkmaking career in terms of moving towards this sort of style.

 

if i think of more I'll add them

I probably looked at The Escapist Experience (shoulda been a spotlight) and Silver Valley Theme Park 100s of times when building Capricorn Coast, so those two. Still do pore over them every once in a while. 

 

Electric Park by zburns999 also heavily informed my NCSO approach. 

Nice topic.

 

I remember loving KumbaMaster's Avalon a lot, yet I didn't take too much inspiration from it.

 

There were some early works by Sanctuary and Blind Guardian that I thought were impressive, and which I emulated for a week or so when first knowing about NE. Some traces of that exist in the park I did with Benni "Kelaxis Globe".

 

I think I'd even say that early me took a lot inspiration from UIX for it's oh so mimicable 2x2 ism architecture. I was also very impressed with x-sector's version of it, and the deep semi-realism that reigned at the site then.

 

Later of course everything by schuessler and SA became my thing.