Ask the Experts / Parkmakers Anonymous

Okay, so this kinda started when I asked on Discord for a tutorial on how to plan areas. The end result was that it might be better to do this in the forum so people can find it easily, since there are probably great tips in here. The idea of this thread is to ask players how they do certain things in RCT and have them explain their process. Obviously you should provide screens of what exactly you'd like to have explained.

 

 Seaquarium Curaçao 2019-04-13 18-33-59.png (1.57MB)
downloads: 80

 

So as someone who can't plan areas at all it would be interesting for me to read how Liam planned this area. It has several large structures, a lot of path, etc and has basically no buffer zone. I usually end up getting frustrated when trying to build something similar.

That's a great screen man

Ideally, I'd include images with this, but I don't have a ton of time at the moment. An area like this looks like it starts with the landscape, which informs some path choices. You're going to want waterfront paths all the way around in a nice, tropical, exotic area like this, so you lay out those paths. That leaves a wide swatch of land in the center, which needs something to fill it. It'd be acceptable to have a ride, nicely landscaped garden, something a little more untamed, or an open plaza for peeps, as Liam did. I would assume that the larger structures came first, at least in some general layout/macro sense, which informed how the other buildings and structures would wrap around and compose the rest of the area.

I like this topic, I ask myself the same question, how?

My Ten Thoughts on RCT Parkmaking
1. See what you want to build before
2. Do not build conveniently
3. Start with the main visual
4. Build with gesture
5. Subtlety is best
6. Interrupt the big forms, just a bit
7. The motifs must work
8. Coasters or the main visual should stand out in color
9. Try building while intoxicated
10.

I wish I could explain what I do but I think that would kill the whole point of, well, me doing it. In my head, the thing I have always wanted most was this tenuous thing called "atmosphere". The sort of dense, mysterious, emotional thing that makes you feel like a kid getting lost somewhere magical again. In life, either in theme parks or in the real world, occasionally you find a glimpse of something that sparks that in your brain- maybe its the way a bridge goes over a path, or the way some foliage hangs on a small balcony, or a scene from a movie. Doesn't really matter what it is, just find that thing. Then I've been playing rct long enough that I sort of just know how to best transcribe that down into rct. It took me 15 years to get to be able to do that, and still every time its never how I wanted it to look. I'm happy with parks like mekong now, in retrospect, but in my head beforehand it was even better and I'm always disappointed in some sense because the reality can't match that feeling exactly. But eventually it rounds itself out and grows a new life and feeling of its own and thats perfect.

 

I can't say how liam built that but I can feel such a strong presence of an intentional atmosphere there he was trying to get, and I imagine that was important to informing all the forms. Some are taken from real life- the aquarium he actually may have visited or seen pics from, and others from rct experience (eg walls against the sea studded with palm trees- thats a vibe maker)