Industry veteran David Braben takes us onboard for one hell of a ride...

The Roller Coaster Tycoon series has gone from strength to strength with the franchise selling over 7 million copies of the game. The premise of the game is simple, to create and experience the ultimate amusement park. With such a user-friendly directive for the player, one that is both compelling and inspirational – adding fresh ideas is always the central focus for the inspiration man and creator Chris Sawyer. Surprisingly Frontier development, the team headed by David ‘Elite’ Braben, will be responsible for this already great looking title. Derek dela Fuente spoke with the man at the helm to find out what the task set will be.

Chris Sawyer will still be involved with RCT3 in an advisory role, but it appears through past interaction the whole team is instilled with the same mind-set that created the brand. Frontier indeed has worked with Chris on and off since 1988. It was Chris who started off doing the conversion of the Braben game Virus to the PC, and went on to do ‘Elite+’ and ‘Frontier’. Similarly the team has done work on Rollercoaster Tycoon for Xbox, and later the add-on packs for RCT2, but this product David mentioned was something slightly different. The task presented was quite constrained and the spec was pretty much set in stone. This time around the creative juices are flowing in the Cambridge studio, as the team and David are great fans of the original games. Throughout the whole of the development they will be keeping Chris up to date with the latest versions of the new game, and he is giving detailed feedback. Ultimately the proof is in the end result.

The first topic for discussion with David was the important 3D transformation, and how it would effect gameplay seeing it was such a completely whole new focus and feel for the game.

“The move to 3D has entailed reworking the entire game, but in the process we have used the opportunity to put in a great deal of extra detail. For example, each stall now has a salesperson in it; you can choose options on food (for example) like offering chilli on a burger or whatever (and you might like to place a lemonade stall next door!).”

“The move to 3D has also greatly improved the ‘Peeps’ in the parks. Rather than them all being the same, they are now all different, with their own personalities. Different age groups have different tastes – teenagers may prefer extreme coasters while kiddies may like rides shaped like ‘teacups’. This means the player has to cater for the different groups – or may choose to specialise in one group only – advertising to the local teenagers, say.”

“The move to 3D has also brought with it new features like dynamic lighting, and a full day/night cycle. Families will tend to come into the parks in the daytime, with teenagers and adults in the evenings.”

“Of course a major benefit is being able to ride the rides yourself. This really brings the coasters alive!”

It does not need much imagination to conjure up the experience that will be offered.

Being able to customise the guests, walk around your 3-D park, and become the ultimate Roller Coaster Tycoon is great in itself and having complete control over the 3D camera views: viewing the park from the sky or experience the action at ground level is almost God like.

It is when you are riding the rides and feeling the visceral experience of riding the coasters that you design from the front seat that the game really kicks in but so many elements make up this great experience. The diversity of the characters/ park guests bring the hustle and bustle of the park to life with their changing facial expressions and hundreds of animations including running, jumping and dancing.

Technology is high in the pecking order of the game as David went on to speak.

“Our 3D engine is continuously evolving. It has recently been used (in a slightly earlier form) in ‘Wallace and Gromit in Project Zoo’ with Aardman and in ‘Dog’s Life’ with Sony.”

“It is very powerful, and is for example capable of rendering many thousands of different people on screen at the same time – each with their own facial expressions and animations. It does many fancy lighting effects, like reflective water and real-time lighting and shadowing, but is also very scalable on machine performance – working well on the RCT3 minimum spec of a 733 Mhz Pentium 4 with a 32Mb ‘T&L’ hardware card – like a Radeon or Geforce 2 or better.”

Innovations come in many guises and bigger and better could be the first way to describe RCT3.

“Yes, the park guests now do a lot more than they did before. They go around in groups (not just family groups, but teenage groups, etc.) and respond to the park in more detailed ways – noticing theming, watching rides, not getting lost!”

“They also can be seen ‘riding the rides’. On extreme twists and bends of the coasters the more timid will grasp the restraints with all their effort. Others will cover their eyes, while the bolder ones will hold their arms up in the air.”

Getting the right look and feel, creating the right atmosphere and not gilding the lily too much must be taken into consideration. The team has used many reference sources to create the experience and David added that there are many reference parks here in the UK, so sharp eyed gamers may spot some familiar landmarks! They have also been in touch with John Wardley, the coaster designer, and have kept their noses close to the ground looking out for new coaster designs, most of which will be included in RCT3.

The interface for the game has been worked on and improved and the feedback from the fans has been a great help to the team as some interesting nuggets of information were divulged finishing with the default and themes of the game.

“Yes – we have tried to respond to all the various criticisms of the previous Rollercoaster games. There is also the much-requested time control.”

“Yes – park staff now can be trained, and as there are far more options available in the game, there is also a good deal more to be researched.”

“We now offer a ‘sandbox’ mode from the start, as we realise that some people simply want to play around and build the best park they can. Alternatively there will be 18 pre-defined scenarios, each with three difficulty levels.”

“We’ve tried to make the initial themes quite broad and complementary. The themes are: ‘Standard’ (ie un-themed), ‘Spooky’, ‘Western’, ‘Space’, ‘Adventure’. All rides will have un-themed versions, and where appropriate many will have themed versions too. We have also extended the theming beyond just the scenery and rides. It now includes everything from entrances and exits to building sets, to staff uniforms.”

With at least 6 months before completion RCT3 is looking to be the definitive game of the series so far but would we expect less?