The author wishes there was more of a storyline to the game. Which is absolutely fine as it’s their preference.
But it made me think of how Minecraft has almost no story (well, something was added later but it’s optional to follow it) and perhaps that contributed to its major success.
Decent sandbox games don’t need stories if the mechanics are satisfying enough and games like Sawyer’s Tycoons and Minecraft are evidence of that.
Sometimes it’s nice to just unwind by playing a game with little to no pressure. You pick it up and drop it at your leisure. The only downside is they can turn into huge time sinks as they don’t have a clear “The End” to them.
SnowProblem · 28m ago
Yeah, the author wants a story saying there wasn't enough continuity between scenarios or motivation to continue, but that was a non-issue for me personally. It's been many, many years, but my memory is that while RCT didn't have a completely open sandbox like TT to boot, each scenario was effectively its own sandbox with restrictions that made them interesting. New rides became available you progressed, and each park enabled creativity in different ways. When you finished all of the scenarios, I believe there was a completely open sandbox that became available, and that was like a nice reward. There really was no need for a story, and I think that would have detracted.
bpierre · 13m ago
Somewhat relevant: I’ve been following the developer of Car Park Capital on twitter [1], a “retro tycoon game” in their own words. Yesterday, the current MicroProse [2] announced they would publish it.
Loved playing this game as a kid, Open Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 has been great for some recent replays: https://openrct2.io
antithesizer · 34m ago
Thank you for this
ravenstine · 48m ago
Man, I can still remember the magic I felt when first discovering that game on my cousin's laptop in 1999. Such a simple game yet allowed enough creativity for an 10 year old boy to be imaginative.
There does come a point where there isn't much else to do with the game once you get good enough at it, so I started having fun doing "experiments". One of the things I did in RCT was build "prisons" where I leveraged things like the carousel to work as a one-way door into the park to allow guests to come in but prevent them from leaving; it lead to a barren cement building with a turbo drop coaster designed to be intentionally dangerous so I could "execute" prisoners. There was puke everywhere after a while. What a disturbing mind I had.
krogenx · 36m ago
Similar things come to my mind with The Sims. Once the game was “over” (maybe you’ve reached the top job) you could still do all sorts of things… Some of them a bit masochistic.
reactordev · 43m ago
MicroProse games in the 90s were next level. So many milsim games where you got to experience a crude 90s graphics recreation of being a service member shooting bogies.
I never could complete a mission of F-117A Steal Fighter on Mac System 9.
However, RCT was a “Minecraft” of its day without the support of the community. It was huge. Everyone was playing it. I wish modding was a thing back then. We would have gone crazy but then when you read how RCT was made - glad we didn’t have to do it.
RUnconcerned · 37m ago
I'm not sure RCT ever had a modding community, but it's predecessor, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, did. TTDPatch[0] had several gameplay and quality of life improvements, but it was eventually superseded by OpenTTD[1].
But it made me think of how Minecraft has almost no story (well, something was added later but it’s optional to follow it) and perhaps that contributed to its major success.
Decent sandbox games don’t need stories if the mechanics are satisfying enough and games like Sawyer’s Tycoons and Minecraft are evidence of that.
Sometimes it’s nice to just unwind by playing a game with little to no pressure. You pick it up and drop it at your leisure. The only downside is they can turn into huge time sinks as they don’t have a clear “The End” to them.
[1] https://x.com/hilkojj/status/1950872926385037339
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroProse#Brand_revival_(2018...
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
[2] (I'm the dev)
There does come a point where there isn't much else to do with the game once you get good enough at it, so I started having fun doing "experiments". One of the things I did in RCT was build "prisons" where I leveraged things like the carousel to work as a one-way door into the park to allow guests to come in but prevent them from leaving; it lead to a barren cement building with a turbo drop coaster designed to be intentionally dangerous so I could "execute" prisoners. There was puke everywhere after a while. What a disturbing mind I had.
I never could complete a mission of F-117A Steal Fighter on Mac System 9.
However, RCT was a “Minecraft” of its day without the support of the community. It was huge. Everyone was playing it. I wish modding was a thing back then. We would have gone crazy but then when you read how RCT was made - glad we didn’t have to do it.
[0] https://www.ttdpatch.net/
[1] https://www.openttd.org/
https://dmitri.shuralyov.com/temp/6K/OpenTTD.png (25.6 MB)
RollerCoaster Tycoon was the last of its kind [video] (242 points, 7 months ago)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42346463