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7-> ''Experience the challenge and pulse-pounding excitement of creating the ultimate amusement park! Design, construct, demolish, test and tinker with your creation. You'll encounter the effects of bad weather, or guests that get lost and complain about lack of restaurants. You'll build roller coasters that prove to be a hazard for your guests! Running an amusement park is all fun and games, and when you get it right...it's sweet success!''
8
9''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon'' is a simulation strategy computer game series that simulates theme park management and roller coaster design. The first two games were developed by Creator/MicroProse and Chris Sawyer and published by [[Creator/{{Hasbro}} Hasbro Interactive]] and later Infogrames (today Creator/{{Atari}} SA), and they were widely praised for their originality and success in simulating a theme park. The roller coaster designer was a popular feature and was praised for its high attention to detail, with many real types of coaster available, and allowing very elaborate coasters to be built.
10
11The third game, which made the VideoGame3DLeap, was developed by Creator/FrontierDevelopments, who later went on the create the spiritual successor ''VideoGame/PlanetCoaster''. The most recent main game, titled ''World'', is developed by Nvizzio Creations for [[Platform/MicrosoftWindows Windows]] and [[Platform/{{UNIX}} Linux]].
12
13The original game was ported to Platform/{{Xbox}} in 2004, and ended up being mostly the same, though its controls were largely unsuited for a gamepad. A port of the original version for [=iOS=] and Android devices was planned for release in early 2013. It was put on hold when Atari filed for bankruptcy, but was ultimately UnCanceled with the release of ''Classic'' in December 2016. The first two games (in deluxe versions with all expansions) are also available on Platform/{{Steam}} and Website/GOGDotCom, and an UpdatedRerelease version of the third game is now available on Steam and the Platform/EpicGamesStore after having been unavailable for some time due to a licensing dispute. An iOS port of ''[=RCT3=]'', without the implementation of the expansion packs, can be found on the App Store.
14
15Fans of ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' can play on the thriving open source implementation ''[[https://openrct2.org/ OpenRCT2]]'', which includes new features and online multiplayer.
16
17!!The principal games in the ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon'' series are:
18* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon'' (1999)
19** ''Corkscrew Follies'' (a.k.a. ''Added Attractions'') (1999)
20** ''Loopy Landscapes'' (2000)
21*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon: Gold'' (a.k.a. ''Totally [=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon'') (2002): Includes original game and both expansions
22*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon: Deluxe'' (2003): Includes original game and both expansions with fan-made designs for the different customizable rides
23* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 2'' (2002)
24** ''Wacky Worlds'' (2003)
25*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 2: Combo Park Pack'' (2003): Includes original game and ''Wacky Worlds'' expansion
26** ''Time Twister'' (2003)
27*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 2: Triple Thrill Pack'' (a.k.a. ''Totally [=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 2'' (2004): Includes original game and both expansions
28* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 3'' (2004)
29** ''Soaked!'' (2005)
30*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 3: Gold'' (2005): Includes original game and ''Soaked!'' expansion plus additional custom billboards and stalls from the ''Wild!'' expansion
31** ''Wild!'' (2005)
32*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 3: Platinum'' (a.k.a. ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 3: Deluxe Edition'') (2006): Includes original game and both expansions
33*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 3: Gold Edition'' (2009): Includes original game and ''Wild!'' expansion. Exclusive to European territories
34*** ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 3: Complete Edition '' (2020): Includes original game and expansions, also includes widescreen enhancements and modern hardware compatibilities.
35* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon [[Platform/{{Nintendo 3DS}} 3D]]'' (2012)
36* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 4 Mobile'' (2014)
37* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon World'' (2016)
38* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon Classic'' (2016): An UpdatedRerelease of ''[=RCT=]'' with both of its expansion packs and ''[=RCT2=]'' for mobile devices, with the [=RCT2=] expansion packs, a track/scenario editor and a function to import tracks and scenarios from the PC version of ''[=RCT2=]'' available as three separate in-app purchases. Later ported to Windows and [[Platform/AppleMacintosh macOS]] computers via Platform/{{Steam}} on September 28, 2017, with Steam Cloud support and all in-app purchase content included.
39* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon Touch'' (2016): A port of ''RCT World'' for mobile devices, but free-to-play like ''4 Mobile''. Was released for [=iOS=] first in 2016, then later received an Android release in 2017.
40* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon Adventures'' (2018): Originally a Platform/NintendoSwitch exclusive based on ''RCT World''/''Touch'', PC version released in 2019.
41* ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon Puzzle'', originally called ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon Story'' (2020): A mobile game for [=iOS=] and Android based around ''VideoGame/CandyCrush''-style gameplay.
42
43----
44!!This video game series provides examples of:
45
46* AcceptableBreaksFromReality: Because currency exchange rates are always changing and almost never turn out to be clean round numbers, the different currencies in ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon 2'' all have static and clean conversions by a factor of either 1, 10 or 100 depending on the currency.
47* AddedAlliterativeAppeal:
48** The titles of the expansion packs for the first and second game have alliterations.
49** A good deal of the scenarios have them, such as Forest Frontiers, Leafy Lake, and Dynamite Dunes.
50* AllDesertsHaveCacti: Most of the desert stages have a small batch of cacti somewhere. Possibly [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as in-universe examples since this is, quite literally, TheThemeParkVersion.
51* AmusementParkOfDoom: Fiasco Forest in ''Corkscrew Follies'' starts out with a fatal accident on a ride named ''Death Slide'' (unless you [[EasyLevelTrick pause the game right after entering the scenario]]), and marketing campaigns for the park are disabled, presumably due to its bad reputation. [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential You can also create your own]], and get an [[MedalOfDishonor "award"]] for it.
52** The [[MemeticMutation infamous]][[invoked]] MR BONES WILD RIDE is an example of a player-created one.
53* AnachronismStew:
54** Players can build an 1890s Side Friction Coaster and a 2000s Intamin Giga coaster in the same year, located directly next to each other.
55** In the ''Time Twister'' expansion pack for ''[=RCT2=]'', one scenario supposedly takes place during the time of Myth/RobinHood[[note]]''ca.'' 1270-''ca.'' 1350[[/note]]...in a park that has a ''golf course''[[note]]modern golf originated in 1457 and the earliest documented "mini golf" course dates back to 1912[[/note]] and a ''roller coaster with steel tracks''[[note]]the first documented steel coaster according to RCDB {Roller Coaster Database}, "Royal Scooter" at Lake Chautauqua Park, wouldn't open until 1885.[[/note]].
56* AndIMustScream: It's possible to "kill" a guest by deleting a pathway they're on while they're underground. They will fall down while the guest count just drops - with no penalty to the park rating whatsoever. The guests disappear after a while, but it's still terrifying to know their deaths are never recorded.
57** And then there's the infamous Mr. Bones Wild Ride...
58* {{Animesque}}: The artwork used for the menu screens in the third game has a notable anime influence to it, such as its extensive use of BlankWhiteEyes and SuperDeformed proportions on younger peeps.
59* {{Antepiece}}: Each of the first few scenarios of the first game introduce something that are very beginner friendly.
60** Forest Frontiers gives you a very small selection of rides to choose from so you're not too overwhelmed. It also shows you that you can place benches and lamps on the pathway.
61** Dynamite Dunes is slightly bigger, but shows the capability of a nicely pre-designed roller coaster that has underground segments along with how useful roller coasters can be.
62** Leafy Lake and Trinity Islands are empty parks that introduces the concept of water and building on water. They can also show risks of both building over water - including price and support limits. Through this, it also teaches players a lesson on using land space efficiently, which can subtly come in handy in parks such as Dinky Park.
63** Diamond Heights is the first park of the list that's already a fully established park. Along with the first park that's shown off when starting in the menu in the first game, it demonstrates the effectiveness of interlocking synchronized rides and moebius coasters. It also has a solid variety of rides and staff members, with the only thing it's really missing are some shops and stalls. It's also the first "park value" scenario, which is a different step up from the "x number of guests" goals, but the rides given to you are a good solid start.
64** Evergreen Gardens introduces giant empty parks. It introduces a very steep goal of having 1,000 guests in 4 years, which is the point where the game takes you off the training wheels and figure out how to manage a large park efficiently.
65** Bumbly Beach and Katie's World introduce you to roller coasters that are prone to crashing due to bad design, showing you to a mechanic that not only scares the crap out of you, but also shows you that crashes do happen and the consequences of them.
66** Katie's World is another example for a drastically different climate that has a huge effect: rain. While previous scenarios had rain, it would have been limited and over quickly, while Katie's World will make your previous big attractions like The Storm lose money quickly unless you keep Runaway Plumber - an entirely underground coaster - maintained. This will make you drastically consider climate in how you construct your parks in further scenarios.
67** ''[=RCT2=]'' has a few early scenarios with a high guest goal but a limited ride selection. Fungus Woods is the first of these, and teaches you really quickly how to raise the guest cap by building ''duplicate rides''. Compared to ''[=RCT1=]'' scenarios where you could get by placing one of every ride that was researched, Fungus Woods' ride selection won't raise the guest cap high enough and requires the placing of duplicates, something that will be very much needed for the harder Amity Airfield and Rainbow Summit parks.
68* AntiFrustrationFeatures:
69** ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' slightly changes how prebuilt track designs' footpaths are handled: ''[=RCT2=]'' paths will be replaced with ''[=RCT1=]'' ones if necessary (as mentioned in Developers' Foresight), and they can be overlaid over pre-existing footpaths without having to manually delete them.
70** ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' includes a bevy of quality of life features that make the game less tedious and time consuming. Fast forwarding time is possible, and there's also an option to win the scenario if the conditions are met early.
71* ArtificialBrilliance:
72** Guests in ''[=RCT2=]'' are capable of ''not'' getting lost while walking along a two-or-more-tile pathway, which is a huge improvement from their behaviour in ''[=RCT1=]'' (see the first example of ArtificialStupidity just below this trope).
73** Handymen in ''[=RCT3=]'' are more capable of keeping themselves occupied with cleaning paths than you can ever hope to be. Once a park is up and running, it is very rare to see handymen "Walking"—they will usually be "Sweeping footpath" and making a beeline for off-screen litter.
74* ArtificialStupidity:
75** In ''[=RCT1=]'', none of the guests are that smart. They really just walk down paths, and if they see an intersection, they will pick a direction at random. This will only change if they are incredibly hungry or thirsty, or if they have to go to the bathroom. Try building any non-queue path wider than a single tile; they ''will'' get lost while ''literally walking in circles'' on the pathway.
76** Guests in the first two games can only hold one food/drink item at a time. If they get thirsty while still eating their food, they will complain that they're thirsty, go to the nearest drink stall, state that they still haven't finished their food yet then go back to complaining about their thirstiness. You also have those guests who'll hit every food stall in their vicinity only to say "I still haven't finished my [food item] yet" at each and every one or who'll constantly go back at merchandise stalls just to say "I already have a [item]".
77** If any guest or staff member gets separated from a path either by being on a path that was deleted while they were still standing on it or being directly placed on a land tile with no footpath, they will wander around at complete random until they walk onto a new path.
78** If a guest has litter in their hands after eating/drinking a food or beverage, they will eventually just drop the food on the ground, even if there is a litter bin only a few steps away from them.
79** Handymen in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' may sometimes walk towards a cluster of vomit/litter/withered flowers/full trash cans, walk past the first vomit/litter/withered flowers/full trash can, turn around (and away from the cluster) and settle that item, then ''continue walking away from the cluster''.
80** Leaving the "Mow Grass" box checked on the handymen's task menu can cause them to only mow the grass, to the detriment of everything else, leaving paths covered in litter and vomit. That option was switched off - but still available - by default in the sequel.
81** It is possible to "trap" handymen in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' if they are walking along a long queue path and something comes up on an adjacent pathway near a deep end of the queue path—the handymen would then try to take the shortest route to the problem and stay within detection range of it simultaneously, resulting in them repeatedly walking along a short section of queue path, then turning around while still inside the queue path and walking back in the opposite direction, because the queue path's entrance is outside their detection range of the problem.
82** Staff in the first two games can sometimes drown ''on their own'' if their patrol area is set to adjacent, unconnected footpaths built above water.
83** Guest-driven boats in the "Boat Hire" ride in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' often get stuck on each other when trying to re-enter the station platform; only the canoes-type boats are able to reliably navigate around due to their thinness.
84** Guests will completely miss the point of transport rides and refuse to ride them because they "want to go on something more thrilling", even if it would otherwise help them reach their destination faster. Guests whose intensity preference isn't as high will still ride them and enjoy them, but the point being is that ''nobody'' will use them for the intent of getting around without spending energy. It's a ''bad'' idea to isolate areas of the park and make them accessible only via transport ride. The Elevator, in particular, is pretty useless as a result unless you build a staircase that connects both ends.
85*** Guests do view transport rides different in one respect: ANY guest will go on a transport ride if it has a ticket cost of 0. It is possible to isolate some areas of the park in this way, but the guest can still get angry about being lost and unable to find something if the transport ride is the only method of getting to the ride they want.
86** When dealing with rides that have multiple stations (and using the falling peep exploit), the mechanic called might not actually fix the ride and instead wander off in their patrol area.
87** Peeps in ''[=RCT3=]'' will often: a) leave the park if they do not see any rides when they first enter; and b) whoop whenever they get hit by a coaster.
88** Peeps have ''literally no clue'' how to solve mazes in ''[=RCT2=]'', simply [[AIRoulette taking a random turn at every intersection]]. As a result, a maze of any real length ends up being nigh-impossible for them to solve. Amusingly, there's also a flaw in their randomness that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVgoy_a_gWI results in the hardest possible maze being a mirror image of the easiest maze]].
89* ArtisticLicensePhysics: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3erIwgBKQBw According to this video]] from WebVideo/MarcelVos, roller coasters can exert massive G-forces upon riders, especially in terms of longitudinal G's (which aren't calculated by the game). The LIM Launched Coaster accelerates much faster than similar coasters do in real life, resulting in riders experiencing forces of over 70 G, which is enough to cause massive trauma to the whole body, all but guaranteeing death (for comparison, the fastest real-life launched coaster only reaches 3.3 G during launch). Then there's the Vertical Drop Coaster's holding brakes, which are able to ''instantly'' stop any coaster, no matter how fast it was going; this would result in a RealityBreakingParadox if it happened in real life.
90* AscendedMeme:
91** The infamous fan-made "Mr. Bones' Wild Ride" was eventually [[http://i.imgur.com/jxdVusg.jpg made an actual attraction]] in the mobile game.
92** The official RCT Facebook page didn't make any posts between April and December 2020. The first post after the hiatus claimed the people running the page had been stuck on Mr. Bones' Wild Ride.
93* AttractMode: In the form of a montage of the various scenarios in the game at the main menu. In ''[=RCT1=]'', the montage will also show some of the additional scenarios once you install the expansion packs. ''[=RCT2=]'''s montage revolves only around Six Flags Magic Mountain (Six Flags Belgium in the demo, now Walibi Belgium), while the montage in ''[=RCT3=]'' is a picture slideshow that will also feature any screenshots saved by the player through the use of a Photo Spot or On-Ride Photo Section. Originally, there was also going to be a video montage of the various scenarios, much like ''[=RCT1=]'', but due to hardware limitations, it was scrapped late in development. In Classic, the park featured is the BonusLevel Tycoon Park that is unlocked when you complete all of the other main scenarios.
94** In ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' you can create your own montage with the park(s) of your choice. The built-in presets include the sequences from the first two games (with the option to include or exclude the expansion packs from the ''[=RCT1=]'' sequence) as well as an ''[=OpenRCT2=]''-exclusive one featuring custom parks.
95* AutoPilotTutorial: The first two games have tutorials in this format, which can be interrupted by the player but cannot be restarted once interrupted other than by going back to the main menu:
96** In ''[=RCT1=]'' the tutorial builds a Merry-Go-Round and a Steel Mini Roller Coaster in Forest Frontiers; interrupting the tutorial right before it exits back to the main menu can actually give you a nice head start in that scenario.
97** ''[=RCT2=]'': There are three tutorials using the "Build Your Own Six Flags" park --a "beginners" tutorial that builds a Merry-Go-Round, a "custom rides" tutorial that builds a Vintage Cars ride and decorates it with scenery, and a "roller coasters" tutorial that builds a Wooden Roller Coaster. The ''[=RCT2=]'' tutorials were removed in ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' due to the input system they used (recorded keystrokes, mouse movements and clicks) being incompatible with the infinite resolutions and flexible UI available.
98** ''[=RCT3=]'' abandons these in favor of tutorials that told you which buttons to click and grayed out the buttons it didn't want you to click.
99* AwesomeButImpractical:
100** Enormous queue lines. While it may look awesome to know how big of a demand a ride has, guests will start thinking "I've been queueing for [ride name] for ages" once the queue time for the ride approaches 9 minutes, and their happiness will steadily drop until they ultimately abandon the queue. Queue [=TVs=] can be placed along the queue path, scenery can be placed beside the queue path, and Entertainers can be assigned to walk along the queue length to mitigate this problem, but only to a limited extent—neither can stop your guests from leaving a ride queue after they have waited in line for more than 11 minutes. In fact, a long line may not always be a sign of a popular ride; it could be a sign that it's running inefficiently due to low capacity, especially compared to [[BoringButPractical a high capacity ride with a short line]].
101** Many of the inverted or more extreme coasters can be this, due to having more and more complicated track elements but having high nausea and intensity ratings that may drive guests away.
102** Long Splash Boats track designs. Even if they have phenomenal Excitement ratings on par with some of the best and/or largest roller coaster designs, the splash boats themselves travel ''really'' slowly along level track and inch up lift hills at full load. Be prepared for an onslaught of "I want to get off [ride name]" thoughts from the guests riding such track designs.
103** Similarly, while a complex and well designed mini-golf course may look nice and boast moderate Excitement, anything that runs even more than only a few (around three or four) holes will send guests in an "I want to get off [ride name]" frenzy much like the Splash Boats- which is even more likely to happen if the guests' golfing skills are not good enough to get them through a course quickly (usually not).
104** One of the starting scenarios in ''[=RCT1=]'', Evergreen Gardens, demonstrates this in terms of park layout. It's an ''enormous'' park with lots of beautiful scenery, but its size can contribute to guests getting lost on a regular basis. The trick is to cut off a few paths (No Entry banners won't work on staff) to areas deeper in the park at the start, and slowly restore them as the park grows.
105** Building a roller coaster with an excitement rating of 10.00 or higher. While it is impressive to see any ride reach this high excitement rating, building such a ride is also extremely expensive. Said ride also doesn't give as much park value as two coasters that cost half as much to build, due to diminishing returns from investing more and more money on a ride.
106** While it might seem like a good idea to have many drops and inversions in your coaster designs, having too much of everything can push your coaster's intensity rating over 10. This will drive nearly all guests away from riding it as well as lowering the coaster's excitement rating. If you can't lower the coaster's intensity rating by removing drops and inversions, you may have to redesign the entire coaster.
107* BeingWatched: Watch a patron for about ten minutes, and they'll start to think this.
108-->''I have the strangest feeling someone is watching me!''
109* BoringButPractical:
110** Flat rides are not as exciting to have in the park as tracked rides, nor do they make as much of a profit, but they're comparatively cheap to build and can easily offset both their construction and running costs with their modest profits. In addition, due to their predefined size, they are more versatile in terms of placement. They're a necessity in any park, be it building up funds to invest in larger rides, or maintaining the bottom line while said larger rides bring in the big bucks. In fact, Gravity Garden's omission of flat rides is what makes this particular scenario so challenging, leaving the expensive roller coasters as the player's only option for attracting guests, and thus, earning money from admissions.
111** Sure, you can [[{{Whoring}} build the Shuttle Loop, Go-Kart tracks, or Magic Carpet rides a bajillion times]] to draw loads and loads of guests due to the sheer number of rides in your park, but it isn't that much fun.
112** Any ride with a roof can be a godsend in the rain, even the rides that struggle with excitement ratings, like the Merry-Go-Round, Haunted House, and Circus. It's possible to get the same effect by building track rides underground, but that's more difficult to accomplish, and it doesn't always work with every ride type (Go-Karts get an excitement ''penalty'' for indoor tracks).
113** In scenarios with large pre-existing structures, selling off the scenery can start the player with a lot of cash.
114** The most ideal maze design isn't anything elaborate at all, but a direct path from the entrance to the exit.
115** Small coasters may not be as flashy as large coasters, but every tracked ride attracts the same number of guests regardless of size. Therefore, it is better to build several small coasters instead of a single large one, as that'll attract more guests overall. This strategy doesn't work in scenarios with "Harder guest generation", however.
116* CaptainObvious:
117** Drowning guests think, "Help! I'm drowning!"
118** Tired guests think, "I'm tired."
119** Nauseous guests think, "I feel sick."
120* CamelCase: The series is stylized as ''[=RollerCoaster=] Tycoon''.
121* CheatersNeverProsper: Although putting a "No Entry" sign at the park exits will stop you from losing guests, your Park Rating will start dropping since guests who want to leave the park "cannot find the park exit", and since each guest in your park will eventually want to leave, the drop becomes more and more drastic the longer you keep those signs up. This starts a vicious cycle since the reduced Park Rating results in even ''more'' guests wanting to leave the park, while at the same time reducing the number of guests wanting to pay a visit.[[note]]The way how guests are handled in the game is that usually when a guest leaves, another guest will spawn and arrive at your park to replace them, assuming your ratings are stable. Preventing guests from leaving does next to nothing to help you maintain your guest count, and essentially removes a source of revenue for your park, in addition to constantly sapping away your park rating.[[/note]] Most park objectives require a certain amount of guests by a certain deadline, or a certain amount of guests, period, both of which require a steady park rating (either a minimum of 600 by the deadline, or the park's rating cannot dip below 700 for more than one month lest the park be forced to shut down), so it seems that the developers anticipated this kind of move, or at least wanted the player to at least ''try'' to treat the goal of making a good amusement park seriously without too much VideogameCrueltyPotential.
122* ClownCarBase: There's no limit on how many guests can be in a Restroom or First Aid Room at any time. This can lead to [[http://imgur.com/RA31Slp funny situations]].
123* TheColoredCross: While the original run of the game used a red cross for its first aid building, one of the few changes made for ''Complete Edition'' was to recolor said cross to green.
124* CommunityThreateningConstruction: The scenario description for Stone Age in [=Time Twister=] states "To thwart the highway developers and preserve the mysterious ancient stone circles, you will need to construct a Stone Age theme park and turn a profit."
125* TheComputerIsALyingBastard:
126** The original game gives us the Hurricane, a Suspended Swinging Coaster in Ivory Towers that inexplicably increases in Intensity and Nausea ratings from the low end of the Very High scale to the high end of the same scale shortly after the start of the scenario.
127** At the opposite end is High Flyer, a pre-built Suspended Swinging Coaster in the ''[=RCT3=]'' scenario Vanilla Hills. It has ratings in the mid-5s at the very beginning of the scenario, but the ratings are halved shortly afterwards, unless you enable the Low Friction option.
128** The pre-installed Flying Coaster track designs in ''[=RCT3=]'' are also shown with nearly ''double'' their actual ratings while selecting a saved track design. This can be rectified by making the entire design non-inverting.
129** Sometimes, it will say a ride broke down in ''Classic'', but it still operates as if nothing happened.
130* CoversAlwaysLie: Unlike the park on the cover of the original game, you cannot build entire areas on a diagonal, as all games take place on a grid. Only coasters and transport rides with extra wide turns can move on the diagonal, and require a lot of clearance on the grid system for them to fit.
131* CrappyCarnival:
132** Ivory Towers starts out heavily vandalized with paths littered with vomit and trash. However, its predesigned rides are well made (the high-nausea Hurricane notwithstanding).
133** Rotting Heights begins as a decrepit park that has fallen from grace. It's up to you to restore it to its former glory.
134** Fiasco Forest is a dangerous park filled with poorly designed and even deadly rides.
135** The Money Pit is covered in litter and vomit, has a roller coaster with pieces missing, and every flat ride is broken down.
136** Zoo Rescue is made to look run down, and has animals in poor health and inhumanely small enclosures.
137** And of course, you can build one of your very own if you're so inclined.
138* CreatorCameo: Chris Sawyer appears on the back of the first game’s box.
139* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: {{Subver|sion}}ted with a number of gentle rides, such as the Monster Trucks, Double-Deck Observation Tower, and Flying Saucers (in particular the Flower Power variant). These rides have a high base excitement rating, so with clever use of scenery objects, ride length/time and ride placement, among other less notable factors, these rides can match ''roller coasters'' in terms of their excitement rating. Unfortunately, boosting a gentle ride to such a level not only demands a considerable amount of overhead due to the additional costs in landscaping and scenery placement, but also typically requires the ride to have a really long ride time, which limits its guest throughput and effectively counters whatever happiness or satisfaction guests will gain from riding the ride. The boosts also do not affect the gentle ride's intensity rating as much, so guests who prefer rides with high intensity will still not ride it.
140* DamnYouMuscleMemory:
141** Several coaster types that had Powered Launch and/or Reverse-Incline Launch modes in ''[=RCT1=]'' either lack them in ''[=RCT2=]'' and ''Classic'' or work in a different way. The worst offender is the Steel/Looping Roller Coaster, whose Powered Launch mode lets the train go backwards through the station in ''[=RCT2=]'' when it didn't in ''[=RCT1=]''. Many found out when they built a shuttle loop and saw the train overshoot the station on the return trip and crash. Fortunately, ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' allows both types of Powered Launch on every coaster that can do them and brings back the Reverse-Incline Launch mode on coasters that had it in ''[=RCT1=]''.
142** If you're used to playing the expanded version of ''[=RCT1=]'', you will likely have it ingrained in your mind that you can scroll windows by holding down the right mouse button and dragging. [[note]](The game doesn't support scroll wheels as it was released a little before they became heavily commonplace.)[[/note]] If you ever end up going back to playing the original game with no expansions, prepare to agonize over the fact that you have to scroll windows using the traditional buttons and scrollbar.
143** ''[=RCT1=]'' had the close/test/open ride modes activated by separate "traffic lights" buttons. ''[=RCT2=]'' changed that to a single "flag" button which opens a dropdown menu with the close/test/open options. Cue players who just switched from ''[=RCT1=]'' to ''[=RCT2=]'' seeing a roller coaster about to crash and instinctively double-clicking the flag to reset the ride (selecting "close ride" when the ride is already closed removes the trains, which can be used as an "emergency stop" of sorts), only for the ride to cycle between open and closed as the coaster crashes and kills a few dozen guests. Thankfully, ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' can switch between both styles of buttons.
144* DependingOnTheWriter:
145** The "Spinner" ride from Megaworld Park has a drastically different appearance based on the game you play, because of the fact that the Steel Mini Roller Coaster's Spinning Cars don't exist outside of ''[=RCT1=]''. Importing the scenario into ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' changes it into a Mini Roller Coaster that uses Spinning Wild Mouse cars.
146** Terror Town is completely devoid of any rides in ''[=RCT1=]'', but it has some trams (that can be easily demolished for some money) in ''Classic''.
147** Whiplash from Fiasco Forest in ''[=RCT1=]'' is a Steel Mini Roller Coaster. In ''Classic'', it is a Wild Mouse Roller Coaster instead.
148* DerelictGraveyard:
149** Rotting Heights from ''Corkscrew Follies'' is essentially a garbage dump in its current state, with broken down rides and paths.
150** Renovation from ''Wacky Worlds'' puts the player in charge of a European-themed amusement park that is largely filled with overgrown trees, drab scenery objects, rides that need to be fixed and even a roller coaster that is ''literally'' broken down.
151* DevelopersForesight:
152** Most of the non-mechanical, non-electric rides in the first two games never break down and don't require maintenance by the mechanics. There are a few exceptions though, such as the Spiral Slide.
153** In ''[=OpenRCT2=]'', if a player wishes to place a prebuilt track from ''[=RCT2=]'' in an ''[=RCT1=]'' scenario, ''[=RCT2=]'' footpaths will be replaced with their ''[=RCT1=]'' counterparts.
154* DifficultButAwesome:
155** Coaster types that give higher base excitement ratings versus their intensity and nausea ratings are often more complex and/or expensive to correctly build versus their BoringButPractical counterparts. Examples include the Vertical Roller Coaster, with its high support limits and vertical drops offset by the need to manage high vertical Gs, Steel Twister Roller Coaster, with its expansive set of special track pieces and high cost per track piece, and the Air-Powered Roller Coaster, with its extremely high launch speeds and tall vertical hills limited by its low carrying capacity and inherently high negative vertical Gs at the top of every hill. Designed properly, these coasters can easily have Very High excitement ratings with the intensity and nausea ratings only going up to Very High at the most, but usually cost tens of thousands of dollars to build.
156** Wooden and Corkscrew Roller Coaster designs in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' with high excitement ratings tend to have even higher intensity ratings, which may drive guests away. This is {{downplayed|trope}} with the former in ''[=RCT2=]'' due to tweaks in the game's code.
157** ''[=RCT2=]'' introduced the block brake track piece for several roller coaster types, as well as a new "continuous circuit block-sectioned" mode. While the use of block brakes will result in a lower excitement rating since the coaster's cars/trains will have their speed cut when they travel over any block brake piece, resulting in a lower average ride speed, a well-designed track that uses block brakes in conjunction with block-sectioned mode will never experience the "brakes failure" breakdown, while at the same time being able to carry many more guests than a ride that does not use them.
158* EarlyGameHell: '''And how'''. When starting most scenarios, you're typically given $10,000 to start up a park (or maintain it) while building new rides and roller coasters. The first part of most scenarios generally focus on trying to make enough money so you can build more rides, and if you're not savvy enough (or rely on borrowing too much money instead of money earned from profits), you can get in a lot of debt and trouble. Building a decent roller coaster is tough enough when you're limited in cash, restricting you a bit at first.
159* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
160** ''[=RCT1=]'' had many odd features that weren't present in the Expansion packs:
161*** The Steel Mini Roller Coaster did not have banked curves. Those were added in ''Loopy Landscapes''.
162*** Most scenarios in the original and in ''Corkscrew Follies'' didn't have all of the ride upgrade features. ''Loopy Landscapes'' has all of the ride upgrades.
163*** Music was only limited to the Merry-Go-Round and the Bumper Cars, and even they could only play their exclusive themes. In the expansion packs and later games, the Bumper Cars theme could be played on any ride, but the Merry-Go-Round kept its exclusive medley of themes.
164*** In the base ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''Corkscrew Follies'' scenarios, you could charge an admission fee for both park entry ''and'' the rides. Taken to its logical extreme, some guests could be made broke right after entering the park! The ''Loopy Landscapes'' scenarios allowed only charging for rides, while all scenarios in ''[=RCT2=]'' allow charging for either park entry or rides, but never both at once. ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' adds back the option to charge admission for both and enables it in scenarios imported from ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''Corkscrew Follies''.
165** The first game had weird ride names such as Whoa Belly and Scrambled Eggs. The second game gave them more realistic names—the former was renamed Launched Freefall (and applied for the Reverse Freefall Coaster as well), and the latter was renamed Twist.
166** In ''[=RCT1=]'', some of the paint options for terrain surfaces (roofs) and edges (colored walls, skyscraper walls) can be used to give the impression that a piece of raised land is a building. This plays into the game's mechanics dictating at anything built underground is sheltered, which affects guest behaviour whenever it rains. These paint options were changed into scenery pieces in ''[=RCT2=]'', giving the player more flexibility when it comes to their placement, but also replacing the underground perks with scenery perks instead, which are considerably different. ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' can add back the terrain paint options if an ''[=RCT1=]'' install is linked.
167** ''Loopy Landscapes'' added a feature to ''[=RCT1=]'' that allows for paths to be matched with different sets of automatic support structures when they are built above ground level. This feature is not present in later games.
168* EasterEgg:
169** Most games in the series have [[https://rct.wiki/wiki/Cheats_and_Quirks a set of cheat codes]] that trigger when they are set as a guest name; said codes are the names of the developers or significant individuals within the theme park community, and changes the named guest's behaviour, often to reflect something about the actual individual in real life.
170** Clicking on swimming or flying ducks will make them quack. In the third game, there is a chance that a duck will lose all its feathers each time it is clicked.
171** Clicking on floating balloons will make them pop. In ''[=RCT3=]'', they can also be popped while peeps hold them, [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential scaring the pants off of them]].
172** In ''[=RCT3=]'', one of the randomly generated comments that VIP Clint Bushton makes while signing autographs is, [[UsefulNotes/BillClinton "Your name is Monica...?!!"]]
173** In the far off corner of Haunted Harbor, there's some land for sale that spells out "CS".
174* AnEntrepreneurIsYou: Somewhat of an example; you run and manage a theme park, which is not a business but can be run like one. You can buy rides, stalls, and other things; sell them; change the prices for rides, sold items, and the park itself; and more.
175* EvolvingTitleScreen: In ''[=RCT1=]'', installing the two expansion packs will update the title screen with new sequences featuring the added scenarios. The same occurs for ''[=RCT3=]'', although the sequences will showcase features that were added to the game.
176* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin:
177** Dinky Park is the first scenario which requires players to work with limited space. Tiny Towers is similar, but requires players to complete the unfinished coaster tracks, presumably making them tall in the process. Micro Park takes this to its LogicalExtreme.
178** Fiasco Forest is an AmusementParkOfDoom that's bound to collapse upon itself if the player doesn't intervene in time.
179** Rotting Heights is an AbandonedPlayground with decaying rides (including an incomplete coaster), littered and disjointed paths, and a bleak landscape.
180** The Money Pit is a very expensive park to renovate.
181* ExcusePlot: Scenarios included with an installation of any game are this, all of them having a description that sets up the situation in a park. Most of the easy scenarios have a description that can be summed up as "here's a nice piece of empty land to build a park on", while harder scenarios are often described in greater depth (e.g. "You are helping Aboriginal people to build a park as part of a cultural awareness program"). Beyond this initial description, however, there is nothing to stop you from developing the park the way you see fit.
182* ExpansionPack:
183** ''[=RCT1=]'''s packs added many unique attractions, theming categories, scenarios (including the first "money doesn't matter" scenario, Arid Heights), and {{invoked|trope}} an EvolvingTitleScreen.
184** ''[=RCT2=]'''s packs were purely aesthetic add-ons; all the new rides were just reskins of existing ones, and the new scenarios, while featuring new themes, were essentially the same as the base ''[=RCT2=]'' scenarios in terms of gameplay.
185** ''[=RCT3=]'''s packs added entirely new park types (water parks in ''Soaked'' and zoos in ''Wild'').
186** Fans have also made their own for ''[[https://web.archive.org/web/20080112070126/http://www.rct2uces.com:80/index2.html RCT2]]'' and ''[[http://neton.rct-net.de/index.php RCT3]]''.
187* ExpansionPackPast: ''Time Twister'', literally. And future too.
188* FakeDifficulty:
189** Guests often overestimate their tolerance for nausea-inducing rides, and offering barf bags is not an option. They ''will'' throw up on your nice clean paths once they exit. You can provide benches for them to sit down and try to recover (which rarely helps much as guests will start walking/not use benches if they are only slightly sick, but still sick enough to have the capacity to puke) and First Aid stations in the sequel, but still, no barf bags.
190** Employees will ignore "No Entry" signs, so if you start out with a huge, empty park and use these signs to keep guests within the part you're developing, you can expect your employees to go AWOL a lot if you don't set up patrol areas. (Or simply remove a piece of path at the entrance to the off-limits area.) And you'd better not give your handyman orders to mow the grass unless you want him to do absolutely nothing else for the rest of his career.
191** A Station Brakes Failure can happen at any time and usually cause disasters, which will make a roller coaster's popularity and your park rating plummet (and in the first game, outright ''preventing it from functioning altogether'').
192** The first two games severely limit what the player can do while the game is paused (the player can rename things and tweak the theming of a ride, and that's about it). This doesn't sound so bad until you realize that designing a custom coaster layout involves a ''lot'' of trial and error, especially if you want it to make use of the topography. Every second spent tweaking this or that segment of a new coaster is a second the player can't focus on other pressing issues or plunk your handyman down next to the vomit that's been piling up. ''[=RCT3=]'' is the first game in the series that allows the player to do almost any kind of construction or terraforming even when paused.
193** The landscape in scenarios with no money. Once you can get past a few mental blocks, you can flatten the park (unless you're not allowed to), making Icicle World's and Lucky Lake's big hurdles (horribly uneven terrain) a non issue.
194** The excitement rating of a Go-Kart track will ''decrease'' if it is built underground.
195** The sequel prevents you from charging for both park and ride entry, which can result in many guests not paying a cent when they leave, or never leaving the park after paying the entrance fee, leaving ''many'' potential profits unfulfilled.
196* FanRemake: ''[[https://openrct2.org/ OpenRCT2]]'' is an open-source remake of ''[=RCT2=]'', with one of the biggest draws being the inclusion of online multiplayer co-op play. When linked to an install of ''[=RCT1=]'', it can also function as a near-perfect remake of ''[=RCT1=]''.
197* FreeRotatingCamera: This is one of the main perks of the third game. The camera's "Advanced" mode is this trope in its entirety, having virtually no restrictions on how the player can view the park apart from a tiny above-the-ground altitude requirement.
198* GameBreakingBug:
199** ''[=RCT1=]'' required patching to function on Windows computers with the released of Vista.
200** Some newer PC have trouble playing ''[=RCT3=]'' judging from the Steam user reviews, where the game either crashes so often or having mouse issues related to high DPI settings. The rest had no issues.
201* GameMod:
202** It's buggy and cumbersome with the first installment. Thankfully, ''[=RCT2=]'' and ''[=RCT3=]'' made things easier, although modders still need special third-party programs to make their own mods. ''[=RCT3=]'', in particular, is a testament of how a game's longevity can be enhanced by making the modding (and mod installation) process easy enough for players, with several websites focusing primarily on mods for the game well over a decade after its initial release.
203** There are also people who have created "custom rides" you can install. No, not custom coasters; custom ''flat rides'' with new animation and everything. There was a major limit to what they could do with this, because they all had to be based on -- and thus use the same stats and capacity as -- an existing ride, but the results could still be pretty creative.
204* GameplayAndStoryIntegration:
205** Fiasco Forest has advertising disabled likely because no amount of advertising could save the park's bad reputation.
206** When it rains, guests are willing to fork over a lot more money for an umbrella because they don’t want to get wet. Likewise, guests will ignore their intensity preferences on indoor rides so they can get out of the rain.
207* GimmickLevel: Gentle Glen has guests that prefer less intense rides, while Adrenaline Heights has guests that prefer rides with high intensity. These are the only scenarios where you have to cater to their tastes.
208* GrayIsUseless: ''[=RCT3=]'' grays out pieces that can't be used in the track editor, and in the tutorial, inaccessible menu options.
209* HolidayMode: The third game's menu plays horror-themed music on Halloween.
210* IFellForHours: You can delete pathways that guests are on top of (or even make them fall down from a highly elevated exit), which will cause them to fall ''really'' slowly onto the next piece of path, or the terrain, below them. This especially applies if the guest is both exhausted and nauseous, in which case they fall ''even slower''.
211* InsurmountableWaistHighFence:
212** Every ride needs to have adjacent flat tiles to place an entrance and exit building that sticks ''outwards'' from the side of the station platform in order to connect to paths. Due to the game's isometric grid layout, it is possible to place down rides without being able to connect them properly. Said buildings also require additional height clearance, which can sometimes result in track/path pieces being unable to connect because of a few meters of clearance.
213** In ''[=RCT3=]'' the increasingly detailed terrain also means paths can be at microscopically different heights and not connect up properly, giving the irritating warning messages that 'guests cannot reach the entrance of Ride X', or 'mechanics cannot reach Ride Y, ensure it is connected to a path'.
214* AnInteriorDesignerIsYou: Although the first game only lets you design exteriors (this being the primary addition to ''Loopy Landscapes''), the second game introduces significantly more pieces that allow you to create buildings, dark rides, and other kinds of structures with interior decorations.
215* InUniverseGameClock:
216** The Garden Clock scenery object is tied to your computer's system clock. Look closely when you place it and you'll see it aligns based on the time on your computer.
217** The scenario calendar, however, runs on its own time, measuring in months from March to October with days in between. Each day per month takes about 13 seconds to change, so each month lasts about 6 minutes and 49 seconds and each whole year lasts about 54 minutes.
218* {{Irony}}:
219** The "forest" in Fiasco Forest is...a small cluster of trees ''inside'' the park. The land surrounding the park has absolutely no trees at all.
220** There are no towers in Tiny Towers, although it is possible they're referring to the five roller coasters (which usually tower in height) you have to build in such a tiny space.
221* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: To save on processing power, all peeps in the first two games look identical save for their shirt color (though they can have both male and female names). Starting in the third game, peeps are visually distinct in age and gender, and also have subtle randomization in their appearance.
222* {{Jerkass}}: Vandals[[note]]these are guests with extremely red faces in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]''[[/note]] will intentionally damage park property and whine about everything, lowering the park rating and causing guests to complain about the vandalism. Dealing with them involves either isolating them until they cool off or drowning them (and boost the rating).
223* KarmaMeter:
224** Making things difficult for your guests, or killing them in accidents, will cause your Park Rating to drop, which results in more guests leaving, fewer guests wanting to visit the park, and ultimately affecting your profits. Seemingly {{averted|trope}} in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' if guests drown or fall into the void.
225** {{Inverted|trope}} if a guest is a vandal or unhappy; offing them will ''boost'' your park's rating, which makes sense in a sadistic way ([[HappinessIsMandatory fewer unhappy guests = better reputation]]).
226* LavaIsBoilingKoolAid: Except for the boiling part. In the second game's scenario editor, there is a menu to choose between blue water, green water, acid water or orange water that is supposed to look like lava. Of course, in a theme park, [[TheThemeParkVersion everything is fake]].
227** There is also an official patch for the second game that added pink as a PaletteSwap colour for water, which also affected water in rides, such as the Log Flume or Splash Boats.
228* LaterInstallmentWeirdness:
229** The mountain tool in ''[=RCT1=]'' is only available in the Scenario Editor in ''[=RCT2=]''. ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' re-adds this feature to normal gameplay, while ''[=RCT3=]'' expands the original tool into a full landscaping suite that is available during scenario editing and normal gameplay.
230** The ability to build wall pieces on the same tile as a path was removed in ''[=RCT3=]'' despite it being standard in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]''. It is re-added into ''[=RCT3=]'' as a cheat code with the ''Soaked!'' expansion pack.
231* LettingTheAirOutOfTheBand: The music your rides play do this whenever they break down. Actually justified with the carousel, which is limited to playing a medley of classical music on an apparently built-in mechanical organ. On the other rides... not so much.
232** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTyOuTkyK0 The inverse applies sometimes for the Carousel]], with the music getting faster and higher-pitched.
233* LevelEditor: ''[=RCT2=]'' and ''[=RCT3=]'' have built-in scenario editors. Unofficial programs were available for ''[=RCT1=]'' to create custom scenarios, which were often built from and distributed as saved games to get around the limited number of scenario slots available; those require the Drexler patch to run, or the game will refuse to open the saves or scenarios on which they were used due to the "anti-cheat" code added by Chris Sawyer in his crusade against sandbox players.
234* LoadsAndLoadsOfLoading: ''[=RCT3=]'' suffers from massive loading times, especially with expansion packs and custom scenery installed. The more things you have in a park, the longer it will take to load.
235* LoopholeAbuse: In ''[=RCT3=]'', you only need to build an entrance and exit gantry for a tracked ride to work; [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential the ride's cars don't need to safely return.]]
236* LuckBasedMission: The penultimate scenario in ''Soaked!'', "Mountain Spring", requires a monthly ride income of $2,500 to get the Gold award. [[note]]the average scenario can be beaten with parks that pull in about $1,000 from rides[[/note]] Unfortunately the weather in the park is ''very'' rainy, and guests won't be as keen to ride the big roller coasters in the rain, so beating the scenario relies on getting lucky to have a relatively dry month so the income beats the target.
237* MadeOfExplodium: In the first two games, if two roller coaster trains collide with a combined speed of 48 km/h (30 mph), one of them (usually the faster of the two) will explode. If a car goes off the track, no matter how low the velocity or short the fall, it explodes. In ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'', [[VideogameCrueltyPotential this always kills the riders]]. Even something like a ''rubber raft'' for the Water Slide will go kaboom, and with cheats one can also achieve ''exploding guests'' on the Mini Golf!
238* MadeOfIron: In the third game, the peeps are invincible. They can and will survive falling from great heights, being flung from coasters, being ''hit'' by coasters, being ''blown up'' and treading water for ''hours''. All while smiling and cheering.
239** Guests in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' take no fall damage, so they can fall from an elevated ride exit onto a lower path or the terrain without any ill effect, other than the occasional message telling you there's no path to the ride exit.
240* MarathonLevel: Scenarios generally take around ''3 hours'' on average to complete in one sitting, and those where the objective is to build 10 roller coasters or have a high guest count tend to take more than that. ''[=RCT3=]'', ''Classic'', and ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' include fast-forward buttons to downplay this.
241** Nevermore Park in the first game is a good example. You have to build 10 different roller coaster types (actually 9, since one is in the park already) with a minimum length of ''4593 feet'' (or 1400 meters).
242** Parks where you have to net so many guests while maintaining the park rating tend to take a lot longer if money isn't an object due to being forbidden to advertise to speed up the guest process. The biggest example is Extreme Heights, where you have to get 4,500 guests in the park, which will take a really long time.
243** "Money isn't an object" scenarios also have the difficulty of being unable to speed up or control your research areas. This means you're locked into the "Normal funding" speed instead of being able to pull in new ride types faster, which can be annoying if you're looking for a certain type of ride to complete the scenario or want something with a higher guest cap than yet another Merry-Go-Round.
244** You can also make scenarios where it takes up to 15 years to complete the park.
245* MeaningfulName: Some parks have them. Fiasco Forest, for example, is a dangerous park built in the forest. The latter part of the name is actually non-indicative, as only the park itself has trees.
246* MedalOfDishonor: There are skull-and-crossbones awards for the "theme park with the lowest value", the "dirtiest theme park" and the "most dangerous theme park" (if you have too many roller coaster accidents). In fact, for all positive awards, a negative one exists.
247* MissionPackSequel: ''[=RCT2=]'' is often viewed as this to ''[=RCT1=]'' since it is visually similar and only makes a few improvements to the underlying game engine.
248* MoodWhiplash: Guests can have highly conflicting thoughts simultaneously. "Help! I'm drowning!" "This park is very clean and tidy."
249* NeverMyFault: Vandals will destroy property while often thinking "The vandalism here is really bad."
250* NoOSHACompliance: Some of the scenarios are trying to fix theme parks best described as "death traps." [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential You can also create your own.]]
251* NonIndicativeName: The "guests are more difficult to attract" option in scenario design might have been better named "guests strongly prefer long coasters" -- it severely {{nerf}}s the guest-attracting potential of everything else, but the attraction potential of coasters that meet the requirements is ''tripled'', so players who are building long, exciting coasters anyway will actually find guests much easier to attract.
252* NoobCave: The first scenario in each title[[note]]Forest Frontiers in the original, Arid Heights for ''Loopy Landscapes'', Electric Fields in ''[=RCT2=]'', Vanilla Hills in ''[=RCT3=]'', Captain Blackheart's Cove in ''Soaked!'' and Scrub Gardens in ''Wild!''[[/note]] provides the player with enough cash and attractions to get started, straightforward objectives, and a solid start on research.
253* NostalgiaLevel: Official ports of ''[=RCT1=]'' scenarios were downloadable on the ''[=RCT2=]'' website. ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' lets players load the scenarios directly from ''[=RCT1=]''[='=]s files if it detects them.
254* ObviousRulePatch: The "Harder Guest Generation" option lets the player implement one of these. Due to the way the game calculates various metrics, including guest spawns and ride appeal, the most efficient way of playing the game is to counterintuitively build lots of tiny coasters with perhaps only one or two elements, which when built en mass will provide better results than a single large coaster. "Harder Guest Generation" adjusts the algorithm by making it extremely difficult to gain more than 1,000 guests without building lengthy coasters, which inevitably pushes coaster design towards how you'd expect them to be built in reality.
255* OldSaveBonus:
256** Tracks from ''[=RCT1=]'' can be imported into ''[=RCT2=]'' while ''[=RCT3=]'' accepts track designs from both games, although they might not function correctly due to changes to the physics.
257** In ''[=OpenRCT2=]'', having an ''[=RCT1=]'' installation adds its [[NostalgiaLevel scenarios]] and numerous other bits of content which require loading assets from the first game, such as its footpath designs and classic versions of rides like the Steel Mini Coaster[[note]]Which in ''2'' was split into the Mini Coaster and Junior Coaster[[/note]] and Wooden Coaster.[[note]]The Wooden Coaster in ''2'' is meant to be a fusion of the standard Wooden Coaster and Wooden Twister Coasters from ''1'', and its vehicle sprites were redone. Any Wooden Twister Coasters in ''[=RCT1=]'' scenario/save files are still considered ''[=RCT2=]'' Wooden Coasters[[/note]]
258* PercussiveMaintenance: In the first two games, a vehicle malfunction or jammed restraint/door is usually solved by a mechanic giving the offending vehicle/car with the restraint/door a good kick, and the dreaded (Station) Brakes Failure is solved by the mechanic hitting the rear section of the ride's station brakes five times with a hammer. In the third game, mechanics fix broken down shops by kicking them.
259* ThePigPen: Naming a guest “Felicity Anderson” will make them repulsive enough to make other guests immediately puke when in close proximity.
260* PintSizedPowerhouse: You can make small compact ride designs that, if designed properly, can have ride ratings similar to ride designs with much larger footprints. Go-Karts and the Wild Mouse rides are a few of these in mind. You ultimately have to work with this as well in Micro Park, the final scenario in ''Loopy Landscapes'' and ''Classic''.
261* PlayerTic: Building queue paths as long as possible, despite being actively [[http://jumpjet.info/Classic-Games/Windows/RCT/Infrastructure/queues/queues.html discouraged]] to prevent guests from complaining about queuing for too long.
262* ProductDisplacement:
263** ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' removes the special behaviors of the Ride/SixFlags parks, namely the prebuilt rides being uneditable and unsaveable (with a Six Flags logo where the "Save Track Design" button would be), brake failures never occurring, and news messages about drowned guests and fatalities in ride crashes being suppressed. Those were probably mandated by the sponsorship deal, which the ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' developers are obviously not held to.
264** Two of the ''[=RCT2=]'' guest name EasterEggs, Andy Hine (who thinks "Nice ride! But not as good as the Phoenix..." after riding a roller coaster) and Elissa White (who thinks "I'm so excited -- it's an Intamin ride!" when riding a Giga Coaster), were removed from ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' to avoid product placement.
265** Even the original ''[=RCT2=]'' is guilty of this when it came to the Six Flags parks. Rides involving Creator/WarnerBros properties are either stripped of their licensing or omitted altogether. In the first game, however, Blackpool Pleasure Beach still featured a Burger Bar named "Burger King" and the Pepsi Max Big One's and IRN-BRU Revolution's names were left intact.
266* ProductPlacement:
267** ''[=RCT2=]'' features pre-designed coasters and parks based on Ride/SixFlags.
268** ''[=RCT3=]'' features ATI and Windows XP branding on shirts and the Laser Arcade (even in ''Complete'', which was released years after both were discontinued) and the ''Soaked!'' expansion has ride templates based on Hersheypark and Hershey's shirts for peeps.
269* PublicDomainSoundtrack: The songs for the merry-go-round in the first two games are mostly public domain compositions, such as "The Blue Danube" and the ''Slavonic Dances''. The songs were recorded on an actual band organ; they were taken from the 1976 LP ''The Bressingham Voigt''.
270* PunnyName: The V.I.P.s in the third game, such as [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent former US President]] [[UsefulNotes/BillClinton Clint]] [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bushton]], IdolSinger Kara Oki, olympic diving legend Bob Waterman, and actress [[TheCameo Cami O]].
271* SaveScumming: A good way to minimize the damage caused by crashes.
272* {{Scandalgate}}: In Captain Blackheart's Cove, from ''Soaked'', a scandal known as "kebab-gate" causes a restaurant chain to shut down. [[ExcusePlot This is used as incentive for the player to sell kebabs, as the restaurant's former supplier now has a surplus.]]
273* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: In ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'', if a guest unintentionally walks onto the queue of a ride with too high of an intensity for them, they will jump in place (complete with eyes bugging out and hair standing on end) before backing away.
274* SequenceBreaking:
275** In the ''[=RCT2=]'' scenario, Six Flags Magic Mountain, the supposed idea of the scenario is to manage the entire park over a long period of time, building new rides to reach the park value objective and generating a profit from the park entrance fee and food/drink/merchandise to repay the loan; reaching the objective would take several years for most players. However, the player can also delete ''Goliath'' and either ''Flashback'' or ''X'' immediately upon starting the scenario and repay the loan from the money generated from selling these two rides; done this way, the scenario completes itself on 2nd March, Year 1, which is ''one game day''[[note]]about 20-30 actual seconds[[/note]] later!
276** Similar to Six Flags Magic Mountain, the ''Wacky Worlds'' scenario, Renovation, challenges the player to restore a DerelictGraveyard and repay the loan while building enough rides to reach the park value objective, which takes a few years. An alternative way to complete this scenario quickly is to demolish all rides and stalls and repay the loan from the cash obtained, set research to No Funding, spend a year demolishing all scenery items in the park that give money, then embark on a construction spree, {{Whoring}} on the construction of flat rides and compact coaster designs, using only the cash obtained from demolishing the scenery, to make the park value skyrocket to the objective.
277* SeriousBusiness: Several roller coaster designers have used the game as a way to present new ride ideas for Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.
278* ShootTheDog: The original ''[=RCT1=]'' had a handicap built in where, if the player is charging a park entrance fee that is disproportionately lower than the development of the park, a message may appear at the start of a month stating that guests are commenting that the park entrance fee is very cheap and suggesting that the player should ''raise the park entrance fee'' to make more money.
279* ShoutOut:
280** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjj5_--5B-g Rock 1 Style]], a track that you can put on a ride from the first games expansions, and the second game entirely, uses the same song as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frCVeGweEOs San Francisco Night]] from ''VideoGame/{{Driver}}'' with a high pitched guitar solo, an additional ambient guitar and an equalized reverb effect to make it sound like it's coming through the ride's speakers. Justified, considering both games had Allister Brimble as their composer.
281** Fiasco Forest's disastrous layout and dangerous rides are reminiscent of Ride/ActionPark, the notorious New Jersey water park that saw hundreds of injuries and six deaths during its lifetiime.
282* SimpleYetAwesome:
283** The regular Steel Roller Coaster (a.k.a. the Looping Roller Coaster in ''[=RCT2=]'') might not be very fancy, but it is probably one of the most practical ones in the game because it has a pretty decent variety of features (loops, helices, a powered launch option...), doesn't cost too much, usually has pretty reasonable intensity and nausea ratings in relation to its excitement ratings, is not terribly difficult to build to decent standards, and is relatively widely available even in the original scenarios (some of the others like the Steel Twister and Flying coasters didn't show up until the expansion packs).
284** Introduced in ''Corkscrew Follies'', the River Ride/Splash Boats is basically nothing more than a Log Flume ride on a grander scale. Only... ''the fact that it is on a grander scale is what makes it such a great ride to have for your park.'' Make a River Ride long enough, with a station big enough to obtain maximum guest riders, and you can have a ride that supports over 100 guests just on this one ride alone which helps immensely if you're struggling with your parks becoming too crowded. In ''[=RCT2=]'', you can have up to 31 boats, so if your ride is long, guests can still get on it. Even better is that a well designed one that goes through tunnels can have an excitement rating in the 8.00-9.00 scale. The kicker that seals the deal is that the River Ride can support astonishing levels of height, so you could theoretically build this ride over everything in your park; even roller coasters.[[note]]The exception being the Steel Twister Roller Coaster which can reach the same astronomical level of height.[[/note]]
285*** Though if one is too long, it becomes AwesomeButImpractical: The only significant downside to the River Ride/Splash Boats is the extreme slow speed the boats travel. While you could reach excitement ratings that go into very high numbers, if the ride lingers on for more than too long guests will begin to complain and utter "I want to get off [Ride Name]", draining their Happiness by a considerable amount.
286** ''Corkscrew Follies'' added covered train cars for the Miniature Railroad. This isn't so special when someone gets used to using them and they reduce the rides stats a little too, but when playing through the original game you'll ''desperately'' wish they were around, especially when it's raining!
287** The Launched Freefall and Roto-Drop are a pair of tower rides that are cheap and easy to build. Despite their low price, their stats rival that of many roller coasters, and guests are willing to pay a high price to ride on them. It is therefore a good idea to place a few of these rides around your park, assuming they are available.
288* SkewedPriorities: As guests' more trivial thoughts are not automatically overriden by more urgent ones, this can ensue:
289-->''"I want to go home"''\
290''"I'm lost!"''\
291''"I can't find the park exit"''\
292''"The music is nice here"''
293* SoundtrackDissonance: Can be player invoked by creating a violent, high-intensity and nausea inducing roller coaster and having songs like [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zT-rdhrq_4 this]] blaring.
294* StockFoodDepictions: Most of the food and drink stalls take the shape of the item they sell, or else feature it prominently. These are always in their default forms, such as fries being long, yellow, and rectangular. A slight anachronism for a series that's implicitly taking place in the same era in which it was released (whatever's going on with ''Time Twister'' aside) but makes it easy to tell which stall sells what at a glance even when zoomed out.
295** CartoonMeat: The chicken stall in [=RCT3=] is a whole bird.
296** EveryPizzaIsPepperoni: The pizza displayed on pizzerias is pepperoni.
297** ShapedLikeWhatItSells: About half the stalls in the first two games and their expansion packs, most notably the burger and fizzy drinks stalls.
298* SuperDrowningSkills: In all the games, you can grab individual park guests and place them wherever you want, ostensibly to recover them from getting lost in your park or to move employees to troublesome areas. You can also choose to drop them in water. In the first two games, if you don't pick them back up after a few seconds, they will drown, reducing your park population by one. Averted in the third, however, as they will just keep treading water until you move the camera away from them, during which time they'll just appear somewhere else in the park.
299* SwanBoats: The games have swan boats as an option for boat rides.
300* TerrainSculpting: Players can reshape the land to suit their needs. The cost is usually high enough that the player will only make limited changes.
301* TheThemeParkVersion: The games in the series, due to their very nature, but the ''Wacky Worlds'' expansion for ''[=RCT2=]'' in particular.
302* ThirdIs3D: ''[=RCT3=]'', which had trouble because it was so demanding for its era that not many people could run it at an acceptable frame rate.
303* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman:
304** Low-capacity rides, such as the Spiral Slide and Space Rings, have lower profit margins by design, and are generally inferior to rides with higher guest capacities. However, the former still generate foot traffic to the park, tend to be cheaper, and reach full capacity quickly, so in scenarios where ride choices and/or funds are limited, they are still viable options even if you build multiple copies of them.
305** The Stand-up Roller Coaster (not to be confused with the Stand-up variant of the Twister Roller Coaster) is a less flexible and all-around inferior variant of the Corkscrew Roller Coaster: it lacks the special track elements or maximum height of the other coaster, can only be run on a continuous circuit, and shoots up in intensity more easily. However, because park value favors ride variety, there's incentive for building a Stand-up Coaster in place of multiple Corkscrew Coaster, specifically for designs which are feasible for the former (mainly simple, compact layouts). Furthermore, Stand-up Coasters are not only cheaper, but their Intensity rating contributes to their profitability, making them a a worthy investment for guests that prefer more intense rides.
306* TimeAbyss: Youtuber [[WebVideo/MarcelVos Marcel Vos]] has [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVgoy_a_gWI built]] the largest maze possible in the game engine, cheesing it by building only left-side indents to exploit the pathfinding algorithm to create a maze that's artificially difficult for guests to complete. He estimated it would take a whopping average of '''6.6 x 10^19 758 years''' for a guest to finish it. For comparison, it's estimated that the last [[UsefulNotes/BlackHoles supermassive black hole]] will have evaporated through Hawking Radiation in [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheUniverse 1.7×10^106 years]]. Vos helpfully provides a few references for the sheer time scale involved. For instance, if you picked up every atom in the universe and waited one Googol [[note]] That's 10^100, 1 followed by a hundred zeroes[[/note]] years between each atom, by the time you're done you wouldn't even be close enough to the maze being finished.
307* TruthInTelevision:
308** The regulation of building roller coasters at tree-height is a real challenge faced by English theme parks such as Ride/AltonTowers.
309** There are real coasters with interlocking loops, such as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loch_Ness_Monster_%28roller_coaster%29 'Loch Ness Monster']] at Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
310** The former [[Ride/CedarFairEntertainment Son of Beast]] was a wooden coaster [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PKI-Son_of_Beast.jpg with a vertical loop.]]
311** Despite how ludicrous it may sound, there are actually [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_toilet public restrooms that cost money]].
312** The Stand-Up Roller Coaster and Heartline Twister Coaster in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'' have higher intensity ratings than all other coaster types. This may seem odd to players who don't know the real-life history of both ride types—they were invented by the now-defunct Japanese ride manufacturer TOGO, which (at least outside of Japan, where their coasters are generally much better received) was ''very'' notorious for manufacturing roller coasters that were incredibly rough. The Heartline Twister Coaster takes this trope further with its low excitement rating—one of the primary drawbacks of its real-life TOGO counterpart, the Pipeline Coaster, was that the enclosed pipe structure often obstructed the riders' view of the surroundings.
313** The Tilt Coaster in ''[=RCT3=]'' exists in real life, with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1O-I5jYdVk Gravity Max]], opened in 2002, being the first coaster of this type.
314** A surprising number of scenarios in the first game require the player to work with a limited amount of space. These parks have less in common with major franchises such as Ride/SixFlags or Ride/CedarFairEntertainment than they do family entertainment centers such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castles_N%27_Coasters Castles & Coasters]] or King Richard's Fun Park, which operate smaller-scale rides and attractions. While Micro Park exaggerates this to a ridiculous degree, parks the size of Dinky Park or Fiasco Forest are definitely in the realm of possibility.
315* UnintentionallyUnwinnable: In the third game, you can create a situation where a track is at X Height, the station is at X.3 Height, and its impossible to 'thread the needle' and finish the track. It doesn't happen often, but when it does happen, expect to rage.
316* UpdatedRerelease: {{Downplayed|Trope}} for the Steam and GOG.com releases of ''[=RCT1=]'' to ''[=RCT3=]''. Beyond under-the-hood changes that allow the games to run natively on modern Windows systems, removing any instances of DRM, adding more screen resolution options, and removing instances of Atari's contributions, the games' mechanics and graphics have remained the same.
317* UnexpectedGameplayChange: Thrown in at irregular intervals across the first two games to avoid complacency by forcing the player to try new rides and play-styles every so often.
318** Coaster Crazy from ''Corkscrew Follies'' was the first stage with a "build 10 roller coasters" challenge. And boy, it was a doozy.
319** Bumbly Bazaar from ''[=RCT2=]''. Hope you like selling food and merchandise.
320** Rainbow Valley from ''[=RCT1=]''. Not being able to destroy ''any'' scenery objects (including those you place) or alter the landscape caught quite a few people off guard.
321** Gentle Glen from ''Corkscrew Follies'' had everyone's intensity preference levels locked to 4 or below. So much for roller coasters...
322** Adrenaline Heights, also from ''Corkscrew Follies'', inverted Gentle Glen by having everyone's intensity preference levels be 9 or more. Everything but roller coasters were impractical to build.
323** Gravity Gardens from ''[=RCT2=]''. The only rides available for construction and research are ''all'' roller coasters.
324** From ''[=RCT3=]'', Island Hopping set a maximum speed for all coasters in the park.
325** For veterans of the first game who are used to being able to freely adjust both the park entrance and ride fees for any scenario, playing ''[=RCT2=]'' itself is this due to all scenarios either being a "free park entrance/pay per ride" or "park entrance fee/free rides" park; scenarios featuring the latter place more emphasis on guest "turnover" instead of "retention" in order for the park to turn a profit, which may force the player to realise some degree of VideoGameCrueltyPotential, such as not building bathrooms, while the former often results in [[TheLoad guests not paying a cent]].
326* VideoGameCrueltyPotential:
327** In ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'', one of the most basic ways to kill guests is to plant a pool of water right in front of the exit of an otherwise perfectly safe ride. As soon as guests exit the ride, their SuperDrowningSkills will kick in.
328** Depending on the scenario and game, the player may be able to research the Steel Roller Coaster, Corkscrew Roller Coaster, LIM-Launched Roller Coaster or Launched Freefall in ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]''. These rides have launch modes that do not require the player to construct a full-circuit ride, so the player can just build a station platform, set any launch speed, open the ride and watch as guests board the ride's vehicle and get launched into a fiery death.
329** It's easy to just drown all your guests or make them crash brutally, but one person decided to take cruelty to a whole new level. Behold, [[http://archive.is/WrQxO MR BONES WILD RIDE]]. Its max speed is 5mph downhill, and consisted of 30,000 feet of track at the start, growing larger as the riders continued. It takes in real life 70 minutes to complete, or four years in-game. Then, after everyone is thoroughly exhausted, hungry, and unhappy, the exit line leads straight back to the queue. It was so bad that the general consensus was that drowning was the kinder fate.
330*** Now it has even more cruel version - Kairos the Slow. It takes 210 ''real'' days to complete, or several thousands of in-game years.
331*** Taken to the maximum limit with [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QotjNlDr0WU this]] roller coaster. It takes 135 real ''years'' to complete.
332*** Behold, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o0-0G2OjSg The Universe Coaster]], of which ''[[BeyondTheImpossible the universe will end even before a ride is finished]].''
333** Dropping a guest who says "I'm not hungry/thirsty" into a pit and leaving them there.
334** In ''[=RCT1=]'' and ''[=RCT2=]'', dropping a guest into a body of water when they complain about being bored or wanting to go home. This appears to be a relatively common practice amongst players.
335** ''[=RCT3=]'' one-upped the cruelty potential with RagdollPhysics (which was apparently marketed as a feature of the game), one example being that the player can build an upward path on a hill, wait for peeps to walk to the highest end of the path, then delete the path tile they are on, which causes them to trip and roll down the hill into any peeps climbing the path, starting a ''human avalanche''!
336** ''Wild!'' lets the player find out what happens if a zebra is dropped into a lion's enclosure. Hint: no more zebra.
337** The player can build a clone of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_Coaster Euthanasia Coaster]], a ride purposely designed to ''kill its riders''. In ''[=RCT3=]'', placing a LIM launched coaster on the top of a mountain, which then dives straight down to the bottom of the world before doing a loop-de-loop will make ''fifty gravities'' of force. [[MadeOfIron Guests can't die from crushing forces]], though they will immediately vomit out their guts when they leave the ride. Excitement will be zero, and intensity will be "Uber-extreme"
338** [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking You can also charge guests to use the restroom.]] However, there is a limit to how much you can charge; digging through the ''[=OpenRCT2=]'' code reveals that the amount of money guests are willing to pay scales with their Bathroom need. The upper limit is $0.60, which the guests will only pay if their Bathroom bar is about 95% full.
339* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: If guests die in your park, intentional or not, your park rating will drop. Strangely, this will not happen if you let guests fall to their death underground. In addition, if a ride crashes, people will avoid it for a few months claiming it's unsafe even if nobody died in the crash.
340* VideoGameTime: The timing of how long a visitor takes is wildly different from that of construction and management, leading to people spending what are essentially months or even years in the park.
341* VomitDiscretionShot: In the first two games, at least, guests throwing up (which happened with frustrating frequency) wasn't particularly graphic due to the simple graphics, but it gets extra credit for not even using a realistic sound effect, opting instead for the sound of ''coughing''.
342* WakeUpCallBoss:
343** Dinky Park in the original game. [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin As the name implies]], this is the first of many scenarios which require the player to work within a confined space. In order to successfully complete the scenario, players will either need to learn how to build compact rides or use the "buy land/construction rights" mechanic for the first time. The landscape is also awkward to work with, with the back half of the park perched on a downward slope, and very little flat ground to work with.
344** Box Office in the third game. Despite being one of the scenarios able to be selected from the beginning, it's very challenging at this stage in the game with tons of litter and vomit on the pathways, cluttered scenery, an awkward park layout, and a fussy VIP.
345* WideOpenSandbox:
346** In ''[=RCT1=]'', Mega Park's scenario objective is "Have Fun!", while completing a scenario with a goal turns that park into a sandbox.
347** In ''[=RCT2=]'', while the game didn't have one, you can create your own scenarios and make the conditions easy enough to unlock the sandbox almost immediately.
348** ''[=RCT3=]'' comes with a built-in Sandbox Mode, featuring a park with the maximum possible size, unlimited funds, no goals, and all rides, stalls, and scenery themes available.
349* YouAreNumberSix: In a base installation of ''[=RCT1=]'', the guests are unnamed and only identified by a number, using the "Guest ###" format. Expansion packs gave the option to show realistic names instead, although it had to be turned on manually. The sequels have this as the default setting, though the option to return to numbered guests is available.
350* YouHaveResearchedBreathing:
351** Happens with some scenery items in ''[=RCT3=]''. For example, you may be able to build a tall brick wall at the start, but need to research a smaller, diagonal wall.
352** Some scenarios don't start you off with basic amenities or standard roller coaster types available to build, such as the Wooden Roller Coaster, Information Kiosks, drink stalls, toilets, or a combination of these and more. Harmonic Hills and Swamp Cove are two infamous ''[=RCT1=]'' scenarios that give you very limited shop/stall variety at the start.[[note]]Harmonic Hills doesn't offer ANY shop/stall other than the Information Kiosk and Bathroom at the start. Swamp Cove is a little better, but even if you focus on maximized Shop/Stall research, you'd get a Drink Stall by Year 2.[[/note]]

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