Even though the game is self-explanatory, there are some mechanics that aren't even mentioned by the game itself and have to be found out via coding or the hard way. Expect a lot of these to overlap with the game's Scrappy Mechanics.
- Rainbow Summit and Fiasco Forest are already considered really difficult for not allowing the player to build above tree height (former) and having to also focus on fixing a park in under a year (latter). But what the game doesn't tell you is that advertising is forbidden on both of those parks. This means that, like with Pickle Park (which explicitly has "no advertising" as its gimmick), you have to get those guests in your park organically (900 in 1 year for Fiasco Forest with 200 initial guests, 2500 in 4 years for Rainbow Summit with about 200 initial guests).
- Every single tracked ride has "stat requirements" that exist so players don't get away with making low-effort rides. Failing these stat requirements generally penalizes the excitement/intensity/nausea rating, while some only penalize the excitement rating. Marcel Vos has made a general video
about these stat requirements, along with describing particular stat requirements for each ride in most of his roller coaster videos. - Paths can boost excitement rating of a ride, but between the transition of the first game and the second game, the first path type boosts the excitement rating separately from other path types (which the game tells you nothing about). This might have to do with how queue lines worked in the first game. They were generally considered the "first" path while the other paths were the main paths. In the second game, the "first" path is generally the ash or brown tile. OpenRCT2 actually fixes this oversight. Marcel Vos actually covers this in this video.
- Music might sound cool, but they don't affect a ride's stats at all. They can give guests the "Nice music" thought, but for some odd reason, only the Fairground Organ Style (which is exclusive to the carousels) and the Organ style can trigger this thought. And if there's a Bumper Cars ride nearby that plays music, even if it's the Organ style, it will prevent guests from getting the "Nice music" thought.
- Many parks aren't really specified if it's going to rain a lot or not. You'll need to look at the temperature to see the weather pattern for that. Mothball/Mystic Mountain in particular is an infamous level that rains a lot, which is something that the game doesn't tell you beforehand.
- Loopy Landscapes has a handful of parks (Frightmare Hills, Southern Sands, Venus Ponds) that make it harder to attract guests (see below) and please guests (your park rating will be 100 lower than you'd expect). The problem is that none of these particular parks have nothing to indicate that at all.
- There's also absolutely no indication that building larger and exciting coasters will actually benefit you (therefore letting guests swarm in) in the latter case as well. This means that you won't know that the game rewards you for doing that as opposed to spamming the same small coasters over and over again (i.e. Shuttle Loops or the Micro Corkscrew Coasters that Marcel Vos always builds).
- Besides the fact that guests don't really see the point in transport rides, there's something that the game doesn't tell you: guests will still ride them regardless of their mood (if they're free). This means that even if you have them isolated and a guest wants to go home, guests will still consider riding them.
- Figuring out that you can use the Shift key in the second game to raise objects is something most people will figure out quickly, but the game has absolutely no indication that holding "Ctrl" will make it so you can build those same objects on the same elevation level.
- On paper, you might think that building a lot of rides and maintaining them is what impacts your park value, but it's actually the excitement rating that strongly impacts it. Building a ton of exciting rides will increase your park value by a lot. However, the intensity and nausea rating also impact that park value too (although not as much as the excitement rating). It's also easier to just build a ton of low effort rides with astronomically high nausea and intensity ratings and spam them throughout the park. Additionally, as long as the ride doesn't open, the park value won't decrease. Just keep those rides stuck in testing mode and your park value will be staying up.
- Swamp Cove of Corkscrew Follies/Added Attractions (also playable on Classic and Open) is a decent sized park that starts with a pretty solid pair of dual Inverted Roller Coasters. Sound fun, right? What the scenario doesn't tell you is that there's no Drink stall and if you don't bother turning off the other funding options other than Shop/Stalls, guests will complain about being thirsty. Even with Shops/Stalls as the only research option, a drink stand still takes a while to come through.
- The "Most Dazzling Ride Colour Schemes" award in RCT2 has the most obtuse requirements of all the awards to obtain. To get it, you must have at least 5 tracked rides and more than half the tracked rides in operation in the park with the main track colour set to bright purple, bright green, light orange or bright pink. There is no indication whatsoever in the game that these are the four colours that are considered "dazzling".
