While Chris Sawyer's RollerCoaster Tycoon series is revolutionary and provides innocent fun for the player, what happens when that innocence is stripped away by Video Game Cruelty Potential or incidents that are beyond your control?
- The very idea of the crashes, although sadly it's necessary as to not break any Willing Suspension of Disbelief. Imagine, you're just minding your own business, perhaps figuring out where to set another restroom or adjusting the park entrance fee and suddenly BOOM! The window for one of your rides suddenly pops up on screen, letting you watch the last instant leading up to a train car exploding. Jarring enough... and then you read the announcements on the bottom of the screen saying [X] people have died in an accident on [name of ride]. Yeah, your harmless little simulation game just got a bit less innocent there, didn't it? Even more jarring is when the game blocks out any other sounds and just blares the sound of the explosion from your speakers instead.
- This only applies to the first and second games. The third game has your guests simply come back up again.
- Keep in mind that a lot of rides in the first game are intentionally designed to crash, especially due to lack of consideration of station break failures. So if you're completely unaware of that, the game will remind you about that. Many players will experience this firsthand with either Bumbly Beach or Katie's World (where both roller coasters, especially the mine train one, will most likely crash), with some even seeing it as early as Dynamite Dunes, the second scenario. Many players have taken into consideration of simply adding brakes at the end of the ride to adjust for this.
- In the second game, if a roller coaster flies off the tracks with people on it, there would sometimes be a single scream from one of the riders right before the ride would crash. This can be pretty haunting, as it would be the last scream you would hear from that rider. The fact that this very scream is used for the Haunted House ride, however, takes the edge off a bit, though it's more annoying than scary.
- Seeing the angry, demented red face of a vandal
◊ running loose in your park. Thankfully RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 made them slightly rare, provided you keep the park's pathways in good shape. - The Merry Go Round going into the Control Failure breakdown. Imagine being on a ride that spins faster and faster than it normally should and even shakes, which gave many first-time players the impression that it would explode, ala a crashing roller coaster. The music speeds up accordingly as well, giving it a real Creepy Circus Music feel.
- The Clint Bushton V.I.P. guest in the third game has rather frightening angry faces.
