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But after leaving the beach, my interest in the game lulled. I kept it on my families creaking old desktop computer, but my love for the game wasn’ t rekindled for another few years
In seventh grade I went to Hershey Park with my family for a day trip just to ride some rides. I couldn’ t get enough of them but that wasn’ t enough to bring me back to my days making roller coasters. No, what really pulled me back in was a single sign asking park guests to design roller coasters with RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, the new installment in the series that had just been released.
Hershey Park was hosting a contest to see who could design the best roller coaster in the game. For some reason I thought that the winner’ s design would actually be built( which was completely untrue). I immediately ran home and broke out my old copy of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 and got to work. The fact that they would only accept rides from RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 didn’ t stop me.
At first I built rides for the expressed purpose of submitting them but soon that goal took a backseat to the fun I was having not only building rides but also building parks around them. Within a few days I had forgotten about the contest and I was playing the game the way it was actually intended to be played, worrying about finances, precise design, and even my park’ s scenery.
After that, I didn’ t stop building for years. I eventually upgraded to RollerCoaster Tycoon 3, but I soon felt limited by the game’ s engine. While RollerCoaster Tycoon’ s park building tools were always incredible, the tools used to build roller
A completed ride in RollerCoaster Tycoon 3
coasters themselves were always very basic. At a certain point, I became so obsessed with building roller coasters in RollerCoaster Tycoon that the game wasn’ t realistic enough for me.
So I took the next step up. After searching around online I discovered No Limits Roller Coaster Simulation. No Limits isn’ t your standard video game. This is a program that uses a wireframe CAD editor to design only roller coasters.
No Limits looked more like an engineering program a game. Yet, somehow I managed to get dragged in even though completing a single ride could take 50 + hours of work.
Within a month I was a member of a vibrant online forum that discussed the finer points of roller coaster simulation. RollerCoaster Tycoon turned out to be my gateway drug to the world of roller coaster enthusiasts.
It turns out that I wasn’ t the only person who was obsessed with roller coaster video games. There were hundreds of people just like me who built rides religiously and asked for them to be reviewed. Some of these rides were absolutely incredible. So incredible, in fact, a few of the people I met during my time in this community went on to work for real roller coaster design firms( sadly I haven’ t ridden any of my friends’ roller coasters yet). I started out at the bottom of this community, building truly horrific rides that were boring and unrealistic. After many hundred hours spent on the game, while I never reached the level of the true masters of the craft, I was putting out solid work.
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A finished ride in No Limits
Strangely, this community introduced me to calculus