Campaign Focus: C11 - Vintage Scenario

[spark spear]

This thread is for discussion of OpenScenarios Campaign slot C11. Use this thread to discuss the campaign slot, add or tweak design details, and critique existing submissions.

C11: Vintage Scenario

Pitch: A scenario in which the player is restricted to build only vintage, old-fashioned ride types, requiring the player to learn an unfamiliar, but still simple, set of ride types

Design Details:

• Only vintage ride types are available - 70's-era or earlier
• Player starts with the oldest ride types, unlocks generally follow a timeline resembling real-world developments
• Perhaps include an early steel looping coaster (Schwarzkopf or Arrow) as final researchable coaster
• Some prebuilts, including some that are marked protected, and may be aged or otherwise troublesome
• Scenario objective may vary, ride ticket income suggested
• Aged, somewhat "run-down" setting

Approx. Objective:
1000-1200 guests in 3 years
OR $5-6k ride income per month

Candidates

Rate each submission on a scale from 1 to 5.
5 = Good as is. No modifications needed.
4 = Suitable with minor tweaks, such as park bounds, ride layouts, invention list, or scenario settings.
3 = Has potential. Landscape and park layout need more work.
2 = Weak, and would need major revisions to be acceptable.
1 = Unsuitable, rejected.

Consider the following questions:

• Do you enjoy the aesthetic, landscape, layout, and scenery work in this submission?
• Do you believe that this submission is well-suited to the design goals of its position in the campaign?
• How much more work would be needed to elevate this submission to the highest quality you can envision?

Americana Gardens by @bold flare and @bright grotto

Wistful Woods by @hollow scroll

[main helm]

So, briefly reading through the feedback sheet (2 for Americana Gardens, 3 for Wistful Woods) it seems that the latter scenario is overalll liked a bit more.

Criticisms to Americana Gardens concern the scenery design (the big mansion in particular was seen as a bit "uncanny" for the rct style). The late availabity of the ATM was a point of contention. One player didn't like the prebuild coaster, which I personally do despite being a rather uncommon style with many flat parts.

Wistful woods was overall the better rated park, with all reviewers complimenting the scenery. There were some suggestions regarding the invention list, namely the info stall not being researched at the start and whether the swinging inverter ship was appropriate

Noticably, from me briefly checking out whistful woods, a lot of peeps seem to require the toilet when the park starts - they might have been added quite late x)
EDIT: nvm, Peeps continue complaining about not finding the toilets, maybe a pathfinding issue

[spark spear]

I think the Inverter Ship is an acceptable substitute for an Eyerly Roll-o-Plane, which makes thematic sense and is also just an interesting design choice

I played an earlier version of WW a while back. I will have to give both of these a whirl when I get the chance. At a glance I do concur that WW is a better constructed and more unique setting

[vague badge]

Wistful Woods looks the better park. Though it doesn't feel inviting to build on without demolishing stuff which I don't think should be an intention here. This area within the train screams "tear me down!", without having any space to place rides neatly intergrated there. I personally like to play keeping the scenario scenery intact unless it's a revival type scenario.

I would also get rid of the crooked house over here.

Those 2 changes would leave 2 inviting spots of land to build upon

[pallid briar]

I have been "boosting" these two and several more reviews have come in. Wistful still rates noticeably higher, but it all serves as good reinforcement for what has already been said here. Something that was pointed out that I strongly agree with is that Wistful spends too much time researching new trains for ride types the player already has access to - car ride has several, and the wooden coaster has a couple too (even though the player starts with access to both). I would avoid this if at all possible - most people do not want to build another copy of a ride just for a new train type. As a general rule I would give the player every train variant for any ride type you start them with off the bat, unless you have some very good reason to do otherwise. I like the looping coaster being a fairly late game unlock even if you hyper focus roller coasters at max research, and the corkscrew likely hitting after the end of the scenario for most players. I think this is appropriate given the slot goals.

Americana has a larger playable space, and people are spreading out more there. I think Wistful could benefit from a slightly larger play space (in lieu of demolishing the rides 111112oo pointed out, but to the same end). It could even come with a difficulty bump of a couple hundred guests to make up for it. Tweak that and some of the invention list issues and I think this one is good to lock in.

[vague badge]

I wouldn't demolish the train ride, just the paths and buildings within it, besides the first one.

[clever wharf]

I don't know if I'd take away that much; getting rid of these buildings and the paths connecting them would be sufficient, I think?

[pallid briar]

Counterpoint: people seem to have no issue demolishing or building over this space themselves
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mnyeDwpsyclawxG33qNN3nen2Iz7h_PI/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17wXRSBZrxrFF-6ewdqXwkiIwcwhWopNz/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qFDqzREvA_p5ruNXpTi6hqSk-zd7rdn/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jzxTmftqqTZyan-NoD0HWJAUdj-qJDi8/view?usp=sharing (okay idk about this one lmao)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L421xgvm1qY-2ZPO5HEM6rxPF1C5Zqid/view?usp=sharing

awwww that formatting

[clever wharf]

True!

[main helm]

Ok, got through playing wistful woods

Love the scenery, love the park, difficulty seems about right, BUT

The invention list needs a lot of work

I beat the game around august year 3 (could have done it much earlier, played relatively casually)

At default research, max funding I got the reverser coaster, swinging inverter ship, monorail cycles, bobsled coaster and wooden wild mouse

a large part of those in the latter half of year 2 and year 3

other than that, just stalls, decoration and vehicle unlocks

I mean, I can understand not always providing the "default" twister and swinging ship, but we need something here for the player to build.
The ATM people seems to love so much per default comes in in april year 2, the info kiosk in may. THis is fine by me. I am in the camp seeing the ATM not as a necessity but people tend to value it quite highly. I think getting it in "midgame" is quite ok

40$ minimum guest money limits entry price, but the scenario is doable even with that.

Overall: Great park, but the invention list really, really needs more rides.

Last side notes:

• The layout isn't that good for peep pathfinding, they keep searching for the the toilets, though I think that's quite an interesting challenge and a reminder to the player to not build too labyrinthine
• Sadly, guests only ever use one way to reach/leave the park, leaving much of the beautiful entrance path empty EDIT: I know this is a general RCT problem that would need a fix on a programming level

[pallid briar]

@hollow scroll I think we've hit consensus on this one, do you have time/motivation to do a pass given the feedback here? Or do you have further things you want to discuss/raise?

Would you like someone else to take a crack at it? I think we are just about ready to lock this one in.

[hollow scroll]

Just made a few changes on my local copy of the park...

• Altered the path layout in several areas to reduce junctions, mainly around the picnic pavillions, shop buildings, and carousel
• Removed two of the picnic pavillions in the back of the park to reduce junctions and make a bit more buildable space
• Altered the entrance path so that while guests still only enter one way, that one way is at least a straight line
• Increased the average guest cash from $50 to $70

The ride selection needs a bit of thought. I agree that additional train types aren't the way to go. But how modern do we want the "classic" rides to go? Seems we're leaning more towards Crumbly Woods in that sense, which has old rides but is a bit more lax with the ride selection than other scenarios like Sprightly Park

[main helm]

i think it would be fine if you just move some of the rides up a bit to not have to wait until year 3 for the first thrill ride and a wooden wild mouse

(if keeping research to default)

[hollow scroll]

Took a crack at altering the research tree. All of the wooden coaster types are now available at the start, with the first few researchable coasters being the lower-tier steel coasters (steeplechase, flying turns, etc.)
Also added the spinning wild mouse to the research tree, which might be a bit redundant but I wanted to make the homage to Exterminator at Kennywood

Are there any tweaks we should make to the layout of the prebuilt Wooden Coaster? It's very important to have its layout be just right, since it cannot be modified by the player

[pallid briar]

I think the layout is solid, it's one of the things I like most about the park. It's very dense so it's unlikely the player will find a way to build anything "through" it (which may or may not be ideal), but it's compact enough that it does not feel in the way which I think is advantageous

You could consider some features to clean up the supports, especially where they are broken by the track passing underneath, like the steel blocks here

It also looks like there is a missing wall on the first station here

I would strongly consider converting just a bit of the land here which is purchaseable, to just be owned, to make the park feel bigger. Even the experienced players are not buying land, and in general new players will do it even less. Most people are concentrating their big rides next to the woodie, or over the river. If there was a bit more land owned on the other side of the river, that might encourage people to more fully "expand" in that direction. But obviously they have no issue meeting the goal in the space provided so this is a creative call IMO.

[pallid briar]

I like the original entrance path more. I think very few people will notice peeps having a left-side preference, and the single tile planters look better than the 2x1s.

[main helm]

Yeah, my appologies. I didn‘t wish to have it changed, I was just lamenting that peeps cannot handle it properly.

I personally love the wooden coaster, it has a rarely seen „diagnoally-focused“ design that‘s so interwoven with itself it‘s just chef‘s kiss

I would not mind a bit more starting land. I never felt like I was constrained by the available area in terms of difficulty, just in terms of „i wish i could build a bit more spread apart to have the park look better“. You can cram stuff in there no problem, so I belive more land wouldn‘t make the goal much easier, just more easily achiveable in a visually pleasant way.

That being said, I don‘t mind lots of extra land being purchasable, even if it likely won‘t help during a scenario’s timeframe. I see it mostly as a bonus if you want to keep playing a scenario after you are finished

[spark spear]

Finally got around to doing some test playthroughs, here's my thoughts on Americana Gardens. Overall, this scenario is fine, though I think it has a lot of room for improvement. Nitpicks below:

• Right away, I notice that we have a $15k loan but only $10k starting cash. While I wouldn't say that having these values be different should be banned, I think it should be used sparingly, and we should have a strong justification for it. Is there such a reason for its inclusion here?
• The extra loan is especially punishing here, with the high interest rate. My gut says this campaign slot is too early to introduce such a high interest rate, I'd be interested to hear others' thoughts on this.
• I'd recommend some changes to enhance the aesthetics of the central promenade. As it is now, the first section with the trees feels a bit spammy and could use some breaking up. The fountain / reflecting pool is large and bare, could shrink the edges by 1 tile and line it with flora. The MGR plaza is dominated by an unnecessarily long queue which could be replaced with gardens.
• Tiny thing: For a small prebuilt park like this, I recommend excluding having any pre-hired staff. Letting the player do this themselves is a small thing, but I think it helps contribute to the feeling of whipping a scenario park into shape, and also reinforces the habit of managing staff for new players.

• IMO the prebuilt coaster feels too modern. I would expect more high turnarounds and less banking, even for something based on a Traver or Church design.
• The early research list is very heavy on gentle rides, the other attractions could probably be mixed in a bit better.
• The coaster selection strays too far into modern ride types IMO. I'd say cut the suspended swinging, standup, steel wild mouse, mine ride, and spiral coasters, as well as one of either the looping or corkscrew.
• The reverser coaster isn't present here, which feels like an odd exclusion.
• The river rapids, submarine ride, top spin, enterprise, motion sim, monorail, suspended monorail, flying saucers, and observation tower also feel out of place here.

• The scenario's setting is fine, but nothing special. It's the sort of detached landscape of typical vanilla scenarios. Nothing here stuck out to me as a particularly interesting spot to build, nothing got any creative juices flowing. I think we can aim higher to make each map have a stronger setting and identity. The buildings help, but I feel more is needed.
• What's with the ice land edges throughout the map?
• The goal is perhaps too steep for introducing this goal type. I played very casually and let the game run for quite a while, and I reached the goal in mid year 4. I think that a goal of 7k or so is reasonable here.

[pallid briar]

For a small prebuilt park like this, I recommend excluding having any pre-hired staff. Letting the player do this themselves is a small thing, but I think it helps contribute to the feeling of whipping a scenario park into shape, and also reinforces the habit of managing staff for new players.
The convention (at least as far as I recall) from the base game "established" scenarios (at least the ones that needed fixing up) was to have one mechanic and one handyman, but either not zoned or zoned over such an enormous range as to be ineffective. I'm okay with this (and this was the route I was going to take with Cinnabar), since it would make some sense that at least some staff are around, but it is clearly not enough or not well managed enough, and the player needs to pay attention to it eventually, but maybe not first thing. I wouldn't go beyond that though.

I agree 3 handymen & 2 mechanics is already overkill for a park of this size however.

[rocky wing]

On that aside, I've also found a place of unbuildable land above the river.

Which is why the bridge I've built to get to the other side has to make a sudden turn:

Even better: I placed other path tiles around the gap:

Another hole on the other side of the river.

[clever wharf]

I think that map might've been made before property boundaries were visible on the water's surface.

With the land purchasing tool.