Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic: Basic Gameplay Walkthrough
What is Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic
- Games Review: Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic
Is Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic as good as RCT 2?
Starting a game
From the main menu choose start new game and choose one of the scenarios and wait for it to load.
First steps
When you start a new game you should:-
- Pause game
- Close Park and Rides if open (not always needed)
- Read the objectives
- Take a look at your park to see what is already in place
- Demolish unneeded scenery (some scenarios have a lot of unnecessary scenery that can be sold for cash)
- Demolish any duplicate rides (coffee cups and other small rides.)
Read the objectives, look at the park
Time to build
What you do next depends on you objectives.
If you have to pay off your loan you need to pay of as much as you can early on and make sure you can make enough money from park entrance fee/ride cost and shop sales to repay the rest later. It is this scenario where the selling off of surplus scenery can come in handy as in one scenario you can make thousands just from doing that.
If it is a guest objective then you need to create a park that will bring in enough guests.
The main thing you need to do for all scenarios is bring in the guests as they bring the money and so are the way to win all scenarios.
Getting the Guests in
Shops and Rides
To get guests to come to your park and spend money you need to give them a reason to visit. To do this you need to build Shops and Rides and then open them and the park. Check your list of available rides to see what you can build. At first build the pre built ones. I actually start with the gentle and thrill rides like the Merry-Go-Round and Twister if they are available. Don't go building custom coasters straight away. It can sometimes be best to avoid them completely.
Placing rides and shops
When you first start placing rides and shops look at the area closest to the entrance and start by placing shops and some toilets before looking at suitable locations for some of the smaller rides. I find it works better for you if you place three or four rides close so that their entrances and exits are fairly close this means you can place a mechanic to patrol a small area but look after a few rides.
Pricing
To get guests to come and spend their money you need to price things reasonably. If it is the park that has the fee you need to make sure you don't price entry at more than the lowest amount a guest has to spend. Check a few guests as they come to the gate to see how much money they are carrying. If it is a pay to ride park then you need to price the rides according to their ratings. So a gentle ride should be cheaper that a rollercoaster with high ratings.
Park Ratings
One of the conditions to win a guest based scenario is having a park rating of a certain amount. To achieve this you need to build lots of great rides and keep them well maintained and also keep the paths tidy and unvandalized. This is where placement of rides and staff is key.
The best way to keep paths clean is to place bins close to food outlets so the guests are not carrying rubbish around the park. Also placing seating at the exits of the more intense rides so nauseous guests can sit and rest, reducing their nausea rating. Try to place toilets close to those rides as well.
Loan Repayment
As I said before paying off as much of your loan as you can early on is a great way to start this kind of scenario. The smaller your loan the lower your loan payments each month giving you more money to play with. If the park has prebuilt rides then look to pay off your loan straight away and then look for unneeded scenery to sell to pay off even more.
