Tim
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Air / Blue Fire
I can't believe it's been almost 7 years since I last posted a RCT project. That's so long ago it even pre-dates TowersStreet! However this is a bittersweet return as it is time I made a long overdue farewell to the RCT Series.
Earlier this year I completed a long time goal to 100% complete RCT1. I don't even want to know how many hours it took but I started back in 2015! The plan was to move back onto RCT3 and complete the project I'm showing you today. But alas my laptop is on its last legs and so these pictures might be all I can salvage.
I hope very soon to have a new computer capable of running Planet Coaster, which for reasons I'll discuss below will give me a second shot to re-create parts of this projects in ways RCT3 could never achieve. But I don't plan to rebuild everything which Is why I want to show off what could have been my greatest project to date!
For those of you that haven't seen my previous parks here are the links:
March Gardens
Fissure Lake
Nightfall's Stuff
I regrettably had to abandon Fissure Lake when my old laptop died, and due to a very annoying glitch it was not worth me salvaging it. But a fresh start was good as it let me do something quite different. Unlike previous projects I decided...
1 - There would be no story developing over time - In order to build a park with most of my favourite rides I couldn't limit myself by building attractions in some sort of timeline.
2 - The park had to be small - I wanted ride interaction to play an important part and limiting my space would force me to do so.
3 - Start with a ride - I normal start my parks by messing around with the landscape until I have something I like. In this case I built a ride that needed certain landscaping, in this case a mountain which lead to the parks project name...
Misty Mountain
As the park developed each side of the mountain took on a distinct theme;
- The "Irish Village/Wild Woods"
- The "Cultural Kaleidoscope".
I'll guide you around the park starting with the entrance in the Irish Village. Apologies that you'll need to use my words and your own imagination to fill in the gaps in the themeing.
Rather than entering the park and continuing straight ahead the entrance is faced away from the park's main street, here known as the Irish Village. This would force the guests to enter and turn left revealing the view up the Misty Mountain. Directly in front of them is a joint Tram/Train station to take them on their journey - a key word I used when designing this park.
To the left of the station is the Irish village. (the green roofed buildings). In the streets beneath the train tracks you'll find all the gift shops and restaurants you'd normally expect but also more traditional stores like a bakers and candlestick makers. The rides in this area are all very traditional such as the Carousel, Vintage Cars, Whip, Chair-O-Planes and Spiral Slide.
All 4 of the parks transport rides stop here.
- A train which circled the park
- A Tram leading off into the Wild Woods
- A Chairlift to the top of the Misty Mountain
The 4th I will come back to later as it is a ride in its own right.
Leaving the village down the path on the left is the industrial works.
There are 3 rides in this mini area;
- A Giant Top Spin inspired by Ripsaw
- A Mine Car ride inspired by the Gold Mine at Blackpool Pleasure Beach*
- An S&S Free Fly
*it's just occurred to me that both Ripsaw and The Gold Mine closed since I started this project...
The Free Fly was a lot of fun to build so that all the elements flowed together just right. It also interacts with a few other ride.
The other ride you can see pictured above is the headline attraction of the Irish Village. The ride is hidden beneath the ground but can be found by heading back towards the Chair-O-Planes. Guests would enter through a Hobbit Hole and board an Omnimover dark ride. Taking place around an underwater cave the cars slowly ascend towards the chambers central column, always looking out towards other travellers...
I don't want to give too much away for what I planned for this ride as due to Planet Coasters superb terrain editor I expect I'll carry this one forward to another project.
The last ride in the area is a canal boat ride called Turas.
Some of you might recognise this ride. It was what I was working on for Fissure Lake before retiring the park. It was also the last ride I built as a custom track ride.
The inspiration came from a canal tour I once took at the Black Country Museum. I remembered boarding outward facing boats that hugged the tunnel walls so close you could reach out and touch them. but every so often the tunnels would open up into far larger natural caverns. One such cave had a few temporary builders lights set up in them, highlighting some dramatic rockwork... which got me thinking "this would be an amazing setting for a dark ride".
That's what Turas started out as, but I didn't stop there. The ride ended up defining this park as each cave became an opportunity to interact with both returning boats and other rides. If you look closely the ride has appeared in every picture I've posted so far along with a network of planned caves I never had chance to add too.
The midway cave was my favourite. The plan was to fill it with glowing crystals (again something I might come back to with Planet Coaster's lighting system). It also formed the divide between the Irish Village and Cultural Kaleidoscope.
A total of 7 rides share this cave. On one side is the S&S Free Fly and Gold Mine I mentioned before. Turas passes under the bunny hop hill of a Mack Super Splash.
Overhead Da Vinci's flying machines cycled by and guests would queue to enter the Pharaohs Crypt (Mad House).
After leaving the caves Turas would dock on the other side of the park before making the return journey. Here guests would disembark in the area known as the Cultural Kaleidoscope.
This was an interesting concept for a themed area that let me mess around with different themes all meshed together. Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Asian architecture all blended to create a mix of old world styles.
The S&S Screamin' Swing pictured here was the ride I designed the park around. I knew I wanted to build it over water with a waterfall on one side and the edge of a cliff on the other. The idea then came to build a Mack Super Splash which would drive through the waterfall and out the other side.
This is also the highest point of the park with a path leading to the top of the mountain where guest can board a flying Island. It has a rather neat interaction with another ride which I'll get to later.
The areas stand-out ride is a drop tower just like Falcons Fury. Having since been on this ride I'm so glad I added it to my park as it really is great!
The far side of the park sits on a lake and is home to a port with 2 miscellaneous rides I never figured out the themes for. This is also where the parks hotel is. The hotel was intended to be very similar to the Blue Bell from Fissure Lake.
^ Image of the Blue Bell
Location of Hotel:
The Main difference is the parks train which runs along the rooftop. I always pictured the lobby being below the train tracks and the park entrance and restaurant being on the second floor. Imagine the train driving past while you enjoyed your meal. Now I think about it the layout is quite similar to Legoland's Hotel.
The stand out ride of this mini area is what I nicknames the Mack Waterfall. Think of it like a Mack Water Coaster but instead of a focal drop I wanted something that travelled down a turbulent river, skimming the water at multiple points.
I always felt this ride would have a modern theme, similar to Stormforce 10. Perhaps another ride worth revisiting in the future?
The final area of the park is the Wild Woods.
Heavily inspired by Th13teen the area sits within its signature ride, Hexed, A GCI Wooden Coaster. The first element I designed was the drop below the Flying Island. When the Island is lowered it makes for quite a head chopper.
This was another ride I had a lot of fun designing. It has some big drops hidden inside the mountain and the ending is a real highlight, flying over the Buzz Saw, A Zamperla Disco as if it's cutting through the cursed wood.
There are 3 other rides in this area;
- Spirit, a fairytale boat which was to be filled with old ghost stories. This also interacted with the cavernous dark ride I mentioned before.
- unnamed Laser Shooting ride which travels through the cursed roots. The crossing track gave plenty of opportunity for guests to shoot at targets and each other. This was the only ride with the track still left incomplete
The final ride was a magicians house containing a flying theatre. The intention for this ride was to be special effects driven with a physical set. Initially the movement of the seats would be used for an optical illusion until the walls of the building would start to fall away, revealing the screen behind. I tried something similar with my old ride Obelisk:
And that just about covers the park. I hope you enjoyed taking this tour and maybe have a few ideas based on what I was trying. It's a shame I never managed to fully realise it. Ultimately RCT3's limitations were always slowing down progress, not helped by my real life limitations the last few years. Once I've got Planet Coaster up and running I hope to have some great fully realised projects ahead!
I'll close off with a few final shots:
Earlier this year I completed a long time goal to 100% complete RCT1. I don't even want to know how many hours it took but I started back in 2015! The plan was to move back onto RCT3 and complete the project I'm showing you today. But alas my laptop is on its last legs and so these pictures might be all I can salvage.
I hope very soon to have a new computer capable of running Planet Coaster, which for reasons I'll discuss below will give me a second shot to re-create parts of this projects in ways RCT3 could never achieve. But I don't plan to rebuild everything which Is why I want to show off what could have been my greatest project to date!
For those of you that haven't seen my previous parks here are the links:
March Gardens
Fissure Lake
Nightfall's Stuff
I regrettably had to abandon Fissure Lake when my old laptop died, and due to a very annoying glitch it was not worth me salvaging it. But a fresh start was good as it let me do something quite different. Unlike previous projects I decided...
1 - There would be no story developing over time - In order to build a park with most of my favourite rides I couldn't limit myself by building attractions in some sort of timeline.
2 - The park had to be small - I wanted ride interaction to play an important part and limiting my space would force me to do so.
3 - Start with a ride - I normal start my parks by messing around with the landscape until I have something I like. In this case I built a ride that needed certain landscaping, in this case a mountain which lead to the parks project name...
Misty Mountain
As the park developed each side of the mountain took on a distinct theme;
- The "Irish Village/Wild Woods"
- The "Cultural Kaleidoscope".
I'll guide you around the park starting with the entrance in the Irish Village. Apologies that you'll need to use my words and your own imagination to fill in the gaps in the themeing.
Rather than entering the park and continuing straight ahead the entrance is faced away from the park's main street, here known as the Irish Village. This would force the guests to enter and turn left revealing the view up the Misty Mountain. Directly in front of them is a joint Tram/Train station to take them on their journey - a key word I used when designing this park.
To the left of the station is the Irish village. (the green roofed buildings). In the streets beneath the train tracks you'll find all the gift shops and restaurants you'd normally expect but also more traditional stores like a bakers and candlestick makers. The rides in this area are all very traditional such as the Carousel, Vintage Cars, Whip, Chair-O-Planes and Spiral Slide.
All 4 of the parks transport rides stop here.
- A train which circled the park
- A Tram leading off into the Wild Woods
- A Chairlift to the top of the Misty Mountain
The 4th I will come back to later as it is a ride in its own right.
Leaving the village down the path on the left is the industrial works.
There are 3 rides in this mini area;
- A Giant Top Spin inspired by Ripsaw
- A Mine Car ride inspired by the Gold Mine at Blackpool Pleasure Beach*
- An S&S Free Fly
*it's just occurred to me that both Ripsaw and The Gold Mine closed since I started this project...
The Free Fly was a lot of fun to build so that all the elements flowed together just right. It also interacts with a few other ride.
The other ride you can see pictured above is the headline attraction of the Irish Village. The ride is hidden beneath the ground but can be found by heading back towards the Chair-O-Planes. Guests would enter through a Hobbit Hole and board an Omnimover dark ride. Taking place around an underwater cave the cars slowly ascend towards the chambers central column, always looking out towards other travellers...
I don't want to give too much away for what I planned for this ride as due to Planet Coasters superb terrain editor I expect I'll carry this one forward to another project.
The last ride in the area is a canal boat ride called Turas.
Some of you might recognise this ride. It was what I was working on for Fissure Lake before retiring the park. It was also the last ride I built as a custom track ride.
The inspiration came from a canal tour I once took at the Black Country Museum. I remembered boarding outward facing boats that hugged the tunnel walls so close you could reach out and touch them. but every so often the tunnels would open up into far larger natural caverns. One such cave had a few temporary builders lights set up in them, highlighting some dramatic rockwork... which got me thinking "this would be an amazing setting for a dark ride".
That's what Turas started out as, but I didn't stop there. The ride ended up defining this park as each cave became an opportunity to interact with both returning boats and other rides. If you look closely the ride has appeared in every picture I've posted so far along with a network of planned caves I never had chance to add too.
The midway cave was my favourite. The plan was to fill it with glowing crystals (again something I might come back to with Planet Coaster's lighting system). It also formed the divide between the Irish Village and Cultural Kaleidoscope.
A total of 7 rides share this cave. On one side is the S&S Free Fly and Gold Mine I mentioned before. Turas passes under the bunny hop hill of a Mack Super Splash.
Overhead Da Vinci's flying machines cycled by and guests would queue to enter the Pharaohs Crypt (Mad House).
After leaving the caves Turas would dock on the other side of the park before making the return journey. Here guests would disembark in the area known as the Cultural Kaleidoscope.
This was an interesting concept for a themed area that let me mess around with different themes all meshed together. Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Asian architecture all blended to create a mix of old world styles.
The S&S Screamin' Swing pictured here was the ride I designed the park around. I knew I wanted to build it over water with a waterfall on one side and the edge of a cliff on the other. The idea then came to build a Mack Super Splash which would drive through the waterfall and out the other side.
This is also the highest point of the park with a path leading to the top of the mountain where guest can board a flying Island. It has a rather neat interaction with another ride which I'll get to later.
The areas stand-out ride is a drop tower just like Falcons Fury. Having since been on this ride I'm so glad I added it to my park as it really is great!
The far side of the park sits on a lake and is home to a port with 2 miscellaneous rides I never figured out the themes for. This is also where the parks hotel is. The hotel was intended to be very similar to the Blue Bell from Fissure Lake.
^ Image of the Blue Bell
Location of Hotel:
The Main difference is the parks train which runs along the rooftop. I always pictured the lobby being below the train tracks and the park entrance and restaurant being on the second floor. Imagine the train driving past while you enjoyed your meal. Now I think about it the layout is quite similar to Legoland's Hotel.
The stand out ride of this mini area is what I nicknames the Mack Waterfall. Think of it like a Mack Water Coaster but instead of a focal drop I wanted something that travelled down a turbulent river, skimming the water at multiple points.
I always felt this ride would have a modern theme, similar to Stormforce 10. Perhaps another ride worth revisiting in the future?
The final area of the park is the Wild Woods.
Heavily inspired by Th13teen the area sits within its signature ride, Hexed, A GCI Wooden Coaster. The first element I designed was the drop below the Flying Island. When the Island is lowered it makes for quite a head chopper.
This was another ride I had a lot of fun designing. It has some big drops hidden inside the mountain and the ending is a real highlight, flying over the Buzz Saw, A Zamperla Disco as if it's cutting through the cursed wood.
There are 3 other rides in this area;
- Spirit, a fairytale boat which was to be filled with old ghost stories. This also interacted with the cavernous dark ride I mentioned before.
- unnamed Laser Shooting ride which travels through the cursed roots. The crossing track gave plenty of opportunity for guests to shoot at targets and each other. This was the only ride with the track still left incomplete
The final ride was a magicians house containing a flying theatre. The intention for this ride was to be special effects driven with a physical set. Initially the movement of the seats would be used for an optical illusion until the walls of the building would start to fall away, revealing the screen behind. I tried something similar with my old ride Obelisk:
And that just about covers the park. I hope you enjoyed taking this tour and maybe have a few ideas based on what I was trying. It's a shame I never managed to fully realise it. Ultimately RCT3's limitations were always slowing down progress, not helped by my real life limitations the last few years. Once I've got Planet Coaster up and running I hope to have some great fully realised projects ahead!
I'll close off with a few final shots:
