Scenarios Riverside Amusement Park Scenario

[Muserato]

It's 1973 and Riverside Amusement Park has already been closed for 3 years. The bank reluctantly agreed to provide a loan, but wants their money back by the end on the year, if you do not pay, they will repossess.

To make matters worse, the city is playing hardball. They want the land to be turned into a housing development and have marked multiple buildings as historical so they can't be moved, they have also imposed a height restriction as they don't want the noise from the rollercoasters bothering the nearby houses. The city council could be convinced to let you stay, but only if you prove to be ble to run a profitable, fun, park and a good employer.

Hire staff, and make sure they are well treated, fix up the park, repay the loan, research new rides if you need them, and show the city you can run a successful park.

Start your Journey: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1270980738

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This is the Scenario version of Riverside Amusement Park with added limitations, If you want the sandbox park instead, you can either play this as sandbox, or just grab the sandbox park here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1268299749

If you see anything wrong, or think this scenario needs adjusting please let me know in the comments.


Midway games are modified versions of those published by RubleTrillions, his workshop here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1261981405

Water pump for log flume it's a reproduction of NNL's creation by Wings&Streams, courtesy of JEMknight567x: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1261981405

 

[Robert K]

That is a good park but what it needs is a train ride, spook ride, and antique car ride. Lots of classic parks had those back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Some still do. I’m making a small park like this with inspiration taken from parks like Canobie Lake, Rocky Point (defunct) in Rhode Island, etc. I started two Six Flags parks, America in MD and Great America in Illinois, and Kings Island, but haven’t worked on them in a while. My classic park will have about 2 haunted rides, log flume, train ride, wood coaster, antique car ride and more. It will have a mix of older and newer rides.

 

[samfrost93]

I've had quite a lot of fun playing this in sandbox mode! Struggling to get the crowd to make their way around the park though, they're all crowding near the entrance attractions [bored]

 

[Citytrader]

That is a good park but what it needs is a train ride, spook ride, and antique car ride. Lots of classic parks had those back in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Some still do. I’m making a small park like this with inspiration taken from parks like Canobie Lake, Rocky Point (defunct) in Rhode Island, etc. I started two Six Flags parks, America in MD and Great America in Illinois, and Kings Island, but haven’t worked on them in a while. My classic park will have about 2 haunted rides, log flume, train ride, wood coaster, antique car ride and more. It will have a mix of older and newer rides.

I think this scenario is based on a real life park, so it has what it has.

 

[Muserato]

I think this scenario is based on a real life park, so it has what it has.

Indeed city trader, but also as I mentioned in SGW and other places, this park closed in 1970 and it's supposed to be "not good enough". The real life park failed due to lack of maintenance and competition mostly. They also had an unfortunate racial policy in the 50s and early 60s that gave them a reputation that haunted them most likely until the end. The park sat empty and rotting for about a decade, then eventually the land got turned into a housing development; all we have left of this place are pictures.

For those of you that don't know, I am using this park as a launching pad to create an alternate history where the park actually succeeds after changing management; there is a much grander master plan for the sandbox version. This was not originally intended to be a scenario, but then it felt like a waste of a good story to not have a scenario based on it.

 

[UCES Fossil]

Thank you for the scenario, Muserato! I gave it a try and I'll offer some feedback on game play.

The park itself is lovely. Great job!

Starting out with all the rides broken is sort of a gimmick. I hired one mechanic per ride, dropped each in front of a ride exit, then fired most of them as soon as the ride was fixed. Not exactly a peak gaming experience, but, okay, whatever.

When one of the coasters broke down I took the opportunity to edit it to get excitement over 5 and meet a scenario objective. That was fine.

But I didn't notice that there was a due date on repaying the loan, so lost the first time I played due to inattention - I had more than enough money. I was not happy about that. Started over. Hired mechanics, Fixed rides. Fired mechanics. Hired vendors, etc. I paid closer attention to scenario objectives the second time.

I have to take issue with the coaster building objectives of the scenario. The hard objective for coaster building satisfies both medium and easy objectives. Which for players like myself, means skipping right to the hard objective. I saw one of the coaster types available was the swinging mine train. You may not have intended it, but there it was. Noticing that the hard objective needed two really long coasters- 2100m, 6.0 ex, I switched over to a sandbox to build and polish one. Yes, that is a really long coaster!

After considerable work, with six block sections I was able to run four trains smoothly. Back to the scenario. Oh...I forgot about the height restriction. My bad. So I did what I always do in these situations, dig a big hole in the ground. Can't go up, but can go down. Problem solved, but wow, it was ugly. And the coaster seemed massively out of proportion with the rest of the park.

Now, having two coasters with the identical scenario objective meant I could just copy the one I made and the scenario would be complete. But I could not bear to dig another hole in the ground. I could have built another coaster. I didn't. To avoid digging another hole, work within the height restriction and make a 2100m coaster would mean multiple lift hills. I'm not a big fan of that. And building two coasters that dwarf your lovely park seems like a shame. So I stopped there.

This is such a beautiful park... it deserves a game play experience to match. So, may I suggest modifying scenario objectives so there is more variety on coaster objectives.

For example, Max or average speed greater than (something) for one objective, max or average speed less than (something) for another. Or number of inversions at least (something). Or profit target equals (something), or air time more than (something). Adding prestige as an objective forces the player to add some scenery. Mix up objectives so one or two coasters can't satisfy all the scenario goals. And with a small, old-time park, asking the player to build massively long coasters alters the feel of the park for the worse, with or without the height restriction, in my opinion.

All that said, I enjoyed my time with the scenario. Thanks again.

 

[Citytrader]

Not trying to sound rude at all, and take this with a grain of salt, but didn't you cheat your way out of the scenario? I mean, your solution was very clever and all, but...

Is it really fair to hire a mechanic for each ride then immediately fire them?

And leaving the scenario to build the coaster then jump back in and just dump it down? Granted, after digging a hole?

I would just be curious how the scenario would play out if you stayed in the game, and worked within the limits? I tried it myself a few months ago, and struggled with the payback of the loan, because my two mechanics took forever to repair everything.

Again, no insult or reprimand meant, just curiosity.

 

[UCES Fossil]

Hi CityTrader,

The real-life public university within walking distance of my residence is a world renowned medical hospital and teaching facility. It does/has done the following:

Pays its chancellor more than $500,000 (U.S.) per year
Outsourced its IT department to India last year, firing half of its U.S. employees
The chancellor refused to meet with local elected officials regarding janitor and cafeteria worker (low) pay.
Forced some faculty members into early retirement just before they were eligible for full pensions
Moved medical faculty from private offices into cubicles (the faculty criticism was brutal)

Now, mind you, this is a public university that gets a lot of taxpayer funding.

An ongoing story in the private sector is how U.S. manufacturing has been "hollowed out" - companies have moved their plants to lower labor cost countries. This has gone on for decades.

Today's tech companies favor contractors rather than employees because they do not have to pay the employer portion of social security and medicare, or benefits, and have the flexibility to expand or contract their workforce more easily than hiring or firing employees.

Tech teams of contractors are formed for a project, and when the project is done, they all scatter. They call it the "gig economy."

So frankly, it never occurred to me that hiring/firing employees in a game is a cheat.

Regarding the coaster: One of the main reasons I play scenarios is that they are an excuse to build coasters. In my opinion, a good scenario should pose at least one original coaster building challenge. I build coasters reasonably well, but I don't want any distractions while I'm building. Managing a park while I'm trying to concentrate on building a coaster is both annoying and unnecessary.

With a requirement for 2100m length, with this coaster I attempted four trains. A coaster that long will take more than three minutes per run. So putting two trains on it, as I do with most of my coasters, gives less than optimal ride capacity, meaning its scenario profit potential is not maximized. But it takes a lot of tweaking to get it "right" with four trains.

The main point is that from a dead stop at each block section, a coaster needs to gather enough momentum to successfully make it to the following block section. The "dead stop" requirement is important if you don't want trains to get stuck when the coaster breaks down. When the coaster is running normally, you don't want block sections to impede trains.

So to test whether a block brake can cause trains to get stuck during a breakdown, place the maximum number of trains on the track - in the coaster I built the other day, it happens to be six trains. Of course, the first few tests will fail as one or more of the trains does not make it to the next block. The quickest way to adjust (not always the best), is to raise the track starting from the block brake that was "too low" (did not provide enough momentum), backwards to the lift hill. This makes the lift hill higher, but does not change the performance of the track between the lift hill and the block brake that was "too low." It makes the problem block brake higher relative to the track that follows it. Then smooth things out and test again.

Once the test was successful, I removed two trains so the ride now had four trains and tested again. I did a POV ride, and frankly it seemed tedious by the end. The real-life coasters I prefer are mostly 2 minute to 3 minute rides. A scenario (not decorated to the max) game ride exceeding 3 minutes is not my favorite. But none of this bothers the guests.

Now, as far as digging the hole, after I spent almost a day on the coaster, I was going to use it if at all possible! Even without the hole, the coaster would look out of place - it spans the width of the park, dwarfing everything else. And that was unfortunate, as the park is really attractive.

To avoid the hole and meet the scenario objective - at least 2100m, 6.0 excitement, and honor the height restriction - prior experience told me that this would take multiple lift hills or a launched coaster. There was no guarantee of a launched coaster in the research tree. I'm okay with multiple lift hills when working with hilly terrain, but I consider this a breach of my personal coaster aesthetics when terrain is flat. So, I just said at that point, "okay, I'm done."

I uploaded the coaster I've been discussing to my workshop - not fair to talk about it without showing it (although I doubt anybody wants it). It served its intended purpose - it made gobs of cash in this scenario (after digging a hole).

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198140372901/myworkshopfiles/?appid=493340

Cheers, all!

 

[Citytrader]

I totally understand your rationale.

I guess my point was I was never able to make enough money to pay for the coaster because I only hired a couple mechanics who meandered their way around for a very long time.
I also struggled with the scenario, but did eventually beat it with a multi lift woodie. I just think it's interesting that we approached the same problem in completely opposite ways.

Cheers to you also!