Splitvision

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Finally some time to review this.

 

 

Ghirardelli came about from the fact that I really wanted to make a park based on San Francisco, a city I have lived in for some time and really have come to appreciate as one of the most unique cities in the US if not the world. It's a beautiful place. 

 

The Ghirardelli layer came from pondering how to fit a park concept on top of that. Originally I had imagined that it was simply either an alternate reality where Ghirardelli had constructed an actual theme park in and around Ghirardelli square, or that it was something he was imagining. In this version, I pictured the map looking very realistic, both the cityscape and the Ghirardelli Park. During later discussions Terry suggested that it could actually be a dream, which would "allow" for coasters to not be confined to a specific park area, but to be present all around the map. It would also "allow" us to place the main landmarks much closer together, and somewhat more arbitrarily located, though they do roughly correlate to their real relative positions. I really liked this suggestion so we quickly went that direction.

 

But, I was quite adamant - I didn't want this to go in the whimsical direction too much. I didn't want it to be like Billy Wonka, and also people might remember I built Cafe Lux for GT, where pretty much everything was made of chocolate, so I didn't want to go that route either, plus something like that seemed too on the nose. I wanted to keep it pretty balanced between fantasy and realism and I think it landed about in the spot that I wanted. Possibly it could have been interesting to lean more heavily into the dream aspect, but I think it would actually have been better to call the park Ghirardelli's Daydream - it's not really meant to depict his subconscious, I think it is more that he is sitting somewhere in San Francisco and imagining these things.

 

 

For the comments about the archy, I completely agree - it is underbaked in many areas. I so wish we had another week to polish it, I think it could have ended up looking great. As it is, I really understand the feedback. Still, there are many spots I am quite happy about, mainly Ghirardelli square but also some of the houses here and there.

 

 

I also wanted some specific feature that would feel unique to the map. I quickly settled on two things:

 

- A perspective trick, since I felt that would fit a hilly cityscape where you would have many different focal points in real life

- Big focus on smooth, steep hills and dramatic topology. I basically wanted to do for smooth and flexible landscaping what Fisch did for rocky landscaping in Villerouge. This would also entail making smooth roads to follow the smooth landscaping.

 

For the perspective trick, it turned out to be difficult to fit these views directly along the map edge without messing with the tile limit or blocking the view in a weird way in other angles. SF fog to the rescue - we decided to shroud the map in fog, and then have these faraway views peek through openings in the fog. This allowed us to raise them up a lot, so that they didn't obscure anything in the other views, and so that we could cover them up with the blank fog void in these other views. I think this turned out quite nice, but probably we should have tried to put in more of those faraway views in each angle to convey the idea.

 

For the landscaping, I feel like we pulled it off. It looks really good in my opinion. I made the basic CTR with the angles and then Realsteel helped to add texture which really sealed the deal. I also think the roads work great. Realsteel tried to add a texture but it turned out too crunchy and he had no more time to rework it before the deadline, so we decided it was better to go with the flat look. Despite some comments about that, I think it really looks great.

 

 

Furthermore, I had from before H2HX draft hoped that I would get drafted with Terry - because he is a brilliant RCT player, and because he is a Bay Area resident. So I figured that he would be into the idea, and it turns out that he was. He did an amazing job with idea generation, and of course with building the Chinatown area and plopping down two very nice coasters.

 

And big shoutout to BallPitWarrior - I think he wasn't super-well known before this H2H, but I think it evident to everyone that he is a quality player. Pulled a lot of weight close to the deadline, had a ton of great ideas, and really nailed the wharf. Expecting him to be a contender for a much higher draft next time around.

 

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Big congrats to SJ for the win, I think you deserved it! The concept was cool and I am myself a sucker for this kind of hyper-classic but ambitious RCT, this feels like a poster park for the concept of a NE RCT competition. Simple, cool, fun, great.

 

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I had a blast this H2H and hope to be able to join in next time around. Until then I will kick back and enjoy the spectacle that will be the remainder of R5 and the play-offs. Peace!

Valley of the Kings

 

+ Such an intriguing map at first look (and listen)! Alien landscape, extremely cool-looking buildings, things moving, voiceovers talking... what is happening? Very immersive and really draws you in

+ Love the flying sand effect

+ The valley! I am still not sure exactly what is going on, but this is some cool shit. The Good Death meets Atama Yama meets Extraction meets Dig Site 4?

+ The audio logs are really a nice and entertaining layer to the park! It does make it feel like you are watching the opening scene of a cool sci-fi movie

 

Neutral - The sparseness. I really want to applaud taking the bold decision to let like 40% of the map simply be land tiles, but at the same time, it maybe is just a bit too sparse, or maybe you could have somehow refined the shapes of the featureless landscape portions. So it ends up as a neutral point for me.

 

- Peeps entering and leaving the map are not hidden! Feels lazy. You can just raise land around the paths and give them void walls and surfaces, done.

- Although a very large coaster might have been too imposing, it does also feel like it could have used a more impressive main ride

 

Castello Altovento

 

+ The Italian vibe is hard to nail better than this

+ Two very fun coasters! Zephyrus' heart pretzel around the bridge is objectively awesome.

+ Some great details, love the boat in the harbor, the windmills, and the vineyard area

+ The billowing water effect looks great, really sells it. I can see that object being used *a lot* going forward

+ The main castle is very impressive

 

- While the concept of basing it around wine and harvesting is fun, it seems a little thin for H2H. I'd compare it in spirit to La Tomatina, but I feel like La Tomatina had the more unique idea. Just by a hair, but just a hair can be the difference between what feels like a kind of bland concept and something you haven't seen or thought of before.

- The rockwork and landscaping is ambitious, but I feel like it doesn't really come off, and it feels a little undercooked in some areas. I'm not sure the transition from rough rocks by the water to smoother rocks (dirt?) works that well

- I didn't quite get the swinger ride under the arch on the big castle. Why isn't there any indication of arms attaching the cars? Really just looks like they're flying around

 

 

In the end I went for Valley of the Kings. Both parks can compete in terms of "build quality" but there just was something that felt very fresh and compelling about Valley of the Kings. Great work both teams!

@deano I agree, definitely you could not create something like the scenery manager in 28 days, and that is kind of my point as well. I think another way to put it is, what would you have thought if someone achieved this effect by creating like 5000 new hyper-specific objects that specifically only can do this in this exact map shape and content? The effect itself would still be cool, but I think it would be hard to argue that the way to achieve was elegant enough to go for it. I actually felt that way a little with the giant planet in the background of Stardust Jubilee. It was a cool effect for sure, but it required like 20 objects which I don’t know if they have or will ever really be used again.

So, I am in the pretty small minority who voted Hell.

 

To be honest, Constellations is amazing, a magical piece of RCT. BUT - I have to come clean and say that I do not really agree with what seems to be the general (and to me surprising) sentiment on NE - I don't think creating that effect with the plugin had much prestige, because the plugin in its current form ONLY does that, for this park specifically. The challenge for creating a plugin should be to make it as generally useful as possible. Imagine if Sadret had programmed a sequence where a building got built in real time (or really anything appearing, disappearing, changing, or moving on the map), instead of gifting us with the Scenery Manager. That is in essence the same thing. I am not saying the plugin should have been like the Scenery Manager, but it *is* essentially just a hyper-specific automation of it.

 

I think one of the reasons that a lot of people didn't care much about the specific nature of the plugin is that they might not understand exactly what you can do with a plugin if you *only* care about the use case on your map. You could literally have the RCT version of the movie Dune play out before your eyes. You just gotta program the sequence of appearance/disappearance/raising/lowering/color changing of objects. Making an *editor* that allows anyone to set something like that up is a lot harder, again thinking of the comparison of the Constellation eclipse effect to the Scenery Manager.

 

Most people will probably think this is a bit harsh, but I can't help but feel it weighs quite heavy on the con side for me, enough that I kind of don't want to let it slide. With all that said, I also definitely think that Hell is a really great park, a super fun theme done really well. So it's not that I am voting against Constellations, but I am being open about the plugin detracting rather than adding to the experience for me.

 

 

Rant over, +'s and -'s below:

 

 

Constellations
 

+ Beautiful archy

+ Macro is great

+ Waterfalls and other details along the map edge look really fantastic

+ Love space so astronomy theme is lit

 

- S T A R G A Z E R doesn't have the best layout and is maybe too embedded/hidden into the map

 

 

Hell

 

+ Very cool opening view and love the idea of having to scroll down deeper into hell

+ Very unique and cool macro

+ Impressive large structures

+ Some really great buildings, especially like the ones made of bone

+ Many great and funny little scenes

 

Neutral - Spinal Tap is a good main ride, but I feel like a map like this would have called for a truly epic top-tier main ride taking center stage, which I don't feel it really is

 

- Maybe more verticality could have been used to tie into levels/depths of hell

Radio Park Tbilisi

 

Great theme, feels fresh without it being super high-concept, which can be difficult to attain these days when so many parks have been released. Overall this feels like an incredibly solid park really fitting the H2H mould.

 

+ Great landscaping. The tols rocks work great here, giving it a modern yet classic look

+ Duelers! And great ones at that. I hope to see more duelers in this H2H. It is one of the original things that I think we all were drawn to when we started playing this game 800 years ago.

+ The brutalist archy seems really convincing, very well executed

+ Palette and color selection is spot on, muted to give it that worn feeling, but with many eccentric color accents to liven it up

+ Several great flat rides

+ Great signage/wall mural work

 

- I think the map edges could maybe have been given just a bit more love, but I understand a more classic look was what you were going for, so at the same time it's good it's not too elaborate. Maybe just some underground piping or similar could have been a neat touch

 

 

The Royal Institute of Extraordinary Biota

 

Such an atmospheric piece of RCT, and it feels very serene. The hedge object sets will be used and reused heavily from this point on, I am sure, as they look great (although maybe just a touch too artificial/bright looking IMO).

 

+ Daring theme for a H2H park in that it is not about quantity but quality

+ All the curvature going on in paths and foliage is very impressive-looking, not much looks bound by the grid

+ The two main buildings look great!

+ Carousel is perfect

 

- Even though it might have disturbed the peacefulness of the map, it does feel like a main ride is missing

- While I loved the shout outs to the other teams along the map edge, and aesthetically it looks really great together with the gardens, it didn't fully make sense to me. It doesn't seem to me that this is meant to be like a diorama on display in a museum, but that kind of border still implies something like that. So it just feels conceptually a bit unfounded,

- The macro doesn't always feel like it has the best flow, some curvy path and garden sections almost feel too intricate

- Not a fan of the path texture mix, it seems a little arbitrary, maybe it could have looked better if they either were more different or if there were fewer variations

- Despite foliage being a focal point of the map, it feels a little too eclectic in a few places. I understand a botanical garden should feature a lot of different plants, but to me it feels like the specific selection and placements could have been a bit more carefully considered

 

 

Verdict

I love that JC went all in for the quaint botanical garden theme in a H2H - It feels very bold. For that reason alone, I would like to have felt compelled to vote for it, but unfortunately for me the execution is falling just short, when facing a park of Radio Park Tbilisi's quality. My vote therefore goes to Dambusters. Great job both teams and what an opening to H2HX!